Junji Ito is one of my favorite horror creators and Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is among my favorite horror manga of all time. It’s not only disturbing, it’s also entirely unique. Most other horror manga feature killers, monsters, or supernatural entities, not so Uzumaki. It presents us with a premise that’s almost nonsensical, silly even, but Junji Ito brings it forth in all its twisted and horrific glory.
Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is the story of Kirie Goshima and Shuuichi Saitou and tells the story of what happened in the small coastal town of Kurouzu-cho which is infested by spirals. There are no monsters or killers here, no psychopaths or ghosts, no, there’s only concept which manifests as an omnipresent curse.
Over the course of this three volume epic, our main characters stumble upon one freakishly scary incident after another.
What makes Junji Ito’s Uzumaki so great, however, isn’t its story or its characters, it’s Junji Ito’s art and creativity. His imagination is incredible and disturbing and he always finds new ways to conjure up the horror of the spiral.
Junji Ito’s Uzumaki comprises three volumes divided into twenty chapters. While I consider Uzumaki as a whole a masterpiece, it has its highs and lows.
That’s why I decided to write this article in which I want to discuss my favorite chapters of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki.
As always, I’d like to give a spoiler warning. If you haven’t read the manga yet, I suggest you do so because I’m going to discuss each chapter and its plot.
I regard the third volume of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki as its weakest. At the outset of the third volume, multiple storms have transformed the town of Kurouzu-cho into an apocalyptic mess of rubble.
While volume three brings the manga to its Lovecraftian conclusion, it also features elements which I didn’t enjoy. What I enjoyed, however, was the depressing and eerie atmosphere as Kirie and Shuuichi travel the ruined town. There’s a feeling of despair and futility that hangs heavily over Uzumaki’s last chapters.
This is most prevalent in chapter seventeen, Escape. It is here that Kirie and Shuuichi make one last attempt to flee the twisted hell that Kurouzu-cho has become. As we follow them into the mountains, we see that by now everything has fallen to the curse of the spiral. Nature itself has become warped, twisted and has taken on the form of the spiral. Soon enough, however, we see that even those who want to flee the town succumb to madness and are slowly twisted into the form of the spiral.
And it’s here we realize how ironic the chapter’s title truly is. Because we learn that an escape from Kurouzu-cho and the curse of the spiral is impossible.
If there’s one thing to be said about Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is that it wastes no time and presents us with the horrific curse of the spiral right from the get-go.
After a brief introduction to our main characters, we soon learn that Shuuichi’s father has recently become obsessed with spirals. At first, this obsession manifests in him collecting all spiral-shaped objects he can find. After his wife gets rid of said collection, his obsession takes on a more disturbing turn, one that should ultimately lead to his demise. For he learns he can use his own body to create spirals.
It’s a fantastic introduction chapter that truly brings forth the horror of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki in all its glory. The chapter is ripe in body horror as we witness how Shuuichi’s father twists and contorts parts of his body into the form of the spiral. The chapter also features one of the most popular and unsettling panels in all of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki.
Truly a fantastic and disturbing introduction to Kurouzu-cho and the curse of the spiral.
I believe that Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is at its best in its second volume. It’s here that Ito’s creativity is at its peak, and the curse of the spiral takes on even stranger and more disturbing forms than in its first volume.
The Black Lighthouse is one of these chapters. Lighthouses always give off an eerie atmosphere and seem to be a perfect setting for horror. Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is no different.
The chapter begins with Kurouzu-cho’s abandoned lighthouse working again. Everyone is puzzled about it, but soon enough the light influences people and renders them impossible to walk in a straight line.
This, however, is only the chapter’s beginning. Before long, Kirie’s brother Mitsuo and his friends enter the lighthouse, prompting Kirie to follow them. As she climbs the seemingly endless stairs, she soon notices spiral patterns all over the walls. Those patterns are rendered in beautiful detail and give the entire staircase an almost disorienting feeling.
Before long, Kirie stumbles upon horribly burned bodies and discovers that the lighthouse’s lens has melted out of shape, taking on the form of a spiral. As Kirie stares at it, she realizes it must be the light that melted the lens, but also burned the bodies she saw before.
And of course, Junji Ito isn’t satisfied by merely teasing at the idea of burning hot light. No, as Kirie, her brother and his friends flee down the stairs, we bear witness to one of the boys being consumed almost instantly.
The Black Lighthouse is a fantastic chapter. It show’s Junji Ito’s artistry by showing us the many spiral patterns, the melted lens, but also the horribly burned bodies. Truly a fantastic chapter.
While The Snail is lower on gore than many other chapters, it serves to be one of, if not the most unsettling and unnerving chapter in Junji Ito’s Uzumaki.
The Snail is the first chapter in which we bear witness to people transforming into snails. Junji Ito, of course, isn’t satisfied by showing us a disturbing and gross transformation, no he goes even further. After Katayama, a bullied boy, transforms into a snail, his bully, Tsumura, soon turns into a snail itself. Not knowing what to do with the snails, the school keeps them in an enclosure. And here we come to the most disturbing and unsettling part of the chapter. Snails are hermaphrodites and we soon witness Katayama and Tsumura mating.
People turning into snails is disturbing enough and Junji Ito brings forth this transformation in all its glorious detail. The bully and his former victim mating, however, are beyond unsettling.
A fantastic chapter that might be lower on gore, but which brings forth concepts that are unsettling and unnerving in an entirely different way.
Junji Ito’s Uzumaki features many strange and disturbing ideas. Still, The Umbilical Cord might be the manga’s most disturbing chapter. It’s the second chapter set at Kurouzu-cho’s hospital.
After the events of The Black Lighthouse, Kirie was hospitalized. In the chapter Mosquito’s, she bore witness to pregnant women, including her cousin Keiko, sucking the blood from other patients. While Mosquito is a great chapter it only serves as the prelude to The Umbilical Cord.
The chapter beings with the birth of the babies of said blood-sucking woman. Kirie soon notices that something seems to be wrong about the babies. After the birth, strange mushrooms also become a regular ingredient in the hospital’s meals. While Kirie never eats them, other patients become obsessed with them.
Wondering what’s going on, Kirie wanders the hospital and hears a conversation between the babies who wish to be returned to the womb they came from.
When Kirie hears her cousin’s screams, she enters the operation room. There stumbles upon a plethora of the same mushrooms served as part of the hospital’s meals.
And here we learn what those mushrooms really are. They are nothing other than placenta, regrown from the babies’ umbilical cords. As if this wasn’t disturbing enough, we also learn what became of Keiko.
The Umbilical Cord is a chapter that’s ripe with disturbing and unsettling ideas. There are first the placenta-mushrooms who drive people mad, the creepy babies and the imagery of a woman whose baby is returned into her.
There’s just so much here, in this single chapter, that makes it an absolute masterpiece of the disturbing and of body horror.
The Umbilical Cord is the best chapter in Junji Ito’s Uzumaki’s. Not only for its imagery but also for the multiple, disturbing ideas it includes. It’s a fantastic chapter and the best in a fantastic horror manga. It also served as inspiration for my story Special Diet.
If you’re looking to read Uzumaki yourself, I highly recommend to get the 3-in-1 Deluxe Edition.
Being a horror writer, I’ve always loved the horror genre and I’m always searching for new horror content. One medium I hold very dear is manga, namely horror manga.
There’s an enormous amount of horror manga out there which feature horrific incidents and combine them with a unique and breathtaking art style.
Horror manga can often be very effective and creative.
While I enjoy horror movies, novels and creepypasta, there’s something special about horror manga.
Looking back, I can’t help but wonder why this genre stands out so much to me. It might be the detailed art that presents the horror that’s happening in all its horrific glory. Maybe it’s also the cultural difference. Japan is a country with a unique culture and one that’s always had firm beliefs about ghosts and other supernatural beings.
Whatever it is, horror manga are something that will delight many and offers a wide variety of unique and disturbing works.
In this list, I want to present to you many of my favorite horror manga that I uncovered throughout the years. While some are vastly popular, I’m sure there are some hidden gems that some of you might not have heard about.
A word of warning. This is a list of horror manga and will be accompanied by images of the respective works.
I’d also like to give a general spoiler warning. I’ll try not to go into too much detail about the plot points, but sometimes it’s unavoidable.
So here’s my list of 33 horror manga that anyone should read.
Kazuo Umezu is one of the most popular early horror manga artists and one of those who defined the genre.
His most popular works include The Drifting Classroom, Fourteen, and Orochi:Blood.
Umezu’s style is quite recognizable, and his influence on the horror genre can’t be overlooked.
While I’ve read most of his works, the only one I can highly recommend is God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand.
Many of Umezu’s horror manga are strange and feature outlandish, bizarre, or downright silly scenarios.
This one’s not too different, but it’s a more traditional horror manga than, for example, Fourteen.
God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand features a young boy named Sou, who’s often haunted by visions of terrible things happening and tries to stop them from becoming reality.
Some scenarios in this manga are more normal, including serial killers or ghosts, but others are more bizarre, featuring heavy instances of body horror.
