Creepypasta has become one of the most divisive internet fiction genre. What were once scary anecdotes and urban legends shared via the internet now encompass a variety of styles and media.
As you can see in my list of the best creepypasta of all times, they can come as literary stories, blog posts and even pseudo-documentaries.
Many creepypasta detail inexplicable events, mysteries or tell stories of strange creatures or entities. The latter is what this list is about.
On this list, I want to share with you my favorite creepypasta monsters or entities.
The Rake is another popular creepypasta monster. Like many other popular creepypasta, The Rake originated on 4chan, in a thread where users tried to come up with monsters.
What started as the description of a pale, hairless humanoid, soon went viral and became one of creepypasta’s most celebrated creations.
By now, this creepypasta monster is featured in a variety of stories, videos and other media.
I always enjoyed stories about cryptids stalking humans, and The Rake proved to be the most popular of these.
Can something like a symbol be dangerous? In the case of this weird creepypasta, we learn that it indeed can.
It begins when a man uncovers a strange symbol while browsing the internet. What started off as a strange, virtual discovery soon turns real when the symbol infests anything in the computer’s vicinity.
From here on out, the symbol slowly takes over the narrator’s world.
While The Memetic Symbol isn’t a traditional creepypasta monster, and more of a concept, I still added this story to the list. It’s one of the strangest tales I ever read, but that’s what makes it so fascinating.
Creepypasta Monster – The Thing That Stalks the Fields
The Thing That Stalks the Fields is another creepypasta classic.
The story is about a farmer and the strange creature that stalks his fields. It all begins when the man notices that the hay balls in his field are being moved away from his house.
At first he blames drunk teenagers, but he soon realizes there’s something much more sinister out there.
The Thing That Stalks the Fields was one of the first creepypasta I ever read and while the titular creepypasta monster is never named, I still regard it is one of my favorites.
The goatman from Anansi’s Goatman Story is another one famous creepypasta monster.
Like many others, the story originated on 4Chan’s / x / board. It details the story of a teenager who visits his extended family in Alabama.
When they go camping out in the woods, they encounter a figure that’s moving strangely, talking gibberish and eventually follows them.
One of the central themes of this creepypasta is the feeling of someone or something watching you. It’s a tale of paranoia, fear and terror.
Anasi’s Goatman Story is not a literary story. Instead, it’s written as a casual post on an image board, detailing an event that truly happened. The story itself, as well as the titular creepypasta monster, soon became one of creepypasta’s most popular creations.
Slender Man is by far the most popular creepypasta monster ever created. It’s featured in various games, stories, video series and even spawned a feature-length movie.
Slender Man was created for a Photoshop Contest on Something Awful. One user, Eric Knudsen, created a pair of pseudo-historical photographs depicting a strange, humanoid creature.
This creepypasta monster is a tall, lanky man with unnaturally long limbs who wears a suit and has no face. As showcased in the picture, the beings primary prey seems to be children.
The most interesting fact about Slender Man is not the story or the creature itself, but how nothing but two pictures could spawn an internet phenomenon of such magnitude.
While there are various stories featuring Slender Man, I still think the original pictures do the best job of creating an unsettling atmosphere. As so many times, less is more.
The SCP Foundation has become one of the most popular places for internet horror fiction. It features a plethora of articles regarding various anomalous entities and the procedures to contain them.
What makes the SCP so interesting is the roleplaying aspect. All the articles on it are written less like stories and more like Wikipedia articles.
The one who started it all was SCP-173, a creepypasta who went viral on 4chan’s / x / board. After its inception, other users wrote similar stories and eventually the SCP Foundation was born.
These days, the SCP Foundation is one of the largest and most popular fiction communities on the internet. It features thousands of articles, accompanying tales, and other related materials.
Smile Dog is a story that brings us back to the early days of the internet.
The story itself is a cursed image story than one about a creepypasta monster. Because of the accompanying, supposedly cursed, image, the creature known as Smile Dog has become massively popular.
The story centers on a young man who’s on his way to interview a young woman, Mary, who suffers from nightmares and night terrors.
We find out these nightmares are caused by an image she saw on a bulletin board. That image was titled smile.jpg, feature a creepy picture of a grinning dog.
As the story continues, we follow the narrator’s quest as he tries to figure out the legend behind the ominous picture.
I always enjoyed stories about internet mysteries and legends and Smile Dog is amongst the best.
The Dionaea House is the longest creepypasta on this list. Told via email correspondences and blog posts, this story features a different creepypasta monster.
The tale is about Mark, whose friend Eric tells him that their fellow friend Andrew shot two people and killed himself.
Before long, Mark looks into what happened to Andrew. As his investigation continues, he keeps up with Eric via email, detailing his findings.
Eventually, Mark finds the Dionaea House, but it’s not the end of the story. Instead, nothing is revealed and the story itself only proves to get stranger.
The Dionaea House is a very long creepypasta. The story develops slowly, but is well put together and keeps you engaged throughout. What I came to enjoy the most, however, was the idea of The Dionaea House itself. To me, it’s one of the best creepypasta monsters of all time.
If you have some time to spare, be sure to check this one out.
The Song and Dance Man is a phenomenal piece of fiction and more literary story than creepypasta.
One day, a strange man puts up a tent in the narrator’s home and invites the townspeople to listen to music and to dance. What appears to be nothing but a bit of fun soon takes on a much more sinister nature.
The Song and Dance Man is a fantastic story. It’s less the ominous man who makes it so special, but the narrative and the writing.
It’s without a doubt one of the most well-written creepypasta out there and I highly recommend it to any horror fiction fan out there.
Abandoned by Disney is another popular creepypasta spawning one of the most well-known creepypasta monsters.
What starts out as an exploration of Mowgli’s Palace, an abandoned Disney resort, soon turns much darker.
It’s in the basement that the narrator stumbles upon a variety of Disney costumes. One of them, however, turns out to be much more than a simple costume.
Abandoned by Disney is a fantastic story. It draws you in with its intricate descriptions of an abandoned resort before things grow more and more unsettling. It’s a classic for a good reason and well worth reading.
Dogscape is amongst my favorite creepypasta of all time. It’s a weird and surreal tale.
It’s a collection of multiple tales, all detailing what happens in a world that has become a never-ending landscape of dogs.
The setting is strange enough already, but the stories themselves are even weirder. They are detailing the life and the survival of the few humans who are still inhabiting this strange new world.
The Dogscape is a dangerous place. We learn of strange dog cults, people-devouring dog heads and even of people being assimilated into the Dogscape itself.
And it’s here that we learn the Dogscape is not merely a thing, or an inanimate object. No, it’s rather a hive mind, controlled by what’s referred to as the Dogmother.
The tales of the Dogscape are as weird as they are disturbing. Violence and atrocities such as rape are a common occurrence amongst the inhabitants of the world.
While the tales vary in length and quality, I still recommend it to any creepypasta fan, if only for how surreal a scenario they depict.
If you enjoy tales that are weird and surreal, I’m sure you will love Dogscape.
Creepypasta has developed into a divisive genre, as you can see in my list of the best creepypasta of all time.
Some are more akin to literary short stories, others incorporate the internet to their advantage and read like blog posts, email correspondences or pseudo-documentaries.
In this article, however, I want to get back to the roots. Creepypasta first started out as short, scary campfire tales or urban legends shared via the internet.
That’s why I put together a list of the best short creepypasta. None of them are longer than a few paragraphs, some comprising only a few sentences.
The story outlines the practice of old to put holes into coffins. This allowed the attachment of a bell via copper tubing so people mistakenly buried could call for help. Yet, what happens when a gravedigger hears one of those bells ring?
The Statue is one of the most well known, short creepypasta out there, a classic.
It tells the story of a babysitter who, after putting the kids to bed, wants to watch TV in the parent’s bedroom. Yet, there’s this strange angel statue that’s unnerving here.
It’s a well-known story, one I enjoyed a lot. It’s simple, yet effective.
The Girl on the Train is another well-known, short urban legend.
A young woman takes the last subway home and encounters a group of three people. She soon notices that one of them, a woman, stares at her the entire time.
After a while, another passenger sits down next to her and advises her to get off at the next station.
When she follows his advice, the man tells her why she had to get off.
Another short creepypasta that’s more urban legend than story.
It details a supposed historical anecdote that happened in Berlin at the end of World War II. A blind, old man asks a young woman to deliver a letter to an address.
She agrees, but notices the old man running away moments later. His strange behaviour causes her to become concerned with the situation.
What makes this short tale so creepy is the historical background and the knowledge that something like this might have happened.
Bad Dream is a simple creepypasta. A young girl crawls into her father’s bed after a scary nightmare. What she tells him, however, proves to be quite unsettling.
This is another short one, but one I absolutely enjoyed.
Baby Dolls talks about a certain malfunction in the baby doll toys of a certain toy manufacturer. The malfunction in question would manifest in the dolls, never ceasing their crying. The only way to stop them is to destroy the dolls.
Like many others on this list, this tale reads more like an urban legend. Still, it’s quite unsettling.
Another short tale more akin to an urban legend. It’s about a man who stays at a hotel. The owner tells him to stay clear of a certain room, but overtaken by curiosity, he ignores the warning.
When he peeks into the room via the keyhole, all he sees is a pale, white woman. The moment she notices him, he retreats, but soon returns. What he sees the next time, however, is different.
What with Red is another creepypasta that’s sure to scare you.
A Painter From Queens begins with the narrator describing a bum living near his apartment.
The man, however, is an artist, and his work is fantastic. When the man offers to paint portrays, quite a few people pay him, but none of them seem to like the result.
Eventually, the narrator gets one himself. The result, however, proves different from what he expected.
This creepypasta has always been one of my favorites ever since I first read it. It’s a unique and strange tale, but a wonderful read.
It details that the patients at a certain hospital receive one of three different wristbands. The red wristbands, however, are only ever placed on people who died.
