440https://i.ur.com/QhWAl9C.png Junji Ito: An Overview Speaking honestly this is the seventh Junji Ito review Ive done at this point. At this point I feel like I should just start by very quickly recapping my personal history with Junji Ito. I had no idea this man existed until a good friend of mine told me about Gyohttps://anilist.co/anime/10417/Gyo like a year or two ago. A horror OVA about killer fish and sharks with spider legs. I watched that thought it was hilarioushttps://anilist.co/review/anime/2296 and decided to gaze further into the Itosphere. 440https://i.ur.com/WW6YC3F.jpg His short story collectionshttps://anilist.co/search?type=mangaq=ito20junji Uzumakihttps://anilist.co/manga/30436/Uzumaki Tomiehttps://anilist.co/manga/30912/Tomie the actual manga of Gyohttps://anilist.co/manga/30909/Gyo and so forth... there are still some Ive yet to read but Id argue thats mostly because Im saving whats left for rainy days. Finally this new anime adaptation was announced which would turn out to be an anthology series of a large handful of his short stories rather than an Uzumaki anime adaptation. 440https://i.ur.com/l5qhWXJ.png Personally I was very happy that it wasnt Uzumaki. As much as I love Uzumaki I really fucking love Junji Itos short stories even if the scores I have the individual collections set as dont necessarily always reflect that. Additionally an anthology series meant a potentially wide net of his material over his career would be animated. There are stories that I dont like there are stories that I love and even for the stories I dont necessarily think are very good there usually are ideas in there that are interesting. I should say right now Ive previously gone on record going as far to essentially call Junji Ito the Stephen Kinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StephenKing of manga. Which appears on the surface to be praise to an almost hyperbolic level until you remember while Stephen King is the author of novels such as The Shining The Stand It Misery The Dark Tower Pet Sematary and etc... ...He is also the author of Cellhttps://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10567.Cell. A novel about cell phones triggering the apocalypse because people who use cell phones turn into zombies. Get it? Because people use their cell phones too much and they become like zombies. Get it? If youre going to do a huge amount of stories youre going to end up having some Cells. Its unavoidable. The point is Junji Ito likewise has stories that Id qualify as misses but the ones I love are just so fucking wonderful in my opinion that Im perfectly willing to accept the weaker ones. 500https://i.ur.com/1G3RR9A.jpg Hence this review will be more about how I overall view this as a Junji Ito adaptation. When I reviewed Yami Shibai 5https://anilist.co/anime/98978/YamiShibai5 which is an episodic horror TV short I essentially went through every single storyhttps://anilist.co/review/anime/2301. But since this isnt a short and I dont have to dissect every single story because not all of them are absolutely terrible like Yami Shibai 5 or Sekai no Yami Zukanhttps://anilist.co/anime/98442/SekainoYamiZukan Ill be focusing on my five favorite stories of this adaptation as well as my five least favorite. Thats still ten stories out of the grand total of twenty four. Junji Itos Horror and Adapting Junji Ito Manga First though before I get too much further I suppose I should put forth my overall opinion of this as just a general horror series. 440https://i.ur.com/5xt94pp.png There are numerous flavors and types of horror out there. Do not approach this series with Yami Shibai/jumpscare horror in mind. Obviously Yami Shibai was created with the intention of scaring the viewer. Small little horror stories that more or less often usually end with a jumpscare or a monster appearing and then fading to black. I think theres a place for that type of horror in this world its just... so easy to overdo the jumpscares. Especially if you have very loud noises accompanying them. In my opinion at that point youre not really trying to scare people anymore. Youre just trying to startle them. Junji Itos horror is... well theres a good variety throughout all of the stories they selected to adapt with this series. You have the outright dark humor stuff with the Souichi character theres the weird body horror stuff supernatural strangeness whimsical insanity horrific nightmarish monsters and outright gory violence. There are also a few stories in here that are more sad and melancholic about death and the lengths people attempting to move once a loved one has died/the dead who wish to be reunited with their surviving family member or friend will go to. 440https://i.ur.com/Hm2VStr.png They are capable of creating a suitable atmosphere with each of the stories theyve chosen. They capably managed to make me feel what I felt when I read the original stories but some of them actually work even better when animated in my opinion. Ive been creeped out Ive been disgusted and it even made me feel emotions at times. But