One definitely needs to get used to Umezu’s art style. It’s old-fashioned, and some people might call it downright ugly.
If one’s willing to overlook that, one’s treated with quite a good horror manga. God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand can get quite gruesome and feature some terrifying imagery.
God’s Left Hand, Devil’s Right Hand is one of the oldest manga on this list and one of the more outlandish ones. If one’s interested in experiencing the earlier days of horror manga, one could do worse than read this one.
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service centers on a group of graduate students from a Buddhist college.
Each member of the group has a special skill related to the supernatural. One member, Kuro Karatsu, can commune with the dead.
The events of this horror manga center on the group’s titular business of fulfilling the last wishes of the dead.
Many times, however, they figure out that people didn’t die of natural causes and encounter criminals or run into other troubles.
This horror manga, like many others on this list, has a more episodic structure. Many of its chapters are self-contained stories.
This manga is also not a pure horror manga, but could often be classified as a mystery one. Many stories feature mysterious deaths that the main characters have to unravel using their various abilities.
It’s an interesting and unique manga. While it’s not as horrible or graphic as others on the list, it makes up for it by its unique and creative story.
Manhole is a horror manga that will make anyone uncomfortable because it’s a realistic story that features biological horror.
It starts with a naked, bloody man, who emerges from a manhole one day. Unbeknownst to anyone, the man is host to a deadly biological agent.
As the story progresses, two detectives try to uncover the cause while the infection spreads.
This manga could be best described as a detective story, but what truly makes it a horror manga is the deadly infection and the things it causes to happen.
Manhole is a great, but unsettling read. There’s nothing supernatural happening. Instead, it’s a very realistic tale.
Especially in times of the global Corona pandemic, this one’s truly scary and might hit a bit too close to home for some.
The story centers on Count D, the caretaker of the titular Pet Shop.
Pet Shop of Horrors is another episodic horror manga. Each story revolves around a specific rare pet and the person adopting it. Each pet comes with a contract, comprising three rules the new owner has to follow. Should he fail to do so, there will be dire consequences.
The manga features some overarching plotlines and reoccurring characters, but most of its chapters fall into the ‘monster of the weak’ category.
As this is an older horror manga, the art might take some time to get used to. It’s well worth the effort, though, and some chapters are quite creative and unique.
Domu is a single volume-spanning horror manga by Otomo Katsuhiro, the creator of Akira.
The story of Domu is set in an apartment building that’s plagued by a series of mysterious suicides and other similar incidents.
A group of investigators try to uncover what’s going on, but realize that there’s a lot that doesn’t add up.
It’s soon revealed that the perpetrator is a senile old man with psychic powers. He uses them to hold sway over the apartment complex and its inhabitants.
Eventually, a young girl with psychic powers of her own moves into the apartment complex with her family. It doesn’t take long for a conflict between her and the old man to begin.
In Domu, one can already see Otomo’s interest in psychic powers which was carried over to his masterpiece Akira.
Domu’s definitely worth the read, especially for Otomo’s detailed and amazing art.
Ajin is one of the more popular horror manga on this list, and for a good reason.
It tells the story of Kei, a student who learns one day that he’s immortal. After being fatally hit by a truck, Kai miraculously survives. Even stranger, his body will regenerate any injury, regardless of how bad it is.
The story revolves around Kei and how he handles his new powers.
Kei soon gets to know another Ajin named Sato, who escaped from the government and pledges to help fellow Ajin. However, we soon learn that Sato’s got much bigger plans and that he’s much more dangerous.
Ajin features quite an interesting and unique idea and interesting characters.
The manga also features a concept called Black Ghosts, which are entities that some Ajin can call forth to fight.
It takes a bit to get used to this horror manga. Once we get to know the character of Sato, however, the story takes up more steam.
Hideout looks absolutely stunning. It’s not the art alone, however, that sells this horror manga.
The story focuses on Kirishima Seiichi, a troubled writer who plans to murder his wife during a vacation. The reason for that is revealed throughout the story.
When his attempt fails, a chase emerges and soon Seiichi follows his wife into a cave. However, Seiichi and his wife aren’t the only ones in that cave.
Most of the story in Hideout is told via flashbacks and gives us glimpses into Seiichi’s life before the vacation.
Hideout is a great horror manga, but it’s also a gloomy, depressing tale. It’s a story that’s nothing but a downward spiral that keeps getting worse and worse.
Hideout is only nine chapters long. It’s a quick and disturbing read that comes with some of the finest art I’ve seen in horror manga.
Heads is a horror manga by Higashino Keigo and Motorō Mase. The story centers on a young man, Naruse Jun’ichi, who gets shot in the head but survives miraculously because of a brain transplant.
He recovers quickly but slowly starts to change. It begins with little things, such as disgust about his girlfriend’s freckles. Soon enough, though, other areas in Jun’ichi’s life change as well.
It’s slowly revealed that it might be the donor’s brain that’s taking control over his life.
Heads is a bit of a different type of horror manga. It’s a slow burn and most of the horror stems from the idea that you’re losing yourself and slowly become a different person. Would you even know you’ve changed yourself? Would you be able to see it? It’s those questions that make Heads quite scary.
I Am a Hero is a zombie apocalypse manga by Hanazawa Kengo.
The story follows a young manga assistant, Hideo Suzuki. He’s a strange character, and we learn in the very first chapter that he suffers from mental problems.
What makes I Am a Hero such an interesting read is to follow someone like Hideo around, a character who doesn’t seem to be able to handle an event such as a zombie apocalypse.
The zombies in I Am a Hero are also different from the ones we’re used to. They are not just walking corpses, but they are often contorted and twisted in various ways. As the story continues, they slowly take on more and more horrific forms. They merge and melt into one another, creating giant, fleshy abominations.
I Am a Hero is a horror manga that starts slowly and takes a while to get going. Don’t be fooled by the first chapter though, it’s an interesting read and only gets more interesting the longer it lasts.
Zashiki Onna is another, older horror manga, published in the early 90s. What makes this story stand out is the lack of supernatural elements.
What makes Zashiki Onna so terrifying is how realistic and plausible it is.
It’s the story of a university student, Hiroshi, who’s being stalked by a tall, mysterious woman. At first, she seems only interested in his next-door neighbor, but after a chance encounter, she turns her attention to Hiroshi instead.
From here on out, things slowly escalate and get more and more dangerous as the mysterious woman continues to invade his life.
Zashiki Onna is a haunting experience and presents us with the topic of stalking most chillingly. It’s not only an invasion of privacy, not only creepy, but turns out to be truly dangerous.
Zashiki Onna is a short manga, at only eleven chapters, but it’s nonetheless a terrifying and creepy tale.
There are many terrifying manga on this list, but only a few don’t feature supernatural elements. That’s what makes Zashiki Onna stand out. It’s a simple tale about a stalker, but that’s also what makes it so much scarier.
The Promised Neverland is another one of the more popular horror manga on this list. I discovered it a couple of years ago when it was relatively new and I couldn’t stop reading it.
The story features a young girl, Emma, who lives at an orphanage with all her other foster siblings.
Life is happy, the caretaker is kind, but there’s one rule, the kids aren’t allowed to leave their home, ever.
It’s revealed in the very first chapter, that their orphanage is a farm, created to raise human children as livestock for demons.
The story starts slowly with the kids trying to flee the orphanage and outwit their caretaker. As the story continues, we learn much more about the lore of the world and the demons who control it.
The art in this manga is great and Posuka Demizu renders the many demons in gorgeous details.
The Promised Neverland is a Shonen manga, so it might not be as mature as many other works on this list. Still, it’s a great read, and I enjoyed it very much.
Shiga Hime is a vampire manga and a great horror manga.
One thing one should know is that Shiga Hime is quite sexually charged. There’s quite a bit of glorified nudity that might not be to everyone’s liking.
The story starts with two boys, Souichi and our main character, Osamu. Souichi convinces Osamu to follow him to the home of a mysterious woman, Miss Miwako.
It’s revealed that Miss Miwako is an immortal vampire who lures people to her home to feed on them. As the story progresses, Osamu becomes her slave, or better her familiar. Cursed with a monstrous appearance, he’s forced to do Miwakow’s biding.
Shiga Hime doesn’t start too well because of its heavy reliance on sexual themes.
Before long, though, things pick up when Osamu’s forced to kill and when we learn that there are other vampires with their very own familiars around.
The longer the manga goes on, the more the art seems to evolve and we’re treated to some amazing creature design and some amazing battle scenes.
The story of this manga is multi-layered. On one hand, we have the master-slave relationship between Osamu and Miss Miwako. We also encounter other theme’s though, themes such as jealousy, vanity, obsession, and the corruption of those who were once pure.
If one can overlook the sexually charged art, Shiga Hime is a great read and a tragic story.
When I first found Shiga Hime, I enjoyed the manga so much, I finished it throughout a single afternoon.
Now we’re going down the deep end of the horror manga genre.
Suehiro Maruo is most famous for his erotic gore work. Many of his works are strange and very disturbing.