I won’t tell too much about this tale, just that it’s highly enjoyable.
The Backroom’s is a creepypasta related to an image. In the image, we can see a set of strange, unsettling rooms.
Accompanying the picture is a brief description. What we see in the picture is The Backrooms, a place you end up in when you glitch through reality.
I don’t know why, but I love eerie ideas like this. Ending up in the Backrooms can happen to anyone and if you do, you better hope the other things wandering them don’t notice you.
There are many kinds of creepypasta out there. What started out as campfire tales and urban legends shared via the internet now incorporates various styles, topics and media, as you can see in my list of the best creepypasta of all time.
One medium that’s been given a lot of attention by creepypasta writers is video games. There’s a plethora of video creepypasta out there. The subgenre is infamous for spawning some of the worst and most ridiculous creepypasta out there.
There are, however, some I truly came to enjoy. That the reason I created a list of the best video game creepypasta.
This video game creepypasta features a Morrowind Mod called Jvk1166z.esp. The mod is cryptic, strange and only works after extensive tinkering with it.
Our narrator tries his luck with the mod, but soon gives up out of frustration. An acquaintance of his he got to know via the internet doesn’t give up so soon.
As the story continues, we learn what the narrator’s acquaintance uncovers in this weird mod.
When I was a teenager, I used to play Morrowind excessively. I loved the game and enjoyed the many details given in this story.
If you’re a fan of cryptic mysteries related to video games, check this story out.
Killswitch is written more like an urban legend than a real creepypasta and details the story of a game that was supposedly released in 1989.
What makes Killswitch such an interesting video game creepypasta isn’t the content of the game itself. At first sight, it appears to be a simple story about a cryptic and bizarre video game.
What’s interesting here are the circumstances of the game and its supposed creation. Only 5000 units of the game were ever created. They were uncopiable, and the game deleted itself after finishing.
What made it even more mysterious was the fact that the game had two playable characters, but was almost impossible to play should one choose the second one.
Killswitch is an interesting video game creepypasta, and it makes one curious if games like this actually exist. While it’s not scary, and written more like an urban legend, it’s a very creative and interesting idea.
Polybius is probably the most famous video game creepypasta of all time. It’s theoretically an urban legend, but I still included it in this list, if only for its widespread popularity.
The story is about an arcade game by the same name that appeared in Portland, Oregan. The legend states that the game was highly addictive and everyone who played it suffered from side-effects. These side-effects included amnesia, night terrors, but also suicide.
After only a month, men in black removed all traces of Polybius and none of the machines were ever seen again.
Over the years, Polybius garnered a lot of attention. It was the subject of countless YouTube videos and was referenced in a variety of movies.
Polybius proves to be a very interesting story, not so much for its content, but the history surrounding it and its spread to become the dominant urban legend it is today.
The game series Pokémon serves to be a breeding ground for video game creepypasta. The most popular of them is Lavender Town Syndrom. It’s no understatement to say that anyone who’s heard about creepypasta has heard about it.
Once more, this is less written as creepypasta, but more like an urban legend, related to the original theme of Lavender Town.
It’s a quick read for a video game creepypasta, but still enjoyable and details a rather unsettling urban legend related to a children’s game.
Ah, Ben Drowned, the story who started the trend of haunted video game creepypasta. The sub-genre revolves around haunted video games which cause the people who play them to go insane or kill themselves. It makes up a huge subset of video game creepypasta and has spawned some of the worst ones out there.
Ben Drowned, however, is a rare exception. While I’m not too big a fan of haunted video games, one has to acknowledge the influence Ben Drowned had on the genre of creepypasta.
What I enjoyed most about Ben Drowned was the attention to detail. As the story continues, we read about strange glitches, additional levels or areas created out of nowhere and various other game changes.
The story itself regards a young man who buys a used game of Majora’s Mask at a yard sale. Upon starting the game, he discovers a safe file named Ben. Ignoring it, he starts the game, but notices that NPCs occasionally refer to him as Ben. This, however, is only the beginning, and the game gets progressively strange, becoming a surreal experience for the narrator.
Ben Drowned isn’t an outstanding story, but what is outstanding is the work that went into it. The story comprises elements from multiple other media. There are not only pictures showcasing what’s happening, but even actual footage of this supposedly haunted game.
Ben Drowned doesn’t end there, however. There’s an entire ARG (alternate reality game) related to Ben Drowned. I found out about it because of a YouTube video and now see the entire story in a different light.
Ben Drowned is a very long video game creepypasta about a haunted video game cartridge. While the story isn’t the best, I still consider it a fantastic work, if only for all the work that went into it and the ARG surrounding it.
Pale Lune is among the best video game creepypasta out there.
The story revolves around an obscure text adventure only circulated in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Most people who tried the game quickly abandoned it. The game was cryptic and barely functioning.
Eventually, a young man with too much time on his hand decides to play the game himself to see if he can actually finish it.
Pale Luna is a rather short video game creepypasta, but I really enjoyed it. It’s a story about a cryptic, mysterious game and the disturbing secret hidden within.
Pokémon Black is another video game creepypasta regarding an obscure game, a Pokémon game.
If you ever explored video game creepypasta, you notice that there’s a plethora of Pokémon creepypasta out there. Many of them aren’t worth your time, but Pokémon Black proved to be different.
It’s not about a cursed or haunted game, but about an obscure hack by the titular name.
That’s what makes Pokémon Black so interesting and why it works so well. The hack itself isn’t dangerous, it’s merely a tale about an obscure hack that can be interpreted in many ways.
Another video game creepypasta that’s not about a haunted or cursed video game cartridge. Instead, the story features a strange and glitchy game.
I don’t know why, but since the first time I read The Theater, I loved it. The mystery, the minor details, the obscure nature of the game, it all fits together fantastically.
Once more, nothing bad happens to the narrator, and instead he only describes what he experiences when playing a strange, obscure game.
The Theater is a very enjoyable, short tale, one I regard as a classic.
The NES Godzilla Creepypasta is my favorite video game creepypasta of all time.
The story revolves around a young man who wants to rekindle his childhood nostalgia. Back in the day, he loved nothing more than to play the NES game Godzilla: Monster of Monsters.
His play-through of the game starts out normal enough, but soon enough, the game glitches and changes in strange ways.
The reason I like the NES Godzilla Creepypasta is less for the story, but for the visuals, the images. The creator wasn’t satisfied by merely telling a creepy story. Instead he filled it with pixel art of entire screens, bosses and monsters.
Over the course of the story, he even describes the various levels of the game in intricate detail, the bosses, and how he’s able to defeat them.
I can’t say why, but I enjoyed this play-through-style of writing.
My biggest problem with this creepypasta, however, is the story. It’s a story about a haunted video that’s clichéd at best and lackluster at worst.
What makes it stand out, however, is the game itself, the different levels and the various monsters. For that alone, it’s a delight to read, even if the story is rather weak.
If you’re interested in video game creepypasta, this one is a must-read. However, you might want to focus more on the art and the strange game it depicts than on the story itself.
Creepypasta is a divisive genre as you can see if you check out my list of the best creepypasta of all time. What used to be urban legends and scary stories shared via the internet has evolved into a genre of its own.
By now, there’s a plethora of creepypasta out there, as you can see in my list of the best creepypasta of all time.
While some creepypasta are scary and disturbing, others are sad or convey deeper meaning. Yet, there are some that can only be described as weird.
On this list, I want to share my favorite 15 weird creepypasta with you.
In this weird creepypasta, a man recounts the most fantastical story he’s ever heard. At the time of the story, the man was the headmaster at a primary school in Northamptonshire.
That day, a boy named Christopher was sent to his office. He was in a state of panic, confused, and mumbled to himself that things weren’t supposed to be like that.
After that, we hear the story Christopher told the headmaster.
Think Not of the Morrow is a great story, but what makes it a truly weird creepypasta is the unique and unsettling ending.
Burgrr Entries sticks out even in a list of bizarre and weird creepypasta. It’s one of the most surreal pieces of fiction I’ve ever read.
This creepypasta is an apocalypse story, but one that’s different from any other. The end doesn’t come in the form of zombies, aliens, or natural disasters, but in the form of new fast food.
Even stranger, this new type of food is only available at weird take out windows that appear all over town. One such window suddenly appears at the side of the narrator’s home with no visible addition to the inside.
While the narrator sees the food as disgusting and weird, most other people act as if it’s completely normal and stand in line to get it. It seems only our narrator understands what’s really going on.
As the story continues, more and more people fall prey to the lure of this strange food. From here on out, the story also gets progressively stranger.
Burgrr Entries is a weird creepypasta, one that can get quite gross, but it’s also one of the most creative and surreal ones I’ve read.
It’s unfortunate that the story devolves into a drawn out fight and escape scenario in later parts. The overall plot and theme are interesting. It’s especially the early parts of this creepypasta that stand out for their gross and bizarre imagery.
Keep a Diary was the first diary-type creepypasta I ever read. It’s also a rather unique and weird creepypasta.
The story starts with a man waking up in a giant, seemingly never-ending room. His only possession is a diary in which he details his experiences.
He’s afraid of what will happen to him, but every morning he’s provided with supplies that help him survive. At first, it’s only essentials such as food, water and clothing. Over time, however, he receives more supplies and even materials to build a shelter for himself.
Eventually, other people arrive.
Keep a Diary is a weird creepypasta, but also a very interesting one. The narrator’s earlier survival efforts, the creation of a small society and the diary format make it a rather unique experience.
It also muses on about some deeper themes that might make you ponder for a bit.
You sometimes stumble upon a story that’s so weird, you can’t help but wonder what you’re reading. The Memetic Symbol is one such tale and one of my favorite weird creepypasta.
Our narrator is a studier of memetic theories. One day while browsing the internet he comes upon a strange symbol. When he returns to the computer the next day, he realizes in shock that the symbol has not only affected his computer, but everything around it.