I never jumped out of my seat as a result of being scared. In addition I feel like I shouldnt even have to go into this that much but I will this is a perfectly acceptable adaptation of Junji Itos manga. In the review I did for Gyo I touched upon this because for the anime adaptation of Gyo they made everything painfully bright and colorful. It fucking sucked. But while of course this anime took a bunch of different Junji Ito manga and added color to the images they didnt go overboard with it. Its still in my opinion sufficiently dark. Yes it doesnt have quite that effect Junji Itos actual manga has but theyre not gonna make a completely black and white anime. Its just not gonna happen. This is probably the best were gonna get. And for me its like right at the correct level. 440https://i.ur.com/HioUwXH.png 440https://i.ur.com/EtMqYzE.png Granted if they ever animate Uzumaki I might flip flop on my position here because I honestly cant picture that fucking manga in color. At all. Like adding color to all of the spirals and the mass amount of blood I dont know why but I think the blood being black actually has more impact than it being red? Uzumaki is a completely different conversation though to bring it back to the Junji Ito collection with that last statement I did definitely think yeah this is worse with at least Fashion Model and a couple of other select stories. Though I was still very much capable of enjoying them. 440https://i.ur.com/khANrw8.jpg The animation overall seems cheapish at various points but apart from one select story it never really harmed my enjoyment of this adaptation. In addition considering probably Yami Shibai is probably the only comparable series to this series the bar was never set high for me to begin with. Like maybe theres some other obscure horror anthology series thats slipped past by me but Yami Shibai is probably the only one people still throw around and bring up. In my heart this is one of my favorite horror anime almost by default. Its a respectable enough adaptation of a bunch of Junji Ito short stories which before this I would have been fully willing to assume would never ever be animated. So with all of that out of the way lets get into the stories themselves. Really quickly though Im going to be including a list of all the stories included in this adaptation and link which Junji Ito collections theyre from for easy reference as well as the years. Though the years may not be accurate or exact for the specific story as Im going with the year/year range given to the volumes themselves. 1 Souichis Convenient Cursehttps://anilist.co/manga/74749/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionSouichinoNoroiNikki 1997 / Hell Doll Funeralhttps://anilist.co/manga/74769/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionFrankenstein 2007 2 Fashion Modelhttps://anilist.co/manga/74749/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionSouichinoNoroiNikki 1997 / The Long Dreamhttps://anilist.co/manga/74765/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionTunnelnoTan 2001 3 Boy At the Crossroadshttps://anilist.co/manga/74767/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionHibitonoKowazurai 2001 / Slug Girlhttps://anilist.co/manga/74751/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionNamekujinoShoujo 1999 4 Shiverhttps://anilist.co/manga/74751/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionNamekujinoShoujo 1999 / Marionette Mansionhttps://anilist.co/manga/74757/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionAyatsurinoYashiki 2000 5 The Ongoing Tale of Oshkiri Collectionhttps://anilist.co/manga/74755/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionKubiGensou 1989 1993 / Cloth Teacherhttps://anilist.co/manga/74747/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionSouichinoTanoshiiNikki 1997 6 Window Next Doorhttps://anilist.co/manga/74763/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionCircusgaKita 2000 / Gentle Goodbyehttps://anilist.co/manga/82435/ManoKakera 20132014 7 Used Recordhttps://anilist.co/manga/74757/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionAyatsurinoYashiki 2000 / Town of No Roadshttps://anilist.co/manga/74759/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionMichinoNaimachi 2000 8 Honored Ancestorshttps://anilist.co/manga/74745/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionKaoDorobou 1987 / The Circus Comes To Townhttps://anilist.co/manga/74763/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionCircusgaKita 2000 9 Painterhttps://anilist.co/manga/30912/Tomie 19872000 / Bloodbubble Busheshttps://anilist.co/manga/74753/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionChiTamaki 1999 10 Greasedhttps://anilist.co/manga/33126/YaminoKoe 2002 / Bridgehttps://anilist.co/manga/74753/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionChiTamaki 1999 11 Supernatural Transfer Studenthttps://anilist.co/manga/74759/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionMichinoNaimachi 2000 / Scarecrowhttps://anilist.co/manga/74745/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionKaoDorobou 1987 12 Smashedhttps://anilist.co/manga/34628/ShinYaminoKoeKaidan 2004 / Rumorshttps://anilist.co/manga/74749/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionSouichinoNoroiNikki 1997 13 and 14 Tomie OVAshttps://anilist.co/manga/30912/Tomie 19872000 The stories that are italicized are also available in the recent collection of previously published Junji Ito stories Shiver. Which like this anime is a celebration of Junji Itos thirty years in horror manga. Least Favorites Lets start with my least favorites first. I need to throw a disclaimer out right away though. Some of these are actually in fact among my favorite Junji Ito short stories. But I didnt particularly like the way they were done in this adaptation or felt that they just cut too much out. Or in at least one instance isnt even the actual full story. But lets get started. 5: Shiver 440https://i.ur.com/w7XW2Gv.png To be honest the adaptation of this was fine. But this is just another one of his stories I feel very meh towards. Like sure yeah the image of the guy with all of the holes in his face is cool and creepy but I remember going is that it? when I finished this one. Theres a cursed thing and it causes people to be cursed when people are around or in the direct vicinity of the thing. 4: Bloodbubble Bushes 440https://i.ur.com/S5Sj42X.png I really liked this one.https://anilist.co/activity/7997432 Maybe if only because its straight up just Junji Itos own personal take on vampires. And while I want to applaud at how the bloodbubble bushes turned out being animated I just cant help but feel like this would have been way better if they had just not cut so much out from the original story. In the manga the vampire guy doesnt just let the couple leave after realizing hes a vampire. No the vampire kids storm the vampire guys mansion armed with an axe and they just start feeding on the vampire guys hoard of blood bubble bushes and the couple escapes amidst the chaos. That would have been great to see animated We didnt get it though. 3: Town of No Roads 440https://i.ur.com/HKpSS2A.png This one isnt so much the adaptations fault. Of all of the short stories Ive read by Junji Ito this is in fact probably one of the ones I liked the least. Theres too much going on to the point where my mind goes back to when Junji Ito stated that sometimes he actually becomes bored when doing some of his stories. Which I can only imagine is the explanation for this story and like... Gyo. Like if this story were just about the insane aunt and the actual town where instead of roads people just travel through other peoples homes thatd be one thing. But it starts out with and eventually comes back to this weird guy calling himself Jack the Ripper that can apparently both travel through dreams as well as murder through dreams. Also this is probably the most censored story out of the entire adaptation. It doesnt bother me that much but its worth noting anyways. 2: Boy At the Crossroads 440https://i.ur.com/I1r9SqW.png I was very excited when I learned that Lovesick Deadhttps://anilist.co/manga/74767/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionHibitonoKowazurai was going to be included in this. Its actually one of my absolute favorites. But I was under the assumption that they were going to be doing the whole thing. This is one of the weird ones of Junji Itos collections where the story is straight up the entire volume. I think they only adapted like maybe the first half and even out of what they covered they cut out a lot. And theres like a part where a character kills themselves by like cutting their own neck and its just like an explosion of blood mist and I clearly distinctly remember thinking that looks bad. I really just dont like blood mist. In anything. 440https://i.ur.com/Hs0GtqK.png 440https://i.ur.com/iQjnWE5.png 1: The Long Dream 440https://i.ur.com/MTwsuDg.png Its really unfortunate that this ended up being number one on this list. I fucking love the original story and I think overall its one of Junji Itos more infamous short stories. After all its one of the ones that even got a live action moviehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NagaiYume. But I think the overall quality of this one is one of the worst of the entire adaptation. Apart from that one frame of where hes really really fucked up I also just generally dont like how Mukoda looks in the anime. Admittedly despite what I said earlier it may at least partially be a result of the color. Apart from when they of course take that close up drawing of him at the end of his transformation right from the manga and just add color to it. Additionally there was this whole section where he actually describes his dreams and Im kind of salty that they didnt include any of that. 440https://i.ur.com/QjvgvTA.png My Favorites It turns out limiting myself to only five made this one insanely difficult. Like Souichi is genuinely one of my favorite recurring Junji Ito characters of all and none of his stories are even on here despite the fact I really love two out of three of them included in this adaptation. 