The Laughing Vampire is no different and features quite a few sexually charged scenes.
It stands out, however, because of its horror and by how disturbing the story gets. Another thing is the characters. They are throughout the board terrible people or downright insane.
What makes The Laughing Vampire such a great horror manga is the unique spin it takes on the vampire genre in later parts. It inspired my story The First Few Times Always Hurt.
I’d like to point out that this horror manga is not for the faint of heart and probably one of the most twisted and disturbing works on this list.
Lychee Light Club is one of the strangest additions to this list of horror manga. The art of this manga is very reminiscent of the works of Suehiro Maruo, and Furuya has mentioned that Maruo strongly influenced him.
The manga centers on the titular Lychee Light Club, whose members create an AI or better a robot called Lychee, who they program and task to bring them beautiful women.
As the club continues, its methods become more brutal and outlandish, which eventually results in an internal struggle.
Lychee Light Club is another very disturbing horror manga that features a fair amount of gore and disturbing ideas.
Parasyte is one of the older entries on this list. It was created in the late 80s and early 90s.
This horror manga centers on the titular parasites, worm-like creatures that infest human beings and take over their bodies.
Our main character Shinichi is victim to one such parasite, but wakes up before the creature can dig into his head. Instead, the creature can only infest his right hand.
The two of them keep their separate personalities, but now share the same body. It’s a strange situation that gets worse when other parasites find out about them and attack them.
Before long, Shinichi picks up the fight, especially since other parasites prey on humans and devour them.
Parasyte is a horror manga that deals predominantly with themes of disgust and paranoia. Disgust about strange parasites who can infest anyone and the paranoia of not knowing who’s already infested.
While Parasyte can be humorous occasionally, it can also be quite gory. People are torn apart, shredded to pieces, and mauled in gruesome ways.
Parasyte is a delight for anyone interested in horror manga.
Attack on Titan is another widely popular horror manga.
The story is set in a dark, fantastical world. All that remains of mankind is living in a single, giant city surrounded by massive walls.
This city is the last bastion of humanity and its walls protect it from the titular titans. All other human beings have been killed off.
The titans are giant, humanoid monsters that feed on humans.
The story centers on Eren. During an attack on one of the outer districts, Eren’s home, his mother gets devoured by the titans. He vows revenge and joins the military.
The manga starts with a simple, but interesting premise. As the story progresses, however, we uncover how much more there is to the titans, the city and how the two are connected.
Attack on Titan is another Shonen manga and might be less mature than others on this list. It’s also much more action-oriented and relies more on battle scenes than simple scares.
What makes it so special to me is the scenario. I’m a big fan of apocalyptic stories and those set in confined spaces. I like the idea that all of mankind is restricted to a single city, while the rest of the world is filled with terrible dangers.
Another thing I love is the appearance of the titans. They don’t look like ghastly, twisted monsters, but more like giant, dim-witted humans. It’s their lack of emotions and their empty faces that make them truly outlandish and not just a bit creepy.
Attack on Titan is another, longer manga, but well worth the read. It’s an engaging, interesting storyline that features some memorable characters.
Franken Fran is one of the weirder entries on this list. The horror manga follows the titular character of Fran, a girl created by a brilliant surgeon.
Franken Fran is mostly an episodic horror manga. It can be compared to anthologies such as Tales From the Crypt or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Each chapter features a unique scenario involving Fran.
The world of Franken Fran is not all dark and gloomy. There are quite a few chapters that take on a more humorous or satirical tone. However, all chapters of this manga are disturbing in their own unique ways.
I love this horror manga, mostly because it’s so unique.
Mieruko-chan follows a girl named Miko who’s got the ability to see ghosts.
What makes this manga so special is that Miko doesn’t fight or even interact with the ghosts, but tries her hardest to ignore them. The reason is simple, normal humans aren’t able to see ghosts. Should a human see them or react to them, however, the ghosts might attack them. So Miko tries her best not to provoke them in any way.
Mieruko-chan can be best described as a horror-comedy or a slice-of-life. It even gets quite humorous as we follow Miko through her day.
There are no battles, and no horrific incidents happen to Miko. It’s merely her observing the ghosts all around her.
As the manga progresses, the story picks up a little by introducing some additional characters. However, the original premise stays the same.
What sells this manga is the amazing art. The ghosts taken on outlandish and disturbingly horrible forms and are a delight to look at.
This manga is definitely weird and usually not what people look for in horror. Still, it’s a great read, and I’d recommend it to everyone who likes horror, if only for the design of the various ghosts.
Goth is based on the novel of the same name by Otsuichi. It’s the story of two high school students who share a strange fascination with gruesome murders.
Goth was one of the very first horror manga I ever read, and I truly enjoyed it.
It’s a relatively short manga, comprising only five chapters, but it’s still a great read and might hold the occasional surprise or two.
What makes Goth so special to me are the unique characters. In horror manga, we usually encounter normal people who get thrown into horrible situations. In Goth, our two main characters are anything but normal. Overall, one could say that quite a few characters in this horror manga are a bit special.
Another thing I enjoyed was the dynamic between the main characters and the backstory of one character revealed in later chapters.
Goth is a fantastic, quick read that features unique characters and quite the graphic imagery.
Tokyo Ghoul is another popular horror manga and one of the most popular manga of our time.
The story revolves around Kei Kaneki, who’s attacked by a young woman named Rise. Rise turns out to be a ghoul.
Ghouls are creatures who look like humans and mingle with them. However, they have superhuman powers and feed on humans to survive.
After his attack, Kaneki’s rescued by Dr. Kanou but soon learns that he’s now part ghoul and can’t stomach normal food anymore. He finds support at a cafe called Anteiku, which is a safe house for fellow ghouls.
As the story progresses, we learn more about ghouls and the different members of Anteiku. Slowly we get introduced to the various groups and characters who make up the world of Tokyo Ghoul.
Tokyo Ghoul is a lot more action-packed than other manga on this list and can be best compared to the likes of Attack on Titan or Gantz.
The story starts slowly, focusing first on Kaneki and how he comes to terms with his new life. Soon enough, though, as more lore surfaces, the story grows in proportion and gets much more interesting.
Tokyo Ghoul is a very enjoyable manga with lots of action and a fair bit of gore. It also features some great art, interesting characters as well as some amazing creature and weapon design.
The Shadow Out of Time is my favorite story by H. P. Lovecraft, and this adaption of it by Gou Tanabe is amazing.
Gou Tanabe is an amazing artist and up there with the best of the genre, in my opinion. Everything about this manga is gorgeous.
There isn’t much to say about the story. A professor suffers from a sudden attack and collapses during a lecture.
Years later, the man comes to himself only to discover that he wasn’t in a come, but that he wasn’t himself during that time and acted as if he was an entirely different person.
As the story progresses, the man slowly unravels what happened by putting together bits and pieces of his memory. The Shadow Out of Time is a cosmic horror masterpiece and introduces us to one of fiction’s most unique races.
What is there to say about Gou Tanabe’s adaptions of Lovecraft? They are amazing and this one’s no different. Regardless if you’re a fan of Lovecraft or cosmic or enjoy horror manga, I can highly recommend this work as well as Gou Tanabe’s other horror manga. If you want to check out yourself which stories of Lovecraft Gou Tanabe has adapted you can find them here:
Categorizing Ichi the Killer can be hard. It might not be a horror manga, but it’s definitely horrible.
Full disclosure here, Ichi the Killer is one of the most graphical and most disturbing pieces of manga out there. It’s also one of the best manga I’ve read in my entire life. Which might say a thing or two about me.
Yamamoto Hide created the manga. He’s outdone himself by creating a manga in which almost every character is batshit insane.
I first got to know Ichi the Killer by watching Takashi Miike’s movie of the same name. It’s a damn fantastic movie and as insane as the manga.
There’s a key difference, though. The movie’s overdrawn and almost comical in its depiction of violence and depravity. The manga is not.
Ichi the Killer is the story of the titular killer, but more so of the Yakuza Kakihara.
After Kakihara’s boss vanishes, he first searches for him and later for Ichi. This eventually leads to a confrontation between the two.
Ichi the Killer is less a horror manga, but predominately a mature and psychological tale about two characters who are downright insane.
It heavily explores themes such as sadism, masochism, identity disorder, manipulation and mixes them into one of the most depraved manga of all time.
I like to warn you again. Ichi is fucked up, at times disgusting, and features graphical content. If one’s up for that, though, one’s treated with an amazing manga.
Fuan no Tane written by Masaaki Nakayama is one of the best horror manga of all time. It’s one of the few pieces out there that focuses solely on being scary and creepy.
Fuan no Tane is also different from other, more conventional horror manga since it doesn’t have a plot or a story.
Instead, it’s a collection of short and creepy incidents, often involving ghosts or other supernatural entities. As I said, there’s no plot. Each chapter of this manga comprises a few creepy incidents, based on a central theme. It might be a location such as a school or a concept, such as uninvited guests.