From here on out, the story continues as more and more of the narrator’s world is taken over by the strange symbol.
The Memetic Symbol is a short tale, but one that’s so outlandish and strange one can’t help but be reminded of other utterly bizarre and weird creepypasta.
Mice is yet another weird creepypasta I really enjoyed.
A nameless narrator talks about his colony of mice. Over the course of the story, he details how he takes care of them, how he trains them and that he’s their god.
Yet, this is a creepypasta and as so often in this medium, things might not be what they seem.
House of Rules was one of the first weird creepypasta I read and I loved it.
The narrator of the tale states he’s living in a house of rules, details how it influences his life. One might think the rules are enforced by the renting company or the neighbors. Instead, they are enforced by the house itself.
Whenever you don’t follow the rules, the house will punish you.
House of Rules is another quite creative story, one filled with an atmosphere of hopelessness and isolation.
It’s an interesting and weird creepypasta, one that’s a delight to read.
This short, weird creepypasta details a mysterious and inexplicable event.
In a quiet town in Minnesota, police uncover the charred body of a woman in a kitchen stove. What appears to be a suicide soon turns stranger when more details are revealed.
The Woman in the Oven is a short creepypasta, one more reminiscent of an urban legend. There’s no narration, no set up, no story, it merely explains a mysterious event.
It’s an unsettling tale, a weird creepypasta and one that makes you wonder what might have happened.
Cervin Birth centers on a strange video that was shared around the internet. The video was supposedly showcasing the birth of a blind deer.
After this, the story describes what the other videos by the creator of Cervin Birth contain.
Cervin Birth is another short creepypasta, merely detailing the contents of various, strange videos. Once again, there’s no narration. Instead the creepypasta is nothing more than a description of obscure videos.
Sometimes, less is more, and for Cervin Birth, it’s definitely the case.
The Backrooms is a more recent, yet quite weird creepypasta. It’s nothing but a strange picture and a description of what we’re seeing in it.
In essence, The Backrooms are the place you end up when you glitch through reality.
I love eerie ideas like this, especially since it’s depicted as something that could happen to anyone.
Should you ever end up in The Backrooms, there’s nothing you can do but wander those endless corridors forever and hope that the other things there don’t notice you.
We’ve officially made it to bizarro world. The Dream of Every dentist might be the most unique and weirdest creepypasta I ever read.
In the story, a man in a black suit offers a group of dentists a large sum of money to reveal their dream to him. At first, the men say he won’t understand it before they eventually share it with him.
The Dream of Every Dentist is not only a weird creepypasta, but one that makes you squirm while reading it. When I first read it, I stared at the computer screen for quite a while, unsure what I’d just read and why I enjoyed it so much.
An Egg centers on our existential fears and our search for meaning before it gives an answer them. This answer is one of the most interesting and remarkable ones I’ve come upon.
It’s a short creepypasta, but one that’s absolutely fascinating.
Dogscape is an utterly surreal and weird creepypasta, but also one of my all-time favorites.
The story centers on a single concept. What would happen if the entire earth would become a never-ending landscape made up of dogs?
In this strange world, the ground is covered entirely in dog fur. Strange dog trees and random dog heads are sprouting from it.
Dogscape is not a single story, but a collection of short, weird creepypasta detailing the life and survival of the people inhabiting this strange world.
The setting is as strange as it sounds, but the tales themselves are even weirder. We got to know weird dog cults. People are devoured by dog heads or become assimilated by the Dogscape itself.
While the quality of the individual tales varies in length and quality, I still think Dogscape is something any creepypasta fan needs to experience for themselves.
It is, however, a harsh world, full of gore, rape and many other atrocities.
If you like surreal and weird creepypasta, however, I am sure you will enjoy this unique collection of tales.
Kris Straub’s Candle Cove is one of the most popular creepypasta of all time and was adapted as the first season of horror anthology series Channel Zero.
It’s not only a weird creepypasta, it’s also written in a very interesting format. The entire tale is written as a conversation in a thread on a message board.
The users partaking in the thread discuss a strange children’s TV show named Candle Cove. At first, they are reminiscing about their memories and nostalgia. As more people join the discussion, however, strange and stranger details are revealed about the show.
The reason Candle Cove is so popular and well-liked is, without a doubt, the unique format and the way it is told. What starts out as a group of people rekindling childhood nostalgia slowly turns into something unsettling.
While Candle Cove is not as bizarre as some other entries on this list, I still regard it as quite the weird creepypasta, both for its format and its content.
It’s a fantastic read and anyone who hasn’t heard about it should definitely check it out.
There are many creepypasta out there. Ever since its emergence in the mid-2000s, the genre proved massively popular.
What started out as urban legends and campfire tales shared over the internet soon developed. By now there’s a variety of creepypasta out there, as you can see in my list of the best creepypasta of all time. They are including different formats, styles and topics.
While some are short, scary anecdotes, others are long epic tales. In this article, I want to share with you my favorite long creepypasta.
The Devil’s Cosmonaut is a long creepypasta set in a space station.
The tale is about the cosmonaut Boris. After Communications with the ground break down, weird things happen in the space station. He hears strange noises, even though he’s alone, and the temperature seems to rise constantly.
The Devil’s Cosmonaut is absolutely amazing. The idea of being confined to a small station in space is already unsettling, yet what’s happening to Boris makes it even worse.
Being stuck in space is terrifying enough, but not knowing what’s real is so much scarier. This story is so effective because we clearly witness Boris’ descent into madness.
The Devil’s Cosmonaut is a long tale, a slow-moving one, but it’s a fantastic read all around.
Back in 1999, our narrator, Elliot, was seven years old and loved the TV-show Pokemon. When his dad got fed up about his son’s whining to watch the show, he gets Elliot his own TV.
It isn’t long before Elliot discovers a secret channel, Channel 21, which features strange and disturbing content.
The earlier parts of this creepypasta are written more in an anthology format in which Elliot describes the various strange shows on Channel 21. This culminates in him writing a letter to his favorite show, Mr. Bear’s cellar. When he receives an invitation to the show, his father offers to drive him there.
The two of them don’t meet Mr. Bear, however, but the police and soon learn about the true nature of Channel 21.
The story doesn’t end there, however, but details Elliot’s research into the strange channel and Mr. Bear when he’s in college.
What makes 1999 work so well is the format. It’s less written like a traditional story, but more like an internet diary by Elliot detailing his findings.
The longer his research lasts and the more details he uncovers over the course of this long creepypasta, the more disturbing things get.
Stevie is a very long creepypasta, but also an extremely well written one. At the outset of the story, psychiatrist Sylvester Penn is on his way to interview a young man in a mental asylum.
Michael, the young man, is there because he murdered someone. The interview begins and we learn more about Michael’s past and his childhood.
Michael grew up in a pleasant neighborhood. Yet, there weren’t many kids there and his only friend was a boy named Michael who was slow in the head. After teasing him and playing tricks on him for a while, Michael soon developed a feeling of being responsible for him.
When more people move into the neighborhood, Michael makes friends with some of the new kids. One of them is called Stevie, who’s a lanky, weird boy, obsessed with taxidermy.
As Michael details his childhood and teenage years with his new friends, including Stevie, things soon take a turn for the worse.
Stevie is one of the longest creepypasta I ever read. It’s a tale that develops slowly, but turns progressively darker the longer it goes on. It’s a fantastic story and its great writing will keep you engaged throughout.
Humper-Monkey’s Ghost Story is not just a long creepypasta, it’s huge. The story was originally posted in a military story thread on Something Awful and proved to be extremely popular.
Our narrator, Monkey, joins the US Army in the late 1980s and is stationed in an undescriptive building in the mountains in Germany. The place is cold, isolated, but even worse, it’s supposedly haunted.
Things get strange during his first night at the building. He’s got the feeling he’s not alone in his room and that he’s watched by someone or something.
Humper-Monkey’s Ghost story is, as the name implies, a ghost story and with almost 30.000 words, the longest creepypasta on this list. The story also spawned several follow-ups and related tales.
What makes this story so great is the isolated setting. Yet, things should only get worse, as the soldiers try to uncover what is going on in the building.
Humber-Monkey’s Ghost Story is popular for a variety of reasons. The writing is great; the language is rough, and it feels realistic.
No End House is a classic, a really popular one. This long creepypasta proved so popular it was adapted as the second season of the horror anthology series Channel Zero.
The story centers on a haunted house, the titular No End House. Our narrator David learns his friend visited the place and that there’s a challenge involved. The place comprises nine rooms and whoever makes it to the end wins $500.
Soon enough, David sets out to try his luck. After all, how hard can it be?
While the first rooms start out silly, almost childish, things soon get strange and more nightmarish.
No End House might be quite a long creepypasta, but it’s a fantastic read. I love the fascinating setting, but also the creativity that went into it. If you haven’t heard about No End House, and haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.
Here we have another long creepypasta, but one that’s different. The entirety of the Dionaea House is told via email correspondences and blog entries.
This strange choice of format makes The Dionaea House not only interesting, but it also makes it feel much more realistic. It doesn’t read like a creepypasta or a short story. Instead, it feels like you’re reading a real email correspondence between friends.
The story is about Eric who gets contacted by his friend Mark, regarding a fellow friend, Andrew. Apparently Andrew snapped, shot two people and later killed himself.
From here on out, we witness Mark’s investigation as he tries to figure out what happened to their old friend and drove him to do what he did. His emails to Eric read more like an investigative diary, but are written realistically.
When Mark eventually finds his way to The Dionaea House, nothing is revealed, however. Instead, the story only proves to get stranger.
The Dionaea House is a slow-developing and very long creepypasta. It’s well put together, however, and the format keeps you engaged throughout. What I came to enjoy the most, however, was the idea of the Dionaea House itself.
