The premiere on Netflix of ‘Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre’, has once again put the name of the author of the stories he adapts in the public showcase, making a small part of his work known to many, adaptations of stories loose that, although they do not represent the entire universe of the author, do give an idea of a different type of horror, far from classic archetypes heirs of literature.
The anime series, which is a softened version of the twisted drawings that can be found in its sleeves, has some episodes, like the first one, that do nothing of justice to the author’s work, but others like ‘The Cloaks of Terror’ , ‘Tomie: photography’ and ‘The gallows balloons’ make it clear why Japanese is one of the most innovative storytellers to appear in the last twenty yearsbeing probably the only great master of terror at the height of the great modern names.
John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper, Stephen King or Bernie Wrightson are creators who changed the rules, who offered something new to horror cinema and dedicated their body of work to the genre with perseverance and, despite the fact that there are new authors such as Rob Zombie, who have managed to transfer their own universe to the screen, Ito does not rely so much on collage, he avoids the tendency to quote or reference to develop an incomparable way of expressing himself, not even similar to other great horror manga.
Junji Ito’s rise to fame can be attributed to his meticulous attention to detail, its striking black and white style and a wide variety of concepts and scenarios taken to the absurdeither taking advantage of his readers’ fear of the sinister or developing an entire imaginary from a very simple concept, such as the strange and arcane supernatural spirals that terrorize a rural town in ‘Uzumaki’, his most comprehensive and influential work.
A new master of terror
The author himself credits horror manga master Kazuo Umezz and HP Lovecraft as two of the many inspirations behind his work, as well as childhood experiences, such as the bathroom in his house being located at the end of a corridor. underground frequented by camel spiders and is a fan of movies like ‘The Exorcist’ (1973) or ‘Suspiria’ (1977). But in reality, his way of telling stories is very particular, and in hisHis dozens of manga volumes have not only inspired other artists in the medium, but many other trends as well..
His work hasn’t had much luck on screen. There have been animated anthologies, live action movies, and even an upcoming Adult Swim series, but its imprint is noticeable in the turn of the new century horror movie, a genre that has been recycling its myths, not just of gothic icons. or new creations of the 70-80, but that it has evolved by removing barriers, introducing a flexible logic, nightmare grammar and a greater permeability to aesthetics.
Ito did not come alone, and as he began to have importance in the manga, some Japanese film authors shared his same madness in live image. For example, in the work of Takashi Miike we can find many parallel ideas like what he shows us in ‘Gozu’, ‘The happiness of the Katakuri’ or the Masters of Horror episode ‘Imprint’, the shared eroguro tradition has been transmitted in many concepts of processed meat and bodily trauma.
From J-Horror to the West
Within the wave of j-horror from the beginning of the century, you can find some images that seem to come out of Ito’s comics. The lovecraftian underworlds of ‘Marebito’, the demons in clusters à la Tomie from ‘Noroi’ or the ghosts “printed” as stains of ‘kairo‘, which seem straight out of the story ‘The Back Alley’. But not only that, but some direct adaptation of that time like ‘Kakashi’ anticipated the small town terrors influenced by ‘The Wicker Man’, now so common with the proliferation of folk horror after ‘Midsommar’.
The mangaka has also influenced a whole generation of understanding terror thanks to the Internet. Many of the impossible creations of the CreepyPasta world like SlenderMan are reminiscent of his serpentine figures., with elongable and tentacular limbs. The groundbreaking ‘Channel Zero’ series, inspired by various forum stories, has depictions of unencryptable horrors that could emerge from their stories. From those bodies stuffed with balls that are devoured, Pretzel Jack or being made of teeth.
Stories about the world of dreams like ‘Long Dream’, in which a man is admitted to a hospital, complaining that every time he goes to sleep, his nightmares get longer and longer, and although to outside observers he appears to be only sleeping one night, he is living years in the dream world, ideas that have correspondence in indie variations such as ‘Come True’ (2020). The number of short stories about him is so vast that finding parallels with current movies is not difficult.
Uzumaki and the lovecraftian
‘Uzumaki’ was partially adapted into a small film that, although it is not representative of the madness that the complete work is, did offer different possibilities to what Japanese horror had been doing in those years. In the work there is even a chapter called the lighthouse, where the rays of the lighthouse attract people only to lead them to their perdition, with thematic, but not formal, similarities with the movie ‘The lighthouse’. Even some episodes of ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities’ show similar visual approaches.
in his best moments #TheOutside it works as a cosmetic variation of THE STUFF, with some ideas about vanity culture, and ends up somewhat reminiscent of horror manga stories, with some visual details that converge even with UZUMAKI (2000). pic.twitter.com/3ygRNO85lm
— Horror Losers (@horrorlosers) October 26, 2022
It is in his magnum opus where the greatest parallels with Lovecraft can be found, since Among his favorite works by the Providence author is ‘The Color That Fell From Space’, and it is the same dark and sinuous influence that is making everything that is around mutate. For this reason, the latest adaptation of the story, ‘Color out of Space’ (2019), embraces the craziest mutations with lightness, with meaty fusions that could be Tomie’s bipartitions, and plants that grow in a spiral shape very much in the style of ‘Uzumaki’.
Little less can be said of ‘Annihilation’, actually another unspoken adaptation of the same story, not only similar in the growths of tumors on the wall, and altered plants, but also in the lair of the extraterrestrial entity itself. He is no stranger to Alex Garland the Japanese creator, as even in his latest film, ‘Men’, strong influences of Tomie can be detectedwhich was a social commentary on how young women were treated by Japanese society, and those replicating men, who regenerate and separate by bipartition they look like a masculine and perverse version of the same myth.
The contemporary footprint
In general, Junji Ito is a name that leaves a silent mark on authors who are currently on the rise, such as Jordan Peele, who seems to have read ‘The Balloons of the Gallows’ on more than one occasion, whose plot concept is still the same as in ‘Us’, an apocalypse of doppelgängers who go in search of their twins to kill them. His visual imaginary also affects ‘Nope’, and that catalog of people who look with astonishment and terror at the unthinkable horrors in the sky, which in the case of the monster in ‘Nope’ is finally revealed as a… balloon.
Nor are the incorporations of trypophobia and body horror from ‘Candyman’, non-existent in the original, unrelated to Ito’s work obsessed with holes in the skin. In the wave of horror noire we also find that an outstanding student of Peele like Justin Simien used the idea of living black hair in ‘Bad Hair’ (2020), which can be attributed the same as ‘Exte: Hair Extensions’ (2007), but in both cases debtors of ‘The long black hair of the attic’ by Ito.
However, the assimilation of Ito’s ideas are perfectly represented in the incorporation of his creations in the many aberrations of the two ‘IT’ films, let’s remember, the highest grossing in horror history. Your Surreal Body Horror rubs off on Pennywise’s multiform ability in details like body twisting in the moments of the refrigerator, characters folded into impossible spaces, long and deformed bodies, grotesque deformations and unreal dislocations of the jaw, hollow white eyes or out of their sockets, enormous rows of short and sharp teeth.
Junji Ito’s imagery and design of #pennywise in Stephen King’s IT adaptations by Andy Muschietti. pic.twitter.com/xamR5DScyW
— Horror Losers (@horrorlosers) July 22, 2019
Uzumaki’s surreal Body Horror rubs off on the multiform ability of #pennywise in details such as the impossible body twisting at the time of the IT fridge (2017). In its adaptation to the cinema of the manga of the year 2000, it was already raised in real action. pic.twitter.com/Zlc9jgQUsC
— Horror Losers (@horrorlosers) July 22, 2019