Each of these incidents is only a few pages long. Characters aren’t developed, but are just there to witness these incidents. That’s what makes this horror manga so good. It wastes no time to show us who people are, doesn’t slowly introduce a story, instead it goes right into the creepiness, right to the scary incidents that take place.
Some stories in Fuan no Tane are a bit on the lighter side and are more humorous than scary, but others are truly disturbing.
I highly recommend Fuan no Tane to anyone since it’s one of the best horror manga ever created.
Another work by mangaka Masaaki Nakayama. Kouishou Rajio starts similar to his other horror manga Fuan no Tane.
At first look, Kouishou Rajio seems to be a similar collection of short, unconnected horror incidents. As we continue reading, though, we soon learn that something ties all those stories together. It’s hair.
Hair is a major focus of Kouishou Rajio and many of its shorts, often only a handful of pages long, center on it. People are haunted by images of losing their hair, encounter ghosts made of it, or those obsessed with it.
Slowly but steadily, though, Nakayama Masaak establishes an overarching narrative. It revolves around a spiritual entity only known as the God of Hair.
Kouishou Rajio is a great read, especially since many of its tales are bite-sized glimpses at scary incidents. The art is as unique and amazing as it was in Fuan no Tane. Many of the ghosts encountered look scary, unique, and creative.
What makes it even better is when we slowly realize that everything that’s happening is connected.
Kouishou Rajio is another great manga that I can highly recommend, to fans of Fuan no Tane but also to horror fans in general
It’s the surreal tale set in the city of Hole and features Kaiman, an amnesiac with the head of a reptilian.
The city of Hole is connected to the Sorcerer’s World, a world populated by magic users. These magic users often visit the city of Hole to test out their magic powers.
Kaiman believes himself to be the victim of one such magic-user, and together with his female friend Nikaido, he goes after them. It’s Kaiman’s goal to figure out who transformed him and who he really is.
The story starts as weird as it sounds and only gets strange as we read on.
We get to know various characters, both in the city of Hole and the Sorcerer’s World.
The imagery in this horror manga is outlandish, but absolutely beautiful. Q Hayashida renders both, the run-down city of Hole and the weirdness of the Sorcerer’s World, in gorgeous detail.
The same is true for many characters. The transformed and disfigured inhabitants of Hole paint a strange picture while the magic users look outlandish and scary.
Homunculus is another horror manga by Yamamoto Hideo.
While Ichi the Killer is brutal and fucked up, Homunculus is way, way stranger.
It’s the story of a man called Susumu Nakoshi, who’s homeless and lives in his car.
He eventually encounters a young man, Manabu Ito, who’s researching the process of trepanation, the drilling of holes into the human skull. He proposes to Nakoshi that he’s looking for a test subject on which to perform the process.
As the story progresses, Nakoshi eventually agrees and undergoes the procedure.
From then on, Nakoshi can see distorted versions of humans when looking at them with only his left eye. These distorted versions are the titular Homunculi.
Homunculus is an absolutely amazing and unique manga. It starts relatively normal, but soon becomes very strange.
It’s a psychological masterpiece that deals heavily with various topics, such as vanity, trauma, identity disorder, materialism, and many other things.
It’s definitely one of the stranger manga on the list, but it’s also very, very interesting.
I highly recommend it to anyone interested in strange, psychological horror manga.
The series also isn’t shy in killing off its characters. Many times, a character’s backstory is revealed only to witness their demise a chapter or two later. No one’s truly safe in this manga.
It’s a great horror manga, especially because of the creativity of the death games and the unique characters.
Gantz is another one of my favorite horror manga of all time.
It tells the story of Kei Kurono. One day, he and his childhood friend Kato die in a tragic train accident when trying to save a homeless man.
Following the accident, they awake in a Tokyo apartment in which a group of other people, as clueless as them, have gathered.
A black sphere in the center of the room, called Gantz, explains to them it’s now their job to hunt down aliens living among humans. Soon after, they get teleported to a different location and the first of many similar hunts begins.
At almost 400 chapters, Gantz is the longest manga on this list, but it’s well worth the read. The reason Gantz stands out among many other, similar action-oriented horror manga is the amazing art, the unique and creative alien design, and the sheer insanity of the story.
Another fantastic thing about Gantz is the main character, Kurono. He starts as an unlikable, egoistic teenager, but in the story’s course, he shows tremendous amounts of character development. It’s a delight to see Kurono grow and eventually become the leader of the Gantz team.
Gantz features not only Kurono though, but a plethora of memorable characters.
While Gantz’s story isn’t always clearly structured and some plotlines seem to be cut short or abandoned, it’s still a masterpiece.
What sells Gantz is the art, the craziness of the story, and the fact that it doesn’t shy away from presenting us with glorified violence, gore, but also deep emotions.
Uzumaki is a tale that’s as simple as it’s weird. The small town of Kurouzu-cho is haunted by spirals. Yes, you heard that right.
The story features Kirie and her boyfriend Shuichi, who stumble upon one freakishly scary incident after another in the course of this three-volume long horror manga.
What makes Uzumaki so special is not its story, it’s the art and the creativity behind it. Junji Ito’s imagination is incredible and disturbing. People in Uzumaki are twisted, warped, and changed until they represent the titular spiral in various disturbing ways.
Uzumaki is as good as it gets in the world of horror manga and clearly one of the best horror manga of all time. Not only that, but it’s also a work that’s truly unique and at times utterly disturbing.
Blame! is one of the greatest manga of all time and my personal favorite.
It can best be described as a cyberpunk epic, but can also be called a horror manga. It’s an absolutely amazing read and the art in Blame! is some of the best I’ve ever seen. Tsutomu Nihei is an absolute master of his craft.
Blame! follows the character of Killy as he travels through a gigantic labyrinth of concrete and steel, known as The City.
Killy’s mission is to find a human with Net Terminal Genes who’d be able to access the so-called Netsphere, a computerized control network of The City. Such a person could put an end to the chaotic growth of The City and stop the so-called Safeguard from exterminating all of humanity.
Throughout the manga, Killy travels through vast technological and architectural wastelands populated by cyborgs and other technological horrors.
Killy also encounters various pockets of civilization that make a living in this dangerous environment.
As the manga continues we see more of those communities, learn more about the Safeguard and The City itself.
Blame! is an absolute visual masterpiece. It’s not only the cyborgs or the other creatures Killy encounters, but the entire landscape that is rendered in fantastic detail.
The world of Blame! is huge, gigantic even, and it shows in many of the manga’s panels when we get a glance at the gigantic structures that make up The City.
The story of Blame! however, is complicated and doesn’t make much sense at the best of times. It’s divided into general arcs which are all combined by Killy’s overarching quest for a human with Net Terminal Genes.
Near the end, the story gets even more confusing and we’re left with not so much an ending but yet another mystery to add to an already huge list.
Even though the story is lackluster, Blame! is worth it for the art and the world it’s set in alone.
There’s few manga who can compare to Blame! Especially for fans of cyberpunk, there aren’t as many works out there as good as this one.
Blame! is a visual delight and a manga I can highly recommend to anyone who loves cyberpunk or is interested in a more technological kind of horror manga.
What better way to finish this list than with an absolute masterpiece such as Kentaro Miura’s Berserk.
Berserk is another one of my all-time favorites, both for the amazingly detailed art and the story told.
Berserk is the story of Guts, the Black Swordsman.
At first glance, Berserk might appear simple. We’ve got Guts, a man with a sword as huge as himself who fights giant monsters, so-called apostles.
That might be true for the first volumes of the manga, the so-called Black Swordsman arc. Soon enough, though, we discover that there’s more to Guts than we first believed and that he’s a much more complex character.
After the Black Swordsman arc, we enter the Golden Age arc. It’s here that we learn more about Guts’ backstory and his connection to the man named Griffith.
Berserk is deep, shows us a complex relationship between two complex and unique characters, and can get quite philosophical.
The art in Berserk is breathtakingly beautiful. There’s a reason that Kentaro Miura is not regarded as another mangaka, but a true master of his craft.
You can easily find more details on a single page of Berserk than in an entire chapter of a different manga.
It’s this art that brings forth the unique world of Berserk and the people and monsters populating it.
Berserk’s world is a dark and grim one though, much darker than what we’re used to. It’s a world rampant with war and atrocities.
Berserk also doesn’t shy away from gore and violence. Especially since Guts doesn’t shy away from cleaving anything standing in his way, be it humans or monsters. We see guts flying, people being cut to pieces, torn apart, and much worse things.
However, as dark as Berserk is, the story is masterfully told.
When Berserk’s at its best there’s very few manga that can compare to it.
At first glance, especially during the first chapters or even volumes, Berserk might not appear the masterpiece it truly is, but if you read on, you’re sure to be blown away by it.
I can’t recommend Berserk highly enough and for that reason it’s the number one on this list. Anyone interested in horror manga or manga, in general, should check out Berserk. It’s at the very peak of the genre and as good as it gets.
As a horror writer, I’ve always engrossed myself in the horror genre. From an early age, I consumed any, and all media related to horror. It was more than a decade ago that I first read my first of the many Junji Ito stories out there.