If you haven’t read it yet, and you got some time to spare, be sure to check out this long creepypasta.
Ted the Caver is one of the earliest and longest creepypasta out there. As the title says, this story is all about caving.
While I’m not claustrophobic, I find the idea of exploring tight spaces and caves inherently disturbing.
Ted the Caver works so well because of all the intricate details that are added to it. The story starts out as a blog by a caving enthusiast who shares his discovery of an unknown cave system.
The earlier posts focus more on the process of caving. Each of the blog posts making up this tale features various photographs. This gives you not only more insight into the setting, but also immerses you into the story. It feels like what you’re reading is an actual story.
Ted the Caver is a long creepypasta, one that develops slowly, but it proves to be a fascinating tale. What makes it so great is the realism, and the unsettling elements that take over the story in its later half.
Ted the Caver is a classic, long creepypasta, but one very well worth reading.
I love Psychosis by Matt Dymerski. He’s one of the most talented authors of creepypasta out there. Psychosis is a long creepypasta, one that develops slowly and details a man’s descent into madness.
John, a young man, notices strange details about his life. Things don’t seem to add up anymore. As time continues, we witness as he grows increasingly paranoid and wonders what is real and what isn’t.
What makes this long creepypasta so fascinating is John’s descent into madness, his spiraling out of control. And yet, as we read on, we also wonder if John might not be right.
Psychosis is a fantastic study in paranoia and isolation. While it might be a rather long creepypasta, it’s definitely one of the best ones out there.
The Strangers is a superb story and my favorite creepypasta of all times. It’s a well-written epic, detailing what happened to a young man named Andrew Erics.
The young man got a strange habit. Whenever he’s on the subway, he can’t help but watch his fellow passengers. While most people act a bit strange, he comes upon one man who seems different. This weird character doesn’t react to Andrew’s staring at all. It doesn’t take long before Andrew becomes interested in the man and follows him on his daily trips, back and forth on the subway.
This, however, is only the beginning of this long creepypasta.
The Strangers is one of the most-well written creepypasta out there. When I first read it, I was floored by how well it’s told. Even today, after reading hundreds of other creepypasta, it still holds up as my favorite.
I can’t recommend this long creepypasta enough. It’s a fantastic read and a delight for anyone interested in horror and weird tales.
The first creepypasta were short, scary campfire tales shared via the internet. Over the years, however, as the medium received more and more attention, creepypasta have transformed. Over the time I’ve read countless creepypasta as you can see on my list of the best creepypasta of all time.
Some are more akin to literary short stories, while others use the internet to their advantage. Those are written as blog posts, email correspondences or even pseudo-documentaries.
In this article, however, I don’t want to talk about those. While most creepypasta are scary, or at least unsettling, there are some truly disturbing creepypasta out there.
In this article I want to present you with some of the most disturbing creepypasta ever.
Pale Luna is a video game creepypasta and one of the best in this subgenre.
The story is about an obscure text adventure which was only known to a few select people back in the day.
There’s something special about Pale Luna, though. The game is cryptic and barely functioning, prompting most people to abandon it out of sheer frustration. One day, a young man decides to see if there’s more to this enigmatic game.
Pale Luna isn’t as disturbing as the other creepypasta on this list. The reason I added it, however, is the final reveal and the scenario depicted.
Overall, it’s an interesting tale, surrounding a mystery in a video game.
12 Minutes is one of the strangest and most disturbing creepypasta I read.
It details what happened in the fall of 1987 when a small local news channel in Atlanta had a gap in scheduling. It was eventually filled by young Reverand Marley Sachs who used the available hour for his show ‘Words of Light with Rev. Marley Sachs.”
From here on out, things soon get weird. Complaints arrive by woman who report feeling uncomfortable while watching the show. They mention that this feeling always occurs in twelve-minute intervals. Before long, the show is cancelled as the channel has to report on a more important topic, the local miscarriage epidemic.
When a young intern takes a deeper look at the tapes of Reverand Marley Sachs’ show, however, he discovers something truly disturbing.
12 Minutes is a story I absolutely loved. It’s a mysterious, yet deeply disturbing creepypasta. It’s a tale that anyone interested in horror should check out.
Gateway of the mind is a classic in the realm of creepypasta, but also one of the most disturbing creepypasta of all time.
The story details an experiment conducted by a group of scientists. They presume that if a human being has no access to their senses, they could perceive the presence of God.
It doesn’t take them long to find a subject. It’s an old man who’s got nothing left to lose.
As the story continues, we witness how the subject grows increasingly more disoriented, paranoid and hallucinates. Before long, however, things get much, much more unsettling.
Gateway of the Mind presents an idea that’s as interesting as it is disturbing. If you had no access to your sense, and are stuck inside your own head, what happens?
What makes Gateway of the Mind such a great and disturbing creepypasta, however, is the ending. If you haven’t read this tale yet, I highly recommend you do.
Dogscape is not only weird and surreal, it’s also one of the most disturbing creepypasta ever. Yet, it has always been one of my favorite creepypasta of all time.
Dogscape details what happens after all the earth has become a never-ending landscape made up of dogs. It’s a world in which the ground is covered in dog fur, random dog heads and from which strange dog trees sprout.
This creepypasta comprises multiple tales, detailing the life and the survival of people in this strange world.
What makes Dogscape so disturbing isn’t merely the weird setting, but what happens in it. The inhabitants of the Dogscape are devoured by dog heads, kill each other or become assimilated by the Dogscape itself. It also features frequent mentions of rape happening among survivors.
It’s one of the weirdest selection of tales and something that must be experienced by anyone interested in weird horror.
The tales of the Dogscape vary in detail, length and quality. They feature gore, rape and many other atrocities. It’s truly a disturbing creepypasta, but it deserves a place on this list for its bizarre setting and imagery.
If you like weird, surreal and disturbing creepypasta, you will enjoy Dogscape. Just be warned, some tales feature explicit content.
Disturbing Creepypasta – Normal Porn for Normal People
Normal Porn for Normal People has always been one of my favorite, disturbing creepypasta. Something about tales that center on weird, hidden corners of the internet has always fascinated me.
The narrator details he received a spam mail, telling him about a website called normalpornfornormalpeople.com. The website itself is barely functional, but features a variety of strange videos. When he shares his discovery with the members of an image board, people investigate and soon discover more unsettling content.
What makes Normal Pron for Normal People so disturbing is the thought that websites like this exist somewhere in the depths of the internet.
I highly recommend this story to anyone who’s interested in scary tales. It’s well worth the read and an absolute favorite of mine.
Creepypasta have long been a staple of internet horror story-telling. They are short, scary tales, reminiscent of urban legends.
Yet, over the years, creepypasta have evolved and now come in a variety of formats. Some are written as blog posts or email correspondences, while others are reminiscent of pseudo-documentaries or diary entries.
Creepypasta is incredibly popular and there are now thousands of them out there. Over the years I’ve read countless creepypasta, some good, some bad and some fantastic, as you can see in my list of the best creepypasta of all time.
While creepypasta are horror tales, not all of them are necessarily scary. That’s why I put together a list of my favorite scary creepypasta.
Who’s in my bed is a very short, but also extremely scary creepypasta. It’s about a father who tucks his son into bed, but is asked to check under the bed for monsters.
Yet, he doesn’t find a monster there, but something much more unsettling. This scary creepypasta proves you don’t need a lot of words or a long narrative to unsettling readers.
It was also adapted as a short film. You can watch it on YouTube right here.
The Devil’s Cosmonaut is an extremely unsettling creepypasta set in a space station.
It’s the tale of a cosmonaut, Boris, who’s alone in a space station in earth’s orbit. Communication with the ground breaks down and soon strange things happen. The station grows increasingly hotter and Boris begins to hear strange noises around the station.
This is an absolutely amazing and scary creepypasta. Being confined to a small station in space is unsettling enough, but strange things happening there, makes it even worse.
It’s a crazy idea to be stuck in space, not knowing what’s real. What makes this so great and a truly scary creepypasta is to witness the decline of our narrator Boris.
It is, however, a rather long creepypasta, one that develops slowly. It’s well worth it though, and a fantastic read overall.
1999 is a very long, very scary creepypasta. It starts with our narrator, Elliot, in the year 1999 when he was five years old.
Back then, he was in love with the TV-show Pokemon. His dad, fed up about his son’s whining to watch the show, buys him his own TV.
One day, Elliot discovers a secret channel, Channel 21, which airs strange and disturbing shows.
The first part of 1999 is written more like an anthology in which Elliot describes the various strange shows airing on Channel 21. Eventually, Elliot writes a letter to his favorite show on the channel, Mr. Bear’s Cellar, and receives an invitation to the show.
Driving there with his father, they don’t meet Mr. Bear, but the police and soon discover the true nature of Channel 21 and Mr. Bear.
This, however, is only the beginning of this epic tale. In college, Elliot remembers the strange channel, Mr. Bear, and starts his own research about the events that took place during his childhood.
1999 works so well because it’s not written like a traditional short story, but as an internet blog detailing Elliot’s quest.
And the longer his research lasts, and the more details he uncovers, the more unsettling this scary creepypasta becomes.
There are many scary creepypasta out there. Some detail creepy beings or monsters, others describe unexplained incidents. Then there are some who are scary for completely different reasons.
This is one of them.
Wake Up is a tale that unsettled me. There’s always this tiny little voice in the back of my mind, asking me ‘what if’?
Ever since I first read this story, I’ve always regarded it as a truly scary creepypasta.
Mother’s Call is a classic in the realm of creepypasta.
This tale is short, extremely short, and comprises only a few sentences. Yet, as I mentioned before, you don’t need a lot of words for a scary creepypasta.
The Hidden Things is another effective and scary creepypasta. When a hotel owner receives no word from the man in room 304, he pays him a visit.