5: The Circus Comes to Town 440https://i.ur.com/k4E235P.png Choosing the story for the fifth and lowest spot as far as my favorites go is hard. Theres several more that could have qualified or are equal to this one. Souichi Greased Honored Ancestors... but I have to go with this one even if the mangas version is better. First of all with both this story and Gyo I really have to wonder what the fuck Junji Ito has against circuses. Personally I fucking love the idea of a circus ran by Death himself where all the performers die in brutal and horrific accidents. But in the manga its better because were shown a lot more of the audiences perspective but then... I realized we the viewers with the anime version ARE the audience. Hence it ending with the ringmaster addressing us directly. It made me feel warm inside that they actually tried to do a thing like that with this one in direct opposition of for example what ICLA tries to do with Yami Shibai. 440https://i.ur.com/xaFVWoJ.png Also I should at least mention it but in this one theres a part where clearly you can see when the clowns that remove the corpses from the stage run out like they didnt do all frames of them actually running out there. Cheap animation strikes again But Im fine with it. At least there IS animation... 4: Gentle Goodbye 440https://i.ur.com/PSFP3GY.png This is probably my favorite story out of Fragments of Horrorhttps://anilist.co/manga/82435/ManoKakera which I will most likely review one day and fully go into. But I really fucking love the idea of this story and they captured the tone and everything perfectly. Like the idea of conjuring an entity that resembles and believes its your deceased family member/relative to deal with the grief of losing the actual person is fucked up sad and kind of horribly selfish. Because like when the family has gotten out of the mourning period those afterimages are still just stuck there for numerous additional years until they finally disappear. The idea is actually really effectively sad. Bridge is the other story of this type of tone included in this adaptation and while I really love that one too I kind of like Gentle Goodbye slightly more. 3: The Marionette Mansion 440https://i.ur.com/ffezEEd.png I have two words for you. Whimsical. Insanity. They could have completely fucked this one up by trying to apply a super serious scary tone to it. But thankfully they didnt The idea of this story originates from just a random thought Junji Ito had one day. Manga artists are ascetics. You sit on a chair all day leaning over your desk and make the tip of your pen move over the paper of your manga pages. The fact that the page is longer vertically is hateful because you have to lean even farther forward when youre drawing the top panels. Your back and hips shriek in agony. It would be so much better if the page were longer horizontally. No better still Id like to hang my upper body from the ceiling. How lovely would it be to leave my body like that and get the work done? This story came from thoughts like these. Servants would control me from the ceiling. And then Id be able to get my work done with ease. Junji Ito Shiver. 440https://i.ur.com/rEAF221.png So I of course just now have this permanent mental image of Junji Ito hanging from the ceiling via strings while drawing his manga. I really love how they handled this one. The music JeanPierre the movements of the Marionette family themselves... I kind of wish they had shown the part where he had seen the people in the ceiling but oh well. I understand due to time constraints they cant include literally everything. And this is one of the more forgivable instances of that in this adaptation. 2: The Ongoing Tale of Oshkiri Collection 440https://i.ur.com/arHXOCV.png While I like the Oshkiri volumehttps://anilist.co/manga/74755/ItoJunjiKyoufuMangaCollectionKubiGensou I kind of really didnt expect to love the Oshkiri story they included in this adaptation as much as I do. Like Lovesick Dead they dont include the whole story in this adaptation but Im willing to give them a pass with Oshkiri considering the entire thing is multiple/alternate universes. Whereas Lovesick Dead is its own linear story. I absolutely loved the rotting and screaming monstrous forms of Oshkiris classmates from the alternate universe and theyre genuinely horrifying. This is a story that fucking perfectly demonstrates the weirdness of Junji Ito. Like is Oshkiri is just a normal teenage boy he just happens to have invisible dimensional portals around his house and then when he encounters his evil alternate self the sole reason why Evil Oshkiri is turning his classmates into monsters is because he wants to make himself taller. We didnt get to see the rest of the Oshkiri madness I actually remember it getting even weirder beyond this story but like... that transformation Evil Oshkiri is forced into. Like oh my god yes. We see his bones extending and his flesh ripping and the screams are just WONDERFUL. 