Junji Ito is one of the greatest horror mangaka and one of the greatest horror artists of our time. There’s something special about his work. It’s not simply his style and his dedicated line-work, but also his narrative style that makes his work so original.
Many of his stories feature cosmic horror, distortions of body and mind, phobias, fears, and many other, stranger things. One can easily say that Ito’s works are completely unique and there’s no other mangaka that’s like him in both style and narrative.
Some works such as Uzumaki feature classical Lovecraftian horror. Others like The Bully are more realistic and can best be categorized as psychological horror. Yet some are utterly bizarre and absurd, like Hanging Balloons.
Want to know more about Junji Ito and his work? Check out the Writers Mythos and their episode on Junji Ito which was co-written by me.
If you’re interested in learning more about those things, and my ideas about it, I wrote a long article about Junji Ito’s style. You can read it here.
It’s often hard to review Ito’s works since his stories don’t rely on twists and plots like other stories. Most of his stories give us a glimpse into a horrible world and let us see the horrible events that happen to his main characters.
I’ll try my best not to spoil the crucial details about his stories, but at times it’s unavoidable. So here’s an obligatory spoiler warning.
As a fan of over a decade, I’ve decided to put together a long list of my favorite works by Junji Ito. Even though this is a long list, it’s still only a fraction of his entire body of work.
So here’s a list of my favorite 40 Junji Ito stories.
Slug Girl is a very short tale and can be best described as a typical piece of body horror. It’s one of Junji Ito’s most popular tales and has been featured in various other lists and recommendations.
There’s a certain appeal to the story of Slug Girl. It brings everything to the table a typical Junji Ito story needs. It’s bizarre, creepy, disgusting, and the ending is downright sad.
Still, it’s a bit on the short side and I wish the idea’d have been explored more.
Slug Girl tells the story of Yuuko, who suddenly suffers from a swollen tongue. At the same time, her family’s backyard is infested by slugs which her parents try to get rid of.
Yuuko soon starts to feel sick and the true nature of her sickness is discovered.
It’s an outlandish tale that plays with our fears of irrational and strange sicknesses.
I first read Bronze Statue in its raw, Japanese version and didn’t understand a thing of what was going on in this story by Junji Ito.
What stayed with me was the image of murdering people by encasing them in plaster and later creating statues that showed their demise.
Most of Junji Ito’s stories are brutal and disturbing, many far worse than this, but somehow this image stayed with me.
Once I could actually read the story and understand the plot, it wasn’t one of my favorites. The story centers on vanity, jealousy, and obsession with beauty. It’s still worth a read, if only for the gruesome depiction of murder. The rest though is rather forgettable.
This is another, somewhat weirder story by Junji Ito that I enjoyed quite a bit. It’s one I never really see mentioned by other people or on lists, and I know why. It’s not one of Junji Ito’s typical, horrific tale, but a more somber and thematically heavy one.
In a small town, strange drifting spores appear that can mimic people’s voices and even repeat what they said. Soon enough people collect those spores, not only to hear their voices but also for the spores to reveal their secrets.
The story features such topics as the invasion of privacy and the urge to know the secrets that others keep to themselves. Throughout the story, this urge of some grows to an obsession of one character and ultimately drives him to commit a menacing act. It’s a tale that shows how far we can be driven when we mess with things we don’t understand and which are beyond our control.
It’s a tale that’s not driven by sheer horror or outlandish imagery, but one that shows how far our nature can drive us.
This another underrate Junji Ito tale that I never see mentioned by anyone.
It’s the story of a young doctor named Furahata who moves to a small remote village. The people there look lifeless, gloomy, and withered. They suffer from a strange illness that makes them bleed profoundly at varying intervals.
As Furahata tries to figure out what’s wrong with the villagers, he ultimately learns the cause of the sickness and the terrible nature of the village.
It’s a slower, more Lovecraftian tale that ultimately pays off. I enjoyed this tale, especially since the scenario is like the one featured in my novel New Haven.
Reading this title, I’m surely not the only one who thinks back to fond childhood memories. Even now I remember the ice cream truck that appeared at my home once a week selling sweat treads and other delights.
Of course, this is a story by Junji Ito and it’s not about reminiscing the good old times.
Each week when the ice cream man appears with his truck, he not only offers the kids ice cream but also a ride around the neighborhood inside his truck. The narrator, a recent divorcee, eventually lets his son join in on the fun.
After a while, the narrator notices that things around the house, around the neighborhood kids and his son get increasingly stickier. Eventually, things come to a horrifying conclusion.
This is not one of Junji Ito’s best tales and the scenario is frankly said, almost comically bizarre. What makes this story special is how Junji Ito twists the mundane and sweet childhood memories into something terrifying. It’s always a delight to experience stories like that.
This is one of Junji Ito’s most disgusting stories as you might guess from the title.
The premise is simple. A young man returns to his house after a year abroad, only to find it abandoned by his subtenants. Even worse, they left the house in a disgusting state of destitute, and mold is growing everywhere.
Said subtenant was his old teacher, Mr. Rogi, a man who had a passion for studying fungi.
The narrator tries to clean up his house, but it’s to no avail. The mold keeps spreading further and intensifies, slowly warping the entire house. As the story progresses, the mold grows everywhere, forming giant tubes that pump out disgusting black liquid.
Eventually, the narrator discovers what happened to Mr. Rogi and his family and will most likely suffer a similar fate.
This story is absolute hell for any germophobe. Especially because of Junji Ito’s style, which creates an utterly haunting, rotten hell.
Scarecrows is another story with a simple premise.
The inhabitants of a small town realize that if they plant a scarecrow on the grave of a deceased relative, it will take on their likeness.
Things don’t stop there, and soon mysterious things happen in the graveyard.
While it’s a weird and creative story, it’s also not as outlandish as some of Junji Ito’s other tales. Still, it’s an interesting premise and a worthy read.
There isn’t much to say about this story. It’s about a group of fishermen out at sea who eventually hear the titular demon’s voice.
The next day, after a long dry patch, the crew makes a big catch, but only one member of the crew, not affected by the shrill cry of the demon, sees what they truly pull from the sea.
Demon’s Voice is a delightfully short read with some great and disturbing imagery that’s so typical to Junji Ito.
I enjoy stories that not only incorporate popular tropes but change them up and breathe new life into them. It’s not a beautiful woman that drives the men to their death against the cliffs. No, it’s a demon’s voice that makes them hallucinate and causes them to ultimately suffer their demise.
Rib’s woman is a tale that focuses on plastic surgery and body image. One thing I found weird about this tale is the reliance on plastic surgery. Especially considering that the main characters Yuki, as well as Ruriko, are both still in high school.
Rib’s woman is the tale of Yuki, who wants to be pretty and eventually relies on plastic surgery to have some of her ribs removed to get a slender waist.
Soon enough though, her friend Ruriko, who underwent a similar procedure, starts to hear awful music. Eventually, the two of them discover that it’s caused by a mysterious, creepy woman. She’s playing on a strange harp made from bone.
From here on things only get crazier as the true nature of the instrument, and the mysterious woman, are revealed.
The revelation features one of Ito’s most iconic images of body horror that’s become popular on the internet.
The story itself is a bit of a mess, especially the aforementioned aspect of plastic surgery. Yet, the body horror, and the strange nature of the instrument, make up for it.
In this story, we get to know a young woman, Sayoko, who goes on a hiking trip with a friend. Sayoko’s friend is worried about her since she hasn’t come to school for a while, for reasons she hasn’t disclosed yet.
The two of them get lost in the mountains and eventually find their way to a monastery.
On a whim, Sayoko stays and joins their healing meditation program. It’s because of her fears and her state of mind.
From another visitor, Sayoko and her friend learn that things aren’t what they seem. The monastery’s members ultimately enter a state of eternal meditation, which means they become Buddhist mummies.
Eventually, Sayoko and her friend end up in the labyrinth which is the final resting place for those members of the monastery. As the two of them get lost, they eventually encounter an area where the members are still alive. Under the gazes of hundreds of monks, Sayoko finally reveals that she’s suffering from a fear of being watched.
This story isn’t too special, both in the premise and execution. What makes it so good, is that Junji Ito’s able to create a scenario in which Sayoko ends up in her personal hell, an endless row of people all staring at her.
Mimi’s Ghost Stories is a collection of six tales about ghosts which the titular character, Mimi, encounters.
The interesting thing about this collection is that Junji Ito didn’t write the stories, but he merely collected them. All the stories in this collection are all based on Japanese urban legends.
The volume features Junji Ito’s typical style, but to me, none of them stood out particularly. It might because they haven’t been written by Ito himself.
The one I enjoyed the most was the chapter titled ‘The Seashore,’ but even this one felt rather lukewarm compared to Junji Ito’s other works.
Now don’t get me wrong, Mimi’s Ghost Stories is an interesting and enjoyable volume of stories, and I’d highly recommend it to any fan of Junji Ito’s work. However, there are other, better works of his available.