When he gets no answer, he enters the room using a spare key. Inside, he finds the man dead in a corner of the room and the walls covered in strange writings.
After a few days, the narrator enters the room again to figure out what happened to the man.
When I first read this story, I was impressed. The story is fantastically written, provides some great imagery, and the old man’s descent into madness is masterfully done.
The Hidden Things is a scary creepypasta and a delight to read.
The Russian Sleep Experiment and the image accompanying it is without a doubt one of the most popular creepypasta of all time. Yet, this popularity is for a good reason because it’s also a truly scary creepypasta.
Set in Russia, the story details what happens to a group of political prisoners who are subjected to an experiment. For the duration of thirty days, they are put in a room and kept awake by an experimental gas.
The men grow increasingly paranoid and slowly lose their mind. Things, however, don’t end there.
The Russian Sleep Experiment is an absolutely scary creepypasta classic.
Ted the Caver is a story about caving. I never liked the idea of exploring tight spaces or caves. No, it’s unsettling to me. While I’m not claustrophobic, the idea of squeezing through dark caves and tight spaces makes me anxious.
What makes Ted the Caver such a scary creepypasta is the way the story is told and the details that are put into it.
It begins as a blog by a caving enthusiast who discovers an unknown part of a cave system. The first posts detail the process of laying bare the entrance to this unknown system. Each post comes with a variety of photographs that give you more insight and immerse you more into the story. It makes it feel you aren’t reading a creepypasta, but an actual story.
Ted the Caver is a slow-moving, long tale, but it proves to be a fantastic read. While the beginning is about caving, weird details are slowly added to the story as it continues.
What makes Ted the Caver such a scary creepypasta is first the unsettling setting, but also the atmosphere the tale conveys.
Ted the Caver is truly one of the greatest, most detailed and scariest creepypasta ever written.
I’ve always loved internet horror and this creepypasta details just one such depraved and sick internet discovery.
The story begins when the narrator receives a chain letter about a weird website called normalpornfornormalpeople.com. When he visits the page, he discovers it features various, strange videos. Soon enough, the narrator shares his discovery on a certain image board. In time, members discover more and more unsettling content.
I don’t know why, but I always enjoyed stories about the strange, hidden corners of the internet. What makes this such a scary creepypasta is the idea that videos such as featured on the page most likely exist out there somewhere.
I recommend this story to anyone out there, but especially to those people who are looking for especially scary creepypasta. It also inspired one of my earlier stories, Fetish Webcam.
Psychosis by Matt Dymerski is one of my favorite creepypasta of all times. It’s a long, well-written story that details a man’s descent into madness.
It’s the story of a young man named John, who notices that many things in his life don’t seem to add up anymore. Before long, he wonders what’s real and what isn’t, and is not sure if he can trust his surroundings.
He isolates himself from the world and we witness his paranoia getting worse and worse.
What makes this story so great, and what makes it such a scary creepypasta is John’s descent into madness. As we read on, we can somewhat share his feelings, but we’re never true what’s really going on.
Psychosis is a fantastic story, a study in paranoia and isolation and one of the scariest creepypasta ever written.
Creepypasta are amongst the most-popular internet horror content there is. Over the years I’ve read countless creepypasta, as you can see in my long list of must-read creepypasta.
Many creepypasta are short anecdotes, often no longer than a few sentences long. Others are written as simple online-post, diary entries or email-correspondences.
Some, however, are more literary and are akin to short stories. For this list, I want to share some of the most well-written creepypasta with you.
Doppelganger was one of the first creepypasta I ever read and I was blown away by it.
This well-written creepypasta tells the tale of a man who notices his wife is changing and acting strangely. Soon enough, he believes that the woman he’s with now is not his actual wife.
As the story continues, the narrator describes how things have changed and we witness as his paranoia and knowledge about the doppelganger grows.
Doppelganger is a fantastic and well-written creepypasta, one any horror fan should read.
Stevie is long, but it’s also one of the most well-written creepypasta I’ve read. It begins with a psychotherapist, Sylvester Penn, interviewing a young man at an asylum.
This young man is Michael, who’s there because he murdered someone. As two of them talk, we learn more about Michael and his past. He grew up as one of the few kids living in a pleasant neighborhood.
His only friend was a boy named Andrew, who was a bit slow in the head. Michael often played tricks on Andrew. Even though Andrew grew mad at him for it, he always stuck to Michael, who soon felt responsible for him.
Over time, more families move to the neighborhood with their kids. One of them is Stephen DiMisaco or Stevie, as he’s being called. He’s a weird, lanky boy who’s obsessed with taxidermy.
Michael recounts his childhood and teenage years and his relationship with new friends, but also with Stevie.
It isn’t long, however, before things take a turn for the worse.
Stevie is the longest tale on this list. It’s a slow developing story, but one that turns progressively darker. It’s a fantastic story, one that keeps you engaged until the end and one of the most well-written creepypasta ever.
Another well-written creepypasta about a mysterious event.
Payton, a young boy, wants to take pictures of a young lion spotted in the area. When he asks for advice from the people at National Geographic, he’s told to put an automatic camera at a place the young lion might frequent.
To lure the young lion to the small creek, he sets up the recording of a dying rabbit.
The narrator of this tale isn’t Payton, however, but a young girl. She describes how she can hear the distant recording of the dying rabbit even from her house at night. What makes it even worse, however, is that the recording is distorted.
It’s soon revealed that something was indeed lured to the creek, but it might not have been the young lion.
Rabbits in the Creek is another fantastic and well-written creepypasta. It’s a great story, told slowly and reveals yet another mysterious and unexplained event.
This well-written creepypasta tells the story of a man named Jacob Emory. He’s a jack of all trades, but his ambitions and interests soon grow too large for his small hometown.
And so Jacob travels abroad. When he returns to his home town, years later, he brings along a stick of chalk. This stick turns out to be special because it allows him to draw strange paintings that are animated.
It isn’t long before Jacob holds his own shows, presenting his animate paintings in front of an audience. Things, however, should soon get worse, much worse.
The Art of Jacob Emory is a favorite of mine. It’s not only one of the most well-written creepypasta but also one of the most creative I’ve ever read.
Case Report 7591 tells the tale of a man named Travis Leroy and takes place in the amusement park he created. The man’s most priced attraction was an indoor ride through an enchanted forest.
The park turns out to be profitable and soon leads to business booming in the small town it was created in.
Tragedy strikes, however, when a four-year-old boy goes missing in the outskirts of town. A search is started, but the case is closed down, eventually.
When another child goes missing, however, an investigation is started. Soon enough, the amusement park is investigated and a terrible secret is discovered.
Case Report 7591 is a creepypasta that stands out for its narrative and the fascinating story-telling.
It’s a fantastic and well-written creepypasta that transforms a simple premise into something unique. If you’re looking for a well-written creepypasta, I highly recommend it.
Creepypasta set in the realm of science-fiction are rare. The Gift of Mercy is one of the few exceptions and it’s a remarkable little tale.
Yet, this story isn’t set in a spaceship or space station. It’s not one about an alien invasion. Instead, it follows an alien narrator who laments the greatest mistake his species ever made.
It’s an incredible interest, unique and creative little tale.
Well-Written Creepypasta – The Song and Dance Man.
The Song and Dance Man has always been one of my favorite creepypasta. It’s a phenomenal piece of fiction and one of the most well-written creepypasta I ever read.
It’s the story of a strange man who one day appears in the narrator’s home town. The man sets up a tent and invites inside to listen to music and to dance. Many of the townspeople follow his invitation and join him for free music and dancing.
Yet, things are never what they seem at first glance and there’s more involved than just a bit of dancing.
What makes this story so great is the fantastic writing, the way the story is presented to us as well as the narrative.
The Song and Dance Man is without a doubt one of the most well-written creepypasta I’ve come upon and a delight to read for any horror fan.
Ever since I read Psychosis, Matt Dymerski has become a favorite of mine. It’s another long, but incredibly well-written creepypasta. I first discovered it on 4chan’s /x/ board years ago and was stunned by how good it was.
Psychosis is a strange story. It’s about a young man, John, who soon feels things don’t add up anymore. He wonders what’s real and what isn’t, and soon enough, he’s not sure if he can trust his surroundings anymore.
John isolates himself from the world, believing something terrible is happening out there. Over the course of the story, his paranoia gets worse and worse. It’s a fascinating and interesting tale, one that presents us with a slow descent into madness.
Psychosis is a well-written creepypasta and Matt Dymersky’s one of the greatest creepypasta and horror writers out there.
The Strangers is my favorite creepypasta of all time. It’s a superb story. The world created is fascinating, and it’s one of the most well-written creepypasta of all time.
It tells the story of a young man named Andrew Erics. He’s got a peculiar habit. Whenever he rides the subway, he watches the other passengers. One day, he discovers a peculiar character, a man who doesn’t react to being watched at all. It isn’t long before Andrew tries to figure out what’s wrong with this weird character. In time, however, he discovers there are other strangers around.
Andrew follows the man on his daily trips, back and forth on the subway, but this is merely the beginning of the tale.
The Strangers is a masterfully told tale and one of the most well-written creepypasta of all time. It was one of the first creepypasta I ever read, but it blew me away. After rereading it recently though, I can say that it still holds up, even today and even after reading hundreds of other creepypasta. I highly recommend this tale to anyone who’s interested in creepypasta, horror or strange tales.
Blame! is the debut series of Tsutomu Nihei, a science-fiction cyberpunk manga artist. He’s among the best and most talented manga artists out there and his art can compare to the best in the entire medium.
Blame! is one of my favorite manga of all time. It’s unique, beautiful, awe-inspiring and at times brutal. The manga stands out for its amazing setting, the stunning action scenes, but also the many gorgeous and disturbing cybernetic horrors that populate it.
It tells a dark, futuristic story that depicts a world in which technology is running amok and has created one of the most unique settings ever created.