440https://i.ur.com/5aqXMZI.png 1: Painter 440https://i.ur.com/DcW2adm.png What a fucking surprise that the Tomie story is one of the ones that received the highest quality when they adapted it. Its not like Tomie launched Junji Itos career or spawned like an eight film long live action movie series or anythinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomie. But no really this is probably my favorite of all of the Tomie stories. And they pulled it off perfectly. From the rapidly quickening descent of insanity and obsession that the artist falls into that takes hold over all the men who become involved with Tomie to Tomies rage and anger at being depicted like a monster. Its a perfect adaptation of the story. Also I rarely if ever actually comment on voice actors/actresses in things but like... the moment I heard her speak. Yeah. Yeah thats Tomie. Its unfortunate that the Tomie OVAs are most likely probably going to be her origin stuff rather than some of the more absurd/insane Tomie stories. 440https://i.ur.com/bKxYGIi.png Though I may be wrong Who knows Though itd be really weird if they didnt do her origin at all. Painter itself was like the first Tomie story Junji Ito did when he and his editor decided to basically extend Tomie into her own whole series and as a result it basically serves more or less as the perfect entry level Tomie story. Im happy that were getting more Tomie in the form of OVAs but with the show itself I was honestly hyped almost every single week to see what stories they were adapting next. Souichi 440https://i.ur.com/k82vliv.png Yeah just kidding. I have to talk about Souichi. Ill keep it short but I fucking love Souichi both just as a general Junji Ito recurring character and also in this adaptation. Just like how the voice actress who voiced Tomie captured Tomie perfectly this manhttps://anilist.co/staff/95874/YujiMitsuya IS Souichi. 440https://i.ur.com/l0YuwGq.png Souichi is basically Junji Itos walking take on dark humor. Souichi isnt a monster and he doesnt kill anybody. Hes just this pathetic kid who chews on nails and fucks with people. All his curses and pranks end up leading into disastrous results most usually for Souichi himself. My favorite part about Souichi is not only the fact that his family has grown so used to him that they dont even seem to fucking react to all the crazy shit he does but that in one of the Souichi stories that happens to be a part of this adaptation when a true blue monster of the Itoverse shows itself completely unrelated to Souichi himself... Souichi just shits himself like every other normal individual in the Itoverse who comes face to face with these monsters. 440https://i.ur.com/iWYTJkL.png Unfortunately I know for a fact that the opinions on Souichi are very mixed with probably the majority of people not really liking or caring for him but... I fucking love him and his crazy antics. Theres not a huge amount of them but Souichi is personally my absolute favorite recurring Junji Ito character. This supernatural prankster that just roams around cursing people and usually just gets shit on by his own antics when they backfire horribly. 440https://i.ur.com/b2mT4iF.png A Personal Gripe They adapted eight out of nine stories from the Shiver collection and skipped probably my personal favorite all time Junji Ito short story Hanging Balloons. This isnt actively lowering my opinion of the show itself but I am somewhat genuinely grumpy this section was written after mostly everything else and when the show actually finished airing since this was probably the best/only chance to see the story animated. I mean come on. I just wanted to see a balloon headed doppelganger hang someone with a noose. Is that too much to ask??? 440https://i.ur.com/viNXiBS.png Conclusion Could it have been better? Yes. Could their selection of stories have been better? Probably but Im glad that they tried to grab a wide variety of stories and I truly believe the variety present throughout is what makes this show work. Was it terrible? No. Did it ruin the stories it adapted? No. Was it a Gyo? No the creators of this or at least some of them are actual fans of Junji Itos manga and I got that feeling almost all the way through this adaptation. After all they didnt make everything stupidly bright and colorful and actually tried to remain faithful to Junji Itos character designs. Is my opinion influenced by favoritism because of how much I love Junji Ito and how insanely low the bar for this was set in my mind before it aired as a result of the horror genre mostly being a jokehttps://anilist.co/anime/99698/OusamaGameTheAnimation as far as anime goes? Definitely. But I dont care. I love this. The Junji Ito Collection is an 8 out of 10 for me and again basically by default is in my opinion one of the best horror anime. Not THE besthttps://anilist.co/anime/7724/Shiki but thats a different story for another day. Its certainly the best episodic anthology of horror stories though. Sorry Yami Shibai. I CANT BELIEVE I WASNT DISAPPOINTED. ITS A FUCKING MIRACLE. https://i.ur.com/1DIAIc5.gif