Hellstar Remina is one of Junji Ito’s best example of Lovecraftian cosmic horror.
Professor Oguro discovers first a wormhole and then a new planet that appears to have entered our universe via this wormhole.
He names this newly discovered planet after his daughter, Remina, who’s propelled to stardom because of the event. What’s weird about Planet Remina is that it moves in random directions with no clear orbit. Even stranger, all the stars in its vicinity seem to vanish.
It soon becomes clear that the planet has set its sight on Earth and is closing on it. Soon Remina enters our solar system and one by one all the other planets are destroyed or devoured by Remina.
The story only gets weirder and more insane from this. Unfortunately, Hellstar Remina also becomes sillier the longer it goes on and I had a hard time taking it seriously in later parts.
However, one has to give Junji Ito credit where credits due. An apocalypse caused by a sentient planetary entity is fantastic. It just seems that the story focuses a bit too much on the humanities’ reaction and especially the hunt for the professor’s daughter.
The imagery in this story is fantastic though. It’s a terrifying delight to see Planet Remina with its eyes and mouth. Its surface, as we later see, is as horrifying as its general appearance.
As I said though, the crazy and silly plot made it hard for me to enjoy the later parts of this work. As a Junji Ito fan, it’s still an interesting read, if only for the imagery of the titular Hellstar.
At the beginning of this story, we get to know Miss Takigawa, a kindergarten teacher. One night, on her way home, she’s assaulted by an unknown person and drenched into a strange liquid.
At the kindergarten itself, there are problems too, caused by one of the kids Chikara. He’s a troublemaker and behaves violently towards the other kids.
Eventually, Miss Takigawa visits Chikara’s home only to discover the true horror of this story and the reason for his behavior.
Flesh Colored Horror was another one of the first Junji Ito stories I read, and boy was I in for a surprise. It’s one of those stories that demonstrates how imaginative Junji Ito is and how creative he can get.
Here we have another typical Junji Ito tale. It’s short, it’s terrifying, and it comes with some very crazy visuals.
The main character Yuji, a young writer, confesses to his girlfriend, Mari, that he hasn’t slept for three days. It’s because of his fear of his dream-self, an entity with the goal to replace Yuji here in the real world. Whenever Yuji falls asleep, he says, his dream-self is coming out.
Mari doesn’t believe him, but is worried and agrees to help him overcome his fears.
Eventually, though, Mari learns that Yuji’s fears aren’t as irrational as she thought.
The most terrifying part of this story is that it throws Yuji into a fight he can’t win. We’ve seen similar scenarios in other media before, and we all know that it’s impossible to stay awake forever.
Gyo means fish in Japan and knowing that you might think you’re prepared for what’s coming. Believe me, if you’ve never heard about this story, you don’t. Gyo is without a doubt one of Junji Ito’s most iconic and popular works.
Yet, it’s also one of his weirdest and most absurd stories.
The premise is simple. Sea-dwelling creatures emerge from the depth and invade the land, but not in the way we’d expect them to.
The story starts with Tadashi and his girlfriend Kaori going on a vacation. Kaori, who’s very sensitive to smells, soon complains about a terrible, rotten stench. Soon the two of them notice a strange fish on robotic legs that’s skittering through their holiday home, spreading the disgusting smell.
While it’s only a tiny fish at first, soon bigger fish, including a giant shark, emerge from the depths.
Back in Tokyo, the story enters full-fledged apocalypse territory as the so-called death-stench spreads, and millions of sea-creatures flood the city and Japan.
Gyo is without a doubt a very creative story. There’s nothing like it out there. What’s interesting here is that Junji Ito combined two common fears. First, the fear of the deep sea and what’s hidden down there, second our fear of the skittering, multi-legged movements of insects. As if this wasn’t enough, he also adds the disgusting, rotten smell known as the death stench.
While I can praise Gyo for its creativity, it also suffers from many problems. The predominant one being that Junji Ito tries to explain what’s going on. Things start absurd, but as the story continues they become ridiculous and finally downright silly. It was hard for me to take any part of Junji Ito’s explanation seriously because it made no sense at all. Horror is often best when it’s unexplained and we don’t uncover the mystery. In Gyo Junji Ito tried and, in my opinion, failed at it.
The strongest part of Gyo is definitely the outlandish imagery, especially in the later parts of the manga when it’s not just fish, but also bloated, disfigured humans walking the streets.
My absolute favorite chapter in Gyo is the one about the circus. It comes completely out of nowhere and features the single greatest page in the entire manga.
For all the criticism I give Gyo here, it’s still an iconic story, and a fun read if one doesn’t look at the story too critically.
Considering Junji Ito’s interest in phobias, there had to be one that features trypophobia. This is it, and it’s a fabulous story. There’s something about holes appearing all over your body that’s deeply unsettling but also strangely fascinating.
The story starts with Yuuji, who talks about his neighbor Rina, who spends most of her days inside because of a strange illness. Said illness causes holes to appear all over Rina’s arm. When Yuuji sees this he remembers that his grandfather too suffered and died because of a similar illness.
Yuuji tells his best friend Hideo and together the two of them try to uncover what happened. That’s how they learn about a strange jade statue related to it.
This is another one of Ito’s story that talks about man messing with things he doesn’t understand, greed, and obsession. And of course, holes, lots and lots of holes.
The Human Chair is a story that was originally written by Japanese writer Yoshiko Togawa and adapted as a manga by Junji Ito.
The story features a female writer, named after the author of the original story who receives a letter from a fan. The letter contains a very unsettling manuscript about someone hiding and living inside an armchair.
It’s another of Ito’s most popular stories that I see mentioned a lot. The entire premise of the story is very unsettling and brings forth the topics of privacy and obsession.
What drives this story home is again Ito’s unique art style combined with a truly unsettling idea.
This story is a prime example of Junji Ito’s mastery of the body horror genre, and his artistic skill.
At its core, it’s a story about body dysmorphia, but once again Junji Ito drives it up a notch. It’s not about changing your body, it’s about having your body cut open and being dissected.
Ruriko is a young doctor who’s visited by a mysterious woman who wants him to dissect her. As the story progresses, we learn more about the titular character and the reason for her obsession.
Dissection girl is as typical a Junji Ito story as can be. It features two of his predominant themes, body horror and mental illness.
What makes this one stand out is the disturbing imagery, especially that of the last page. It’s truly one of the most absurd, yet most creative images of body horror I’ve ever seen.
The story features, as the title says, a haunted mansion or better a haunted house.
Our main characters are two young boys who find out about a new haunted house in their town. The of them witness as other people visit the attraction and flee the place scared half to death.
Eventually, the two of them make their way there and get invited by the owner for free.
There are quite a few surprises ahead, not only for our main character but also for our readers who might recognize a few reoccurring characters.
This is another story that features one of Ito’s most unsettling drawings, which you can find above.
The deep sea is one of the few places on our planet that’s still mostly unknown.
The same could be said about the universe, but it’s huge, infinite by our standards. The ocean however is right here, right next door to some of us, yet we barely know a thing about it. It can be unsettling to think about what horrors lurk down there, in its depths.
The premise of this story by Junji Ito is simple. A horrific deep sea creature is washed ashore. It’s not a whale or anything that was ever seen before. It’s an unknown, disgusting, and almost Lovecraftian creature.
People are driven to the beach in droves, some to see the strange creature, others to figure out what sort of creature it actually is.
As the story progresses another horrific truth is revealed, namely that something is moving inside its body, something that’s still alive.
What makes this Junji Ito story so interesting is the possibility that something like this creature could actually exist somewhere out in the depths of the ocean.
This is another one of Junji Ito’s very short works with a very simple premise.
Hiroshi and his family move into their new home, situated right next to a strange building. Said building has only one window, right opposite Hiroshi’s very own.
The family learns that the building is the home of a strange, secluded lady. When we finally get to see her though we are presented with another iconic one of Junji Ito’s drawings.
It’s this drawing, the details, and the artistic skill displayed that makes this story so special. The rest is almost forgettable, anticlimactic even.
Yet, I can’t help but hold this story in high regard, especially since it inspired my series The Disappearing Alley.
Black Paradox is wild, Black Paradox is weird, and Black Paradox is actually quite interesting.
The story starts with a group of four people who form a suicide pact to end their lives together. Somehow though, our main character Marusou ends up with a group of doppelgangers.
After uncovering what’s happened and after meeting up with the real group, they postpone their attempts and meet again at a later point to go through with it.
From here on, the manga only gets stranger.
Black Paradox is one of Junji Ito’s longer works consisting of six chapters in total. The biggest problem with Black Paradox is the disjointed start. It starts with a suicide pact, but the focus of the series proofs to be about something entirely different.
Still, it features Junji Ito’s typical masterful art and his crazy imagination. For that alone, it would be worth the read. Yet, as weird as the story starts, the better it gets later on.
Overall, Black Paradox is quite an enjoyable experience, and I’d highly recommend it.
This story, oh god, this story. Many of Junji Ito’s stories feature disgusting images, but this story might be the worst.