The world of Blame! is a typical cyberpunk setting, depicting a world of fascinating high-tech but at the same low-life for all its inhabitants. Many other cyberpunk tropes fit Blame! as well, but the manga also features many instances of biomechanics and bio-punk.
Tsutomu Nihei was an architecture student before he became a manga artist. This knowledge of architecture is one reason Blame! is so unique and impressive. We constantly see grand, awe-inspiring buildings and massive architectural wonders. Blame!’s world isn’t just huge, it’s immeasurable and mind-boggling gigantic.
The plot of Blame! is relatively simple. Killy, our main character, wanders the world of Blame! only known as the City in search of a human with Net Terminal Genes. A person like this could access the Netsphere, stop the chaotic growth of the City and stop the Safeguard from destroying what remains of humanity.
Over the course of the manga, we follow Killy on his journey through the world of Blame! and witness his interaction with the many other inhabitants of the City.
Blame’s world is dark and beautiful, chaotic and depressing and dangerous and brutal. It’s a wondrous, technological wasteland.
Blame! is a cyberpunk manga set in the far-future, but it’s also set in a post-apocalyptic dystopia.
The apocalyptic event was the loss of control over the City and thus over the builders and the Safeguard. There’s also the infection and devolution of humans and at the time of the story, no one with Net Terminal Genes remains.
The dystopian elements are clear at first sight. The surviving humans don’t amount to much when compared to the other cybernetic horrors inhabiting the City. They huddle together in small pockets of society and constantly have to fend for survival. Another aspect is the Netsphere, an advanced virtual reality which allows people to upload their consciousness. People with the Net Terminal Gene already did so, leaving the real world or base reality, as it’s called in Blame! behind.
Blame!’s setting is entirely unique. It’s a world devoid of any natural elements. There are no forests, no normal ground and no mountains within the megastructures. Instead, everything we see in Blame! are buildings and constructions, many of which are of mind-boggling size. The City is a chaotic amalgamation of titanic architecture whose dimensions are entirely unknown to any of its dwellers. It’s essentially labyrinthine, futuristic dungeon.
Over the course of the manga, we learn more about the insane size of the City. At one point, Killy stumbles upon a single room the size of Jupiter inside the City. In the prequel NOiSE, we learn the Moon was the first celestial body incorporated into the City. It’s stated by the writer Tsutomu Nihei that the City is the size of a Dyson Sphere, meaning it stretches as far as the orbit of Jupiter.
Even now, however, the City continues to grow and is endlessly constructed by so called builders, autonomous robots. Since no human is possible to access the Netsphere, no one can communicate with the builders and so they just keep on increasing the size of the City.
There are, however, some interesting details and concerns about the City. It’s so massive that its sheer size defies the law of physics. A construction the size of a Dyson Sphere would inevitably collapse into itself. Yet, this seems to be solved by certain gravitational controllers inside the megastructure which manipulate gravity itself and keep the City from destruction.
Another interesting tidbit is the sheer amount of materials. We learn, over the course of the story, that many celestial bodies have been harvested as raw materials. Even then, there wouldn’t be enough raw materials for a construction the size of the City. It’s implied, however, that builders can convert energy into matter, are using some sort of antimatter or can simply conjure matter into existence.
The City is one of the most unique and interesting settings I’ve ever come upon in manga.
As mentioned before, humans don’t have it easy in the City. Many of them have to fight for survival and do so in various outposts and pockets of civilization. Some are smaller, others, however, like the Capitol, are bigger.
Many of the humans our main characters encounter look different from one another. Some are taller, others are smaller. The reason for this is most likely because of the often mentioned infection, devolution, and mutation. What they all have in common, however, is that they look pale, emaciated, even sick. These changes are also the reason that people aren’t carrying the Net Terminal Genes anymore.
The Safeguard was originally a security system to protect the Netsphere from unauthorized access and protect humans with the Net Terminal Gene. The Safeguard still follows these instructions, but by now hunts down and kills anyone without Net Terminal Genes.
Other dwellers of the City are the Silicon Life, cyborgs who have their own goals, are independent from the Netsphere and want to keep the chaotic growth of the City going. If humanity would regain control over the City, and thus the Safeguard, they’d most likely use them to destroy the Silicon Life. And thus they want to keep the current status quo intact.
The last important fiction is the Governing Agency, which is basically the AI administration in charge of protecting the Netsphere. They are the ones who task Killy with finding a human with Terminal Net Genes to stop the chaotic growth of the City.
Blame! is a highly stylistic and unique manga, but that also means it’s not for everyone. The manga is mostly told via visuals and has very little dialogue.
With Blame! Nihei pushes the entire manga towards the visual side and his story is told not by dialogues or conventional narration, but almost entirely by visuals.
Blame! is a grand example of virtual story-telling and of a work in which a setting drives the narrative. In Blame!, the narration is told via the setting and not the other way around.
It’s this reason that makes Blame! so special and unique because it succeeds at telling a story primarily through the art.
Many parts of Blame! comprise nothing but silence. We watch as Killy travels on through futuristic wastelands, desolation and massive derelict buildings.
There’s scarcely any dialogue in Blame! but often it’s unnecessary. A great example is Killy’s gun, the Gravitational Beam Emitter. Instead of telling us how it works and how powerful it is, Nihei shows us multiple panels of how destructive a single shot is. Another one is the City itself. We know it’s chaotically and continuously growing, but we’re never told how huge it is. Instead, Nihei conveys this entirely through the visuals. There are countless panels in which we’re shown a bird’s-eye view of Killy as he wanders through buildings and past constructions of mind-boggling proportions.
Another great way about Blame!’s specific way of story-telling is that the manga’s never bogged down by needless explanations. We don’t get long-winded explanations about how the world of Blame! works. Instead, we merely witness the stunning, bizarre and nightmarish effects of the technological wonders Nihei conjures. Blame! is all visual.
This visual story-telling also influences the pacing of the manga, which lends itself especially well to the many action-sequences of the manga.
Nihei’s fantastic at world-building and Blame!’s a masterclass in world-building.
We know right from the very first chapter that Blame!’s a world that’s unfamiliar, dangerous and even alien when compared to our own. As we watch Killy’s travels, we soon realize that the City is entirely different from our world and it gives us a feeling of alienation.
All this is only possible by the insane, futuristic technology that exists within the City. This technology, however, is never explained, we just see it. Blame! happens so far in the future and everything can be explained by technology, but technology that not even the cast of characters truly understands anymore.
A lot of the technology we witness is the stuff of dreams or nightmares. This is most prevalent in the arc about Toha Heavy Industries. It’s here we learn that teleportation, time travel and even traveling to parallel realities is possible. All that, however, is hinted at to be caused by yet another of Nihei’s strange, futuristic technologies going haywire.
What’s true about technology is also true about the many factions and the mythology of the world. We only learn more about the City and its inhabitants in bits and pieces and have to put together the entire story on our own. All of it is vague, however, at times confusing, but it adds so much more to the mystery of the story and the atmosphere.
The main characters in Blame! are stoic, quiet badasses that almost never twitch when they get hurt.
This is truer for Killy than for everyone else. As he wanders the City he barely ever utters a word. That changes when he meets up and continues to travel with Cibo, but there’s still very little dialogue compared to other works.
When reading Blame! one soon learns that Killy isn’t a normal human being, and it’s later revealed or at least hinted at that Killy, similar to Dhomochevsky and Iko, is a provisional Safeguard. Even then, his past is hazy and we never learn much about him apart from what we witness of his mission.
Many of the human characters we encounter are badasses in their own right, and one can clearly see the toll survival has taken on them. We never encounter someone who’s truly happy or truly beautiful. No, this is a dark, depressing and dangerous world and it shows as much in its setting as in its characters.
While the manga comprises various arcs within their own specific parts of the megastructure, Killy’s overall quest ties it all together.
Because of the special way Blame! is told, the manga can be confusing. There’s little dialogue and no exposition.
This is especially the case at the beginning of the manga when we don’t know what’s going on. We merely follow Killy as he wanders the City through several almost unconnected chapters.
The story only gets more engaging when Killy reaches the Capitol and meets up with Cibo.
Even then, the reader has to always put things together on their own as information is revealed slowly and only bit by bit over the course of the manga. Once one gets used to Nihei’s style of story-telling, however, the story is almost straight-forward.
And yet, Blame! might still be a manga you have to read twice. When I read Blame! for the first time years ago, I was entirely lost when I reached the ending. On my second reread, however, all was much clearer and the plot now made sense.
The passage of time is something that matters little in the world of Blame! We don’t know how much time passes as Killy travels from location to location.
It’s only occasionally that we get a measure of time for an elevator ride or the time it takes for Killy to fully repair and those numbers, similar to the size of the City, are mind boggling.
An elevator ride through a megastructure takes about a month, his reconstruction after being heavily damaged takes years. The same is true for other characters and other parts of the story. Dhomochevsky, for example, has been fighting the Silicon Life under Davinelulinvega for approximately three-hundred years before Killy and Cibo arrive at the unofficial megastructure.
This treatment of time only helps to add to the mystery of the world and makes the City seem even more unfathomable and immeasurable.
The sheer size of the City makes the passing of time almost irrelevant, especially since Killy’s is almost always seen to be traveling on foot. We don’t know how long he’s been wandering the City, but estimations point not just at centuries or millennia, but at dozens of millennia.
What’s interesting about Blame! is also the question of who the antagonists are. The more we learn about the world of Blame!, however, the more we discover that there are merely different factions opposing one another.
At first the Safeguard is the primary antagonist. We discover, however, that the Safeguard is merely a security network out of control which was originally responsible for protecting the Netsphere from unauthorized access.
The Silicon Life fits the term antagonists the closest, but even they are merely fending for survival in the City. It’s their goal to keep the current status quo, afraid that should humanity regain control over the City and the Safeguard, they’d be wiped out.
It’s even revealed in Blame² a sequel that the Silicon Life as Killy as ‘the calamity,’ the one responsible for their race almost going extinct.
The Governing Agency wants to find a Net Terminal Gen simply to stop the growth of the City and to regain control of it.
While we watch the story from the eyes of Killy, it appears, of course, that the Safeguard and the Silicon Life are the prime antagonists of the story. If we take a step back, however, we learn that all that’s happening is caused by mismanagement and the chaotic stage of the ever-expanding City.
Blame! is one of the greatest manga’s I’ve ever read in terms of visuals. As mentioned before, I believe that Tsutomu Nihei is an artist who can rival the best in the genre. Be it his world or his various cybernetic horrors, Blame! is a marvel to look at.
The moment you start reading Blame! you realize that this manga’s different from others. Even in chapter 1, we already get to see the grand architecture of mind-boggling proportions so common to Blame!
You can clearly see that Tsutomu Nihei studied architecture and that he knows about the construction of buildings. It’s this knowledge that sets Blame! aside from other works.
There’s a sense of scale in many of Tsutomu Nihei’s panels that really showcases the insane proportions of the immeasurable City. Yet, all those constructions are as bleak as they are vast. Many times we can’t even make out the end of these constructions, as they seem to go on forever.
Many times, we see Killy in front of a backdrop of immeasurable proportions or we see him only as a small unimpressive dot as he walks vast metal plans, climbs giant buildings, or wanders a bridge that continues further than the eye can see.
And yet, as gigantic as Tsutomu Nihei’s creations are, they are still insanely detailed. This attention to detail is especially prevalent when we get a closer look at the locations Killy travels. Technological gadgets, machines and many other elements of the City are rendered in stunningly beautiful detail.
It’s this mixture of mind-boggling proportions and attention to detail that truly brings forth Nihei’s world and truly immerses you in the story.
An interesting detail to note is that Blame!’s world isn’t a unified one. In one chapter, we see Killy traversing an amalgamation of high-tech constructions or a futuristic cityscape. In others, he’s ascending winding corridors, unending staircases or what looks like gothic castles. At times, these constructions look almost organic, almost like something that grew instead of being built.
Tsutomu Nihei’s style is rough, almost dirty, especially in earlier chapters. His imagery comprises a lot of line work which lends itself fantastically to the more derelict and ruined areas of the City.
The many different details of the City are brought forth by a heavy reliance on shadows and shading.
Blame!’s entire visual style is one of the stark contrast between light and dark. Empty spaces are generally held in lighter colors while interiors, especially tunnels, caves and staircases, are conveyed via deep blacks.
What’s special about Tsutomu Nihei’s style is his usage of negative spaces to convey light or huge explosions during action sequences. This makes them a marvel to look at and helps to bring forth what’s happening.
Killy’s design is an interesting choice. He’s wearing all back, no special armor and seems to be almost understated in a world as strange as Blame!’s. The same can be said about the rest of the cast, however. Cibo, Sanakan and also Dhomochevsky are all dressed similarly.
This is a stark contrast from the other inhabitants of the City who all have a distinctly different look from one another. The Electrofisher’s armor, the Silicon Life in general, but also the exterminators of the Safeguard.
Blame’s world is a harsh and dangerous one and as mentioned before, you can truly see it in the design of the many humans. Almost all of them look pale, sick, malnourished and depressed. They look hardened, emotionless and you can see just how much they went through.
What’s interesting to note is the aforementioned contrast of light and dark also applies to many of the character designs. The interior structure of the exterminators seems to be black, while their faces and outer parts are white. The same is true for the many Silicon Life, who generally have white, human faces, but distorted, black, metallic bodies.
One could even say that the color palette of a character shows their alignment. The most dangerous beings, like Schiff, or the armored Silicon Knights, are held entirely in black. Mensab and Sue, two arguably lawful individuals are held in almost pure white.
Our main characters, especially Killy, are almost all morally gray and thus are a mixture of black and white.
While Blame!’s world is one of futuristic high-tech, many of its elements look strangely biological.
This is especially true for the many cybernetic monstrosities Killy encounters, the exterminators of the Safeguard and the Silicon Life. They clearly look mechanical or robotic, but at the same time, they all have a distinctly organic look to them. This is especially true when new Safeguard units are synthesized. The entire process has a sort of biological look and feel to it.
The many cybernetic horrors that populate the City are all fantastic, disturbing and outlandish to look at.
While the normal, level 1 exterminators look terrifying, they all look identical to one another and appear more like drones than anything else. Higher-level exterminators, however, look amazing. There’s the ‘siren’ Safeguard Killy encounters when climbing the tower, the high-level exterminator at the end of the story, but also Cibo after fusing with the level 9 Safeguard. They all have a distinct, almost angelic look to them with rings, haloes, and even wings. It’s an interesting design choice that only serves to make them creepier.
The Silicon Life has some of the most fantastic design I’ve ever seen in a science-fiction magna. They come in a variety of forms and design, employ a variety of weapons and wear a variety of armor. Some are even heavily distorted, sprouting additional limbs or parts.
Their design is throughout the book terrifying and disturbing, but they are a marvel to look at and are rendered in beautiful detail. Their design is reminiscent of the strange organic-inorganic art of H. R. Giger.
Blame! is full of frantic action which is always shown in stunning detail. Each of panel of it is fantastic to look at.
Many of the action sequences in Blame! are devastating, insane in scale and bright forth mass destruction. At other moments, however, they are more intimate and showcase fantastic close-range encounters.
There are also action scenes in Blame! that are clearly created for style alone. This is most prevalent in the Toha Heavy Industry arc, which features Seu, the protector of Mensab who appears as a knight in shining white armor wielding a sword. When he fights Ivy and when he fights the guards of the Central AI, it gives the action the air of a fantasy manga and not that of a science-fiction one. One thing has to be said, however, those fights look absolutely amazing!
I always loved science-fiction, but especially the more futuristic and outlandish scenarios. Blame! was everything I was looking for.
It combines fantastic and unique world building with breathtakingly beautiful visuals. The art is incredible and shines because of its technical drawings and Tsutomu Nihei’s knowledge of architecture.
While Blame!’s setting is a post-apocalyptic dystopia, it’s one so strange and fresh it’s unique. It’s a tale of technology run amok which manifests in the ever-growing, chaotic City and the out-of-control Safeguard. Things go even so far as to include time travel, mass-scale teleportation and even parallel realities.
What I came to love the most, however, were the many creatures, especially the higher-level exterminators and the Silicon Life, who spice the manga up with a fair bit of horror because of their design and simply look gorgeous.
An interesting little detail is that Blame! never becomes preachy, never a discussion of the topics it showcases. Instead, it simply conjures up a nightmarish vision of our future, one unlike any ever seen before.
While most of Blame! is full of weird imagery, crazy action, and Killy’s stoic demeanor, there are some human and tender scenes. At one point, Killy and Cibo discover a cloning machine which is forever creating clones and which Killy promptly destroys. At another point, Killy saves a Dry Man child and later destroys the cooperation’s docks after he realizes that the transporter he was on was transporting Dry Man ready for organ harvesting.
Those minor events never detract from the atmosphere, but are instead merely there, but they help to flesh out Killy a bit and give him at least some semblance of emotion.
There are, however some problems with Blame! While I love the action scenes in the manga, some of them can be hard to follow because of the abundance of gigantic explosions caused by Killy’s Gravitational Beam Emitter.
Another problem can be the style of story-telling and the story overall. It makes for a somewhat different, confusing reading and can be hard on first-time readers of the manga, making it almost necessary to read the manga more than once.
While I enjoyed the weird and outlandish technologies at play, I think Tsutomu Nihei went a bit too far during the Toha Heavy Industry arc and makes it one of the most confusing ones to follow and understand.
And yet, even with this criticism, I still think Blame! is an absolute visual masterpiece. It’s not something to be simply read, but it’s something to marvel at and to be immersed in.
Blame! is a manga with an intensely dark and brooding atmosphere, a unique setting which is portrayed by vast, colossal structures and frantic action sequences.
I’d recommend Blame! to anyone interested in visual story-telling, people who are fans of science-fiction and anyone who loves cyberpunk.
If you want to read Blame!, I recommend buying the complete set of the Master Edition released by Vertical Comics:
There’s no one as famous in the world of horror manga today as Junji Ito. He has rightfully amassed a global cult following.
Yet Ito is not merely a horror mangaka. He’s one of the greatest horror artists alive today. If you’re a fan of horror, especially horror manga, you’ve likely encountered his work.
Ito’s body of work is as strange as it is distinctive, and reading his manga feels like falling down a very particular rabbit hole.
@ Junji Ito – Tomie, Enigma of Amigara Fault, Uzumaki
His catalogue spans hundreds of pages of short fiction collected in English anthologies, as well as several longer works that showcase his skill at building uniquely unsettling worlds. Whether you start with a one-shot or a full volume, the same obsessions return: bodily transformations, cosmic horror, psychological collapse, and the corruption of the mundane.
In the sections below, I explore these elements, the signature techniques of his visual style, and his recurring narrative themes.
I first learned about Junji Ito a decade and a half ago when I was searching online for new horror manga to read. At the time, I was still new to the genre, but the prospect of a manga that was supposed to “give me nightmares” sounded interesting enough. That manga was Tomie, and when I finally read it, it was everything I desired in a work of horror and much more. It was full of outlandish ideas and terrifying imagery.
The next manga by Junji Ito I read was Gyo, which was as nightmarish as Tomie but much more surreal, weird, and absurd. His style was as fantastically disturbing and nightmarish as in Tomie.
What finally sold me and made me a lifelong fan of his work was Junji Ito’s masterpiece, Uzumaki. It’s the story of the small coastal town of Kurouzu-cho, which is haunted by spirals. The story was outlandish, the imagery disturbing. It felt completely unique and was unlike any other horror manga I’d read until then. For readers curious about Uzumaki, I also put together a short article about my favorite Uzumaki chapters.