It’s the story of a young girl, Yui, who lives with her sadistic older brother and her father above the family’s yakiniku restaurant. Said restaurant is the reason the entire house is coated in thick layers of grease.
Soon enough, her brother hits puberty and develops pimples. Because of the thick greasy air and his habit of drinking oil, his acne gets much, much worse than it usually would. I guess you can tell where things are going.
However, the story isn’t solely about the crater face’s eruption. There are even more sinister things going on at the family restaurant.
An interesting side note, I recently learned that this story stems from Junji Ito’s experience during dental school. When there he was forced to sleep on a dirty, sweaty futon himself.
It’s honestly one of Junji Ito’s most disgusting stories and of course, it features another one of his very popular drawings. Read it, but you’ve been warned.
I’ve always been a fan of concepts such as a city within a building. That’s the reason I also enjoy stories that are set in confined or restricted spaces.
This story by Junji Ito begins with Saiko, who’s sick and tired of her family constantly spying on her. So she leaves her family to live with her aunt instead.
She travels to her aunt’s town only to discover that all the streets have been blocked by wooden, make-shift buildings. That’s not the only thing though, the entire town has been boarded up by wooden constructions almost making it a single building.
Out of necessity, the people in this town had to find new passageways. Without streets, the only way to get anywhere was via people’s houses. This eliminated all privacy between the people living in the town.
Even worse there’s this constant feeling in the town that you’re being watched by someone, or… something.
I really enjoyed the bizarre setting of the town and Saiko’s walk through various buildings and different areas of the town.
There’s also a secondary plot happening about a killer appearing in people’s dreams. Yet again, it feels a bit disjointed and doesn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the story.
It’s obvious this story’s focus is the intrusion of privacy and the fear of being watched or being spied on. While I don’t think the dream killer story is necessary, perhaps it signifies yet another intrusion of privacy. Not even your dreams solely belong to you.
Either way, it’s a very interesting story which shows that Junji Ito doesn’t shy away from sometimes including more serious topics in his work.
Junji Ito’s stories are rarely grounded in reality. They feature monsters, outlandish powers, or supernatural entities. This one here’s a rare exception to the rule.
The Bully is the simple story of a young girl bullying a little boy. When the two of them meet again as adults though, things take a different turn, one for the better.
However, this is a Junji Ito story, so there’s no happy ending here. What makes this story so terrifying is the absence of supernatural forces. This one’s entirely grounded in reality, and it makes it so much worse.
Imagine a stranger runs up to you and licks your face. That’s the simple premise of this story by Junji Ito.
Miku’s fiancee Tsuyoshi gets licked by a mysterious woman on his way home. Of course, the story isn’t just about the disgust of being licked. No, the Licking Woman’s saliva is dangerous and soon Tusyoshi dies from it.
As time passes more cases related to the Licking Woman are reported and more people are getting hurt.
Miku of vows for revenge and plans to kill the Licking woman. However, there are quite a few surprises ahead for her.
This story has quite a few things to offer. There’s the general disgust of being licked by a stranger and worse, being hurt by it. What makes this story so great is once more Ito’s imagery. The disgusting, bloated, wet tongue, her mouth, her eyes, they almost warp the licking woman into something that’s not even human anymore.
Overall, it’s a great story and I really enjoyed it a lot.
I think most people are familiar with the story of Frankenstein, or have at least heard about it. Having read the original novel and having watched some movie adaptions, I can say that Junji Ito’s adaption is absolutely phenomenal. It might be the best adaption of Shelly’s source material out there.
This volume is frankly said a masterpiece. I’d can highly recommend it to anyone who’s either a fan of Junji Ito’s art style or the original novel by Mary Shelley.
Ito’s strange, unsettling imagery, his over the top way of conveying his characters emotions and his body horror make this an unforgettable experience.
Tomie is another one of Junji Ito’s reoccurring characters and probably his most popular character. Her stories span three volumes and spawned an entire series of live-action movies.
It’s even more interesting when you consider that Tomie was one of Junji Ito’s earliest works.
Even though the art style in the early chapters of Tomie isn’t as refines as in his later works, you can already get a glimpse of Junji Ito’s crazy imagination.
The story begins with Tomie being a normal, but gorgeous student who’s in an affair with her teacher. In the first chapter, she accidentally dies during a school trip, and the class bands together to hide the fact by cutting her body into pieces and getting rid of her.
The next day, however, Tomie returns and from this point onward things only prove to get stranger. As the stories surrounding Tomie continue, we learn that she’s not a normal person, but an entity with regenerative powers. It doesn’t matter what you do to Tomie, even the tiniest bit of her will regenerate and grow into a new version of herself.
As if that wasn’t enough, Tomie also has an almost supernatural hold upon man. Every man she meets is taken by her, falls in love with her, and eventually grows obsessed with her. This obsession always ends with a descent into madness.
Tomie was the first of Ito’s stories I discovered, and I read all the chapters in one day.
Looking back, the quality of Tomie’s chapters varies. Some are better, some are worse. At times, Junji Ito’s at the top of his game, and some chapters are masterfully done and contain some of the most horrific things he’s ever drawn. However, other chapters can be rather forgetful.
Oshikiri is another reoccurring character and most of his stories are centered on the strange events happening in the mansion he lives in.
I never hear people talk about Oshikiri’s tales, yet I feel that some imagery here is absolutely amazing.
As with some of Ito’s other stories featuring the same character, Oshikiri’s also doesn’t follow a general storyline. Considering the things we learn about his mansion, these stories might not even be related at all.
The main reason I adore these stories is that they feature some of Junji Ito’s greatest imagery and body horror.
The very first story centers on weird hallucinations in which people’s necks grow and distort. A later story features a strange medication that warps people’s appearances into ghastly abominations.
Overall Oshikiri’s stories are very strange, feature an idea I’ve never seen in any other story by Junji Ito, but they are also creative and at times horrifying. They are definitely worth a read and I feel they are truly underrated.
Another one of Ito’s earlier stories, but man do I love this one.
The story introduces us to our main character Rumi, her boyfriend and their teacher Mr. Okabe, who’s an artist specializing in the creation of headless statues.
At the start of the story, Mr. Okabe is tragically murdered. In the days that follow Rumi’s boyfriend Shimada, the last person Mr. Okabe hung out with starts behaving strangely. As the two of them return to the place of the crime, the teacher’s art room, things quickly spiral out of control in typical fashion for Junji Ito.
As with many other stories by Junji Ito, one can assume from the title alone what will happen. What I like so much about this one is the execution and the ghastly art. We get distorted faces and Junji Ito’s typical, nightmarish and brutal imagery.
I also think Headless Statues has one of the best, most terrifying ending panels in all of Ito’s stories.
Another fan favorite story by Junji Ito and oh is it deserved.
Miss Fuchi, the titular fashion model, makes us uneasy the moment we first see her on the pages of a fashion magazine.
The main character, Iwasaki, is so horrified by her he suffers from nightmares because of her outlandish appearance.
As the story progresses, Iwasaki eventually gets over his fears of Miss Fuchi. That is until he and his fellow students search for a female lead for their newest movie project.
The moment we see Miss Fuchi in person, we can already tell that there’s something amiss about her. She’s not only tall, but she’s also almost gigantic, her face is too long and her eyes don’t look like those of a normal human being. No, there’s something very wrong about this… person.
On the way to the project we get a first glimpse of how unnatural and monstrous Miss Fuchi is and from there, things only escalate further.
Miss Fuch is definitely one of Junji Ito’s most popular and iconic creations. The story itself might be rather conventional for Junji Ito. There’s no supernatural phenomenon happening, there are no distortions of the human body or mind, no, this is just a story about a monster.
But what a monster Miss Fuchi is. She will stay on your mind, just like she did on Iwasaki’s.
This is another one of the very first Junji Ito stories I read, and it always stayed on my mind. What puts it here, in the top ten, is as much nostalgia as anything else.
Lovesick Dead is another one of Junji Ito’s longer works, spanning five chapters in total.
The story’s set in Nanchou-Shi a town enshrouded by thick layers of fog. It’s definitely a great scenario for a horror story.
Right away we are introduced to the concept of intersection fortune-telling, a practice at the core of the story. It’s simple. People wait at an intersection for someone to pass by and ask them to tell their fortune.
Our main character Ryuusuke is returning home after him and his family left the town many years ago. As the story progresses a strange character called the Intersection’s Pretty Boy starts wandering the streets of the town. Whoever encounters him during intersection fortune-telling will only get an ill fortune, with dire consequences.
It’s a typical Junji Ito story. People act irrational, go insane, or get obsessed to the point of mutilating and even killing themselves.
There are some parts of the story that are a bit disjointed and don’t seem to fit in too with the overall narrative. It’s a problem we often encounter in Junji Ito’s longer works. Yet, does it really matter? People read Junji Ito’s works mostly for the horrifying imagery and his crazy ideas.
Overall, Lovesick Dead is a great read, and it features a lot of unsettling and at times quite gory art. What I love especially is the mysterious setting of a town perpetually enshrouded by thick, heavy fog.
Long Dream is another super story by Junji Ito with a concept that’s equal parts interesting and terrifying.
Mami, a young woman with a dire diagnosis, is terribly afraid of death. What makes it even worse is that she talks about death himself visiting her hospital room.
However, it’s not death, it’s another patient named Tetsuro Mukoda. The man suffers from a very strange condition that causes him to have the titular long dreams, dreams that last for days, weeks, months, and even entire lifetimes.
Long Dream is especially scary because of the idea of getting lost in your dreams and forgetting both the real world and who you really are.
It’s definitely one of Ito’s most creative and original stories. It also comes with its fair share of body horror, as the people suffering from long dreams slowly transform, degrade, and get warped into something terrible and alien-looking.
The most interesting part about this story is that there are no monsters here, no antagonistic powers, no, there are only dreams.
This is another great Junji Ito story and one of my absolute favorites.
Army of One was merely a bonus chapter to Hellstar Remina, but in my opinion, it’s much better than all of Remina combined.
What makes Army of One stand out among Junji Ito’s other stories is that starts as more of a thriller than a horror story. People go missing and soon after their stitched-together corpses are found.
At first, it’s only two people at once, but soon more and more people go missing and get strung together into nightmarish, public displays all over the city. It’s at this point that not only the characters in the story but also we as the readers realize that this can’t possibly be the work of a single person.
Even worse, there doesn’t seem to be any hint of struggle, and no bodily harm was done to the victims before being stitched together.
What makes this story so interesting is that it changes one of horror’s predominant rules: strength in numbers. If you want to live through any horrific scenario, you stay together. Not so in Army of One, here the rule is reversed. The first to die aren’t those who are alone, no, it’s those who get together and mingle with others.
Another story that sticks out among Junji Ito’s body of work. It’s not one of the terrifying and horrific tales we’re so used to, it’s rather a sad little tale.
The story starts with Akiko, a young woman always plagued by the fear of her father dying.
The story progresses and Akiko marries Makoto and joins the Tokura household. There’s one peculiarity about the Tokura family though, a special practice. When a relative dies, the members of the family get together and perform a ritual which will create an afterimage of the person.
Throughout the story learn more about afterimages, their nature and the characters.
Everything about this story is great and, to me, it holds a very special place among Junji Ito’s many works.
We enter the top five with another one of Junji Ito’s most popular stories and definitely one of his masterpieces. The story was first translated on 4chan back in 2006 and went viral instantly.
The story’s premise is simple. People-shaped holes appear on the side of an earthquake fault line, and soon people from all over Japan flock to the location.
Most of those watching the event on TV became restless and were driven by a strange desire to visit the location themselves.
Our main characters are an unnamed young man and a young woman named Yoshida. Both share the strange feeling and are driven to the Amigara Faults.
As the story continues we see other people, who came in search of their hole and soon enough we see them enter them.
At the core of the story is the compulsive urge of people to understand the unexplainable. That itch inside their minds that questions why those holes are there, how they were created, and why there exists one with their exact shape.
Even worse, there seems to be no explanation for the event. We never find out what those holes are and why they exist.
What makes this story by Junji Ito so great is the mixture of claustrophobic horror, the fear of the unknown and the strange allusions of the impossible.
The Enigma of the Amigara Faults is truly an absolute masterpiece.
Layers of Fear is one of Junji Ito’s more recent work, and definitely my absolute favorite among them. It brings forth one of his craziest ideas and supports it with breathtakingly horrific imagery.
This story is absolutely wide. When I first read it, I could only read it in its original Japanese version. Even though I hadn’t understood a thing, I couldn’t help but stare at my screen in awe.
The story starts with a professor uncovering the grave of a child that was created by stacking layers upon one another.
After this event we move forward to the present time, years after the father’s death his family is on the way to a ceremony.
On the way there, the family has a car accident and one daughter, Remi, gets part of her face sliced off.
Instead of suffering a terrible wound as one would expect, it’s revealed that under her skin is another layer of skin. From here on out, the story only gets crazier and crazier.
The story doesn’t focus on this premise alone. As with many other stories by Junji Ito, it’s multilayered in its horror. There’s also Remi’s mother, an older woman obsessed with her daughter’s childhood.
What makes this story so amazing is not only the outlandish idea it puts forth, but once more Junji Ito’s imagery, which is at the top of its game here.
Layers of Fear is amazing and I can’t recommend it highly enough to anyone interested in Junji Ito.
Risa, a young woman, suffers from temporary amnesia and is plagued by nightmares of a giant, caterpillar-like creature.
Her boyfriend Shuichi tries to help her and brings her to his home to meet his father.
This is where things get strange. Her father enters the room in a very weird, almost spider-like fashion.
From this point on, the story takes a quick turn to the utterly bizarre as the reason for both the father’s weird behavior and Remi’s amnesia are revealed.
My Dear Ancestors is undoubtedly one of Ito’s most bizarre and grotesque stories.
Uzumaki is without a doubt an absolute masterpiece and Junji Ito’s magnum opus.
Manga can be a strange genre. There are many works out there and I’ve read my fair share of bizarre manga, but none was as weird as Junji Ito’s Uzumaki.
It’s a three-volume long series set in the small Japanese coastal town of Kurouzu-cho which is infested by spirals.
Everything in this story, everything in the imagery, is linked to spirals. Even the horrific events that take place in town all happen because of spirals or are related to them.
Spiral shapes appear all over town, things take on the form of spirals, and soon enough even the townsfolk are obsessed with them.
This leads to some of Junji Ito’s greatest and most outlandish imagery. People are warped, changed, and transformed into various spiral-like shapes.
And this brings us to Junji Ito’s most iconic drawing.
This image is not at the climax of the story, no, it’s merely the first chapter and from then on things only get stranger and more horrible. Nothing in Kurouzu-cho is safe from the curse of the spiral. People transform into snails, lovers entangle each other like snakes and even hair develops a life of its own.
What sells Uzumaki is without a doubt Junji Ito’s terrifying and horrifying art, and in Uzumaki, he’s at his absolute best. His simple, clean black-and-white style, his precise craftsmanship brings forth the horrors that re happening in Kurouzu-cho in every last horrifying detail.
Most of Uzumaki’s story is episodic. The first two volumes feel almost like a collection of short stories that all feature the same setting and the same reoccurring characters.
In my opinion, Uzumaki is at its weakest in the last volume when Junji Ito brings everything together and drives the narration to its end.
It’s a satisfying conclusion to a fantastic piece of weird fiction, but once more I feel Ito’s at his best when things are left open and when we don’t find out what exactly is going on.
What makes Uzumaki stand out so much among a plethora of other horror works is the lack of a feasible antagonist. There are no monsters to fight, no killers to run from. No, there’s only the spiral, a concept that lingers of the town in the form of an omnipresent curse.
Reading Uzumaki for the first time is an utterly surreal and absolutely horrifying experience, but one that’s without a doubt satisfying to anyone interested in horror.
As I said I’ve been reading Junji Ito’s works for years and recently I came to appreciate Hanging Balloons just for how good it is. It’s, in my opinion, one of Ito’s best stories ever.
It’s bizarre, absurd, surreal, and downright creepy.
The story is long when compared to Junji Ito’s other one-shots. It starts slowly, with the suicide of Kazuko’s best friend, Terumi. Her body was found outside her apartment, dangling from a nose.
Soon enough though, Terumi’s boyfriend Shiroishi and other people start to see Terumi’s ghost lingering around town. What makes it even stranger, it’s just her head and a giant version of it.
At first, people try to explain it by mass hysteria and similar syndromes until the first picture of the floating head surfaces.
One night a troubled Shiroishi calls Kazuko. He’s been following Terium’s ghost and wants to prove to her it does truly exist. It’s then that Kazuko witnesses the true horror that’s happening in the story: The Hanging Balloons.
The sheer idea of a giant balloon with a replica of your face on it is creepy enough. This balloon coming after you to hang you with its noose makes this story so utterly nightmarish.
The great thing about this story is the horror and the scenario. It’s probably the most bizarre and surreal idea of an apocalypse ever put forth in fiction.
Sure, there have been many types of an apocalypse featured in fiction, but here it’s no monsters or zombies, it’s your own face stalking and eventually killing you. Even worse, you can’t destroy the balloon for you will share the same fate it does.
In terms of story-telling, I love the slow start of the story and the way it makes you believe it will be a ghost story.
Another fact that makes this story work so great is that similar to others like Army of One or The Enigma of the Amigara Faults, we never find out anything. We don’t learn where those heads came from or their true nature. No, it all stays an utter mystery. We’re thrown into the story, witness it with Kazuko, and at the end the mystery’s left intact.
And who could forget that terrible last panel?
To me, Hanging Balloons is an absolute masterpiece of bizarre and surreal storytelling and my favorite Junji Ito story of all time.
If you’re interested in Ito’s works, many of his short stories have been published for Western Audiences in the collections Shiver, Fragments of Horror and Smashed.
Many of his longer works are available as well, such as Uzumaki, Tomie and Gyo.