Over the years, I’ve read countless horror manga, both by well-known and lesser-known writers, as you can see in the list of my favorite horror manga. Still, Junji Ito’s works hold a special place in my heart and are, in my opinion, among the best horror manga of all time. His works are so strange, so unique, and so outlandish that I find myself going back to them time and again.
What makes Junji Ito’s works so fantastic is his blend of outlandish, sometimes supernatural horror with the mundane. Junji Ito’s work truly shines because it’s a very specific kind of horror. His stories seldom feature killers or monsters. Instead, his horror is often unexplained, comes from powers outside our influence, or arises from our own faults, fears, obsessions, and phobias.
Sometimes his premises are strange, even ridiculous, but Junji Ito makes them work. The idea of a town haunted by spirals becomes one of the most disturbing and unique horror works of all time. Balloons that take on people’s faces and hunt them down become a nightmarish apocalypse. Even a story about human-shaped holes revealed after an earthquake becomes a setting for outlandish existential horror and deadly curiosity.
Junji Ito’s works stand out for their blend of masterful imagery and the narrative themes they explore. It’s worth noting that his nightmarish imagery and disturbing ideas often conceal deeper themes and ideas to ponder.
One can’t talk about Junji Ito without first discussing cosmic horror. The genre was shaped by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. It centers on the idea that the most horrible realization is that humanity is ultimately meaningless in the greater scope of the universe. Worse, there are powers and beings far older and more powerful than we can imagine. They existed long before humans emerged and will remain long after we are gone. Our lives, our dreams, our problems are all meaningless in the vastness of the cosmos.
While Junji Ito is influenced by Lovecraft, he has created his own blend of cosmic horror, often stranger and more surreal than Lovecraft’s. Humans are powerless in Ito’s worlds; while some works, like Uzumaki, feature unknown forces or entities, much of his horror focuses on the intimate and mundane.
Another similarity is that cosmic horror and Ito’s work seldom feature central villains or antagonists. We don’t encounter evil in the traditional sense. Instead, the terror arises from our own realizations or from inexplicable forces at the edges of comprehension.
Junji Ito’s works are well known for his distinctive personal style. He brings his horrors to life through masterful ink and line work.
Ito uses detailed line work and bold, almost unsettling blacks to present grotesque, shocking imagery. While he uses shading, his pages mostly rely on lines to convey texture. Even gore and other unsettling elements, like blood, wet and squishy surfaces, are rendered almost entirely with lines. This gives them a unique look, adds detail, and lends a more visceral, nauseating quality.
He also leans on stark contrast, both in environments and in characters.
Ito’s style is most recognizable in his characters. They never blush and seldom show ordinary happiness. Instead, they are often emotionally muted, and when emotion appears it arrives as exaggeration.
His characters frequently look empty and lifeless even before the horror begins, especially in stories focused on personal horror or mental illness. You can see how badly they feel and how close they already are to the abyss that will swallow them. Their faces are marked by sunken cheeks, and their bodies are often sickly thin, almost skeletal. Dark circles around the eyes and unnatural irises signal heavy emotions such as depression and gloom.
He achieves this with minimal shading and heavy contrast across the face. Ito often focuses on the eyes and the mouth, using them to convey unnatural emotional reactions.
His characters often wear unsettling expressions. Whether smiles or sorrow, the features are grotesquely accentuated, giving them a surreal quality.
When the true horror arrives, Ito goes all out in depicting a person’s emotional response. Terrified expressions are so exaggerated they make us uncomfortable. Mouths gape, faces distort and elongate mid-scream, and eyes open wide.
Another signature element is his reliance on body horror and the distortion of the human form. He often avoids traditional monsters; instead, the terror comes from our own bodies. People are twisted, warped, and turned into shapes that barely resemble human beings. We see bodies curling into spirals, rotting into abominations, or stretching into elongated versions of themselves.
This reliance on body horror makes Ito’s work so terrifying. Often the horror does not come from outside, but from within our own bodies. It is both strangely fascinating and deeply disturbing.
Junji Ito’s Narrative Themes
As a writer, I’m often fascinated by Junji Ito’s work not only for its visual power but also for the recurring elements that shape his stories. While his work can be graphic, Ito employs a wide range of narrative themes to craft his unique blend of horror. His concepts are bizarre, sometimes even absurd, but incredibly creative. By contrast, his characters and settings are often as mundane as can be, at times even boring, which grounds the strangeness.
Many of his tales revolve around fears, obsessions, and phobias, showing what happens when people give in to them. Yet they also carry deeper meanings that may not be visible at first glance. Below, I discuss those elements in more detail.
Junji Ito’s work doesn’t follow traditional storytelling conventions.
Most of his characters are minimally characterized, and there is little overt character development. Instead, characters are often blank slates or exist to embody a specific fear or obsession.
The same applies to plot. Ito’s stories seldom rely on intricate plotting. More often he gives us a glimpse into someone’s life and lets us witness the horrible things that befall them. Above all, his work is about atmosphere, dread, and the gruesome demise of his characters.
Although Ito writes horror stories, there is seldom a clear, traditional antagonist. People are haunted by faceless entities, curses, higher powers, or their own psychological problems.
One of the biggest pitfalls in horror is the urge to explain what should remain inexplicable, or to add too many details. Ito seldom does this. Instead, he leaves us with the mystery, leaving us guessing and fearing the unknown. A prime example is Hanging Balloons. We never get an explanation of what the balloons are, where they came from, or why they exist. He simply shows what happens after they appear, lets us watch events through his characters’ eyes, and ends the story when their time on the page is over. The mystery remains intact and, with it, the horror.
Gyo is an example where Ito breaks this convention. Near the end, he offers a scientific explanation for the apocalyptic horror that unfolds, and it didn’t work for me. It feels almost comically absurd and undercuts the menace.
Junji Ito’s stories often begin in normalcy. They don’t open with a dramatic backstory or by introducing an antagonist. Instead, they start in the most mundane places. We watch characters go to school, fall in love, or visit the hospital. It is in these ordinary settings that Ito slowly introduces the horror.
The same is true of the horror itself. In many stories, the threat emerges from mundane places or is triggered by everyday objects: records, laughter, hair, and even concepts such as spirals.
Many of his stories center on ordinary fears: the unknown depths of the ocean, claustrophobia, being watched, a sweaty, dirty mattress, or holes in a wall. Ito takes these anxieties up a notch. He twists them into something irrational and surreal, magnifies them, and turns them into phobias. At their core, though, they are fears many of us share.
Ito then bends these mundane settings and puts his ordinary characters under pressure until the world turns into horror. What begins as an everyday scenario becomes uncomfortable to watch; it is warped, and the surreal takes over.
This contrast between the mundane and the horrors he conjures is what makes his work feel so distinctive. We see it most in his characters. Their almost expressionless faces are twisted into masks of terror, with exaggerated features that barely resemble themselves. It is as if not only the story but also the characters are warped into something entirely different, something horrifying.
There are also stories grounded in reality. A great example is The Bully, one of his most realistic and most terrifying works.
It’s not only Junji Ito’s stories that are mundane; his characters are, too. They are nobodies, often blank slates who become entangled in Ito’s horrors.
They are frequently students or everyday people living ordinary lives. His characters are rarely the heroes of their stories; they are seldom smart or resourceful protagonists. Instead, they often serve as vessels through which Ito gives us a glimpse into his world of horrors.
Worse, they are sometimes foolish, driven by curiosity or desire. And when his characters do show strong emotion, it is almost always a single one. A fear, phobia, or desire becomes the defining trait, is often the only one they display, and it ultimately leads to their demise.
Junji Ito is a fantastic writer and artist, but he is not a character writer. His characters are merely there to be tested, and many feel like lambs led to the slaughter.
We all know irrational or childish fears. When we were young, we were afraid of the monsters under the bed, the doctor, strange neighbors, or even shadows.
As adults, we understand those are nothing more than irrational fears. There is no boogeyman, and there are no monsters out to get us.
Ito’s work, however, often features exactly these fears. That recognition gives his stories an uncanny feeling, because we have seen these scenarios before. We too were afraid to visit the doctor, and we too were afraid of the monsters under the bed, and even now we carry our own eccentricities and phobias. Ito explores and exploits them. He takes the most irrational, even silly fears, gives them life, and as a result his stories become much more terrifying.
Junji Ito is a master of body horror. He isn’t satisfied with people simply dying. Instead, he often distorts, warps, and twists them. This is visible not only in their ultimate demise, but also in how people change over the course of his stories. Characters who start out looking normal, even beautiful, become haunting, sick versions of themselves, or go insane as their sanity shatters.
Two of the strongest examples are Dissection Girl and Uzumaki. The first features a disturbed woman who wishes to be dissected. Her wish is ultimately granted at the end of the story, culminating in one of Junji Ito’s most fantastically disturbing panels. It is revealed that not only her mind but also her body is heavily distorted. Uzumaki, on the other hand, is a three-volume masterpiece about a small town haunted by spirals. Over the course of the story, many inhabitants become obsessed with spirals and are warped and twisted until their bodies reflect the spiral in various horrible ways.
Junji Ito’s brand of body horror is always a disturbing delight to look at, and it often renders his characters almost unrecognizable.
One of Junji Ito’s most common tropes is mental illness. Depression, fears, phobias, and obsessions are often the focus of his stories. Yet Ito isn’t satisfied with merely exploring them. Often, an irrational fear or phobia is only the starting point, and over the course of the story he amplifies and distorts it until it ends in utter madness.
His characters’ minds get distorted and change much like their bodies. As eyes bulge and mouths hang open in terrible screams, their minds, too, are inevitably broken.
Powerful emotions and erratic, irrational behavior are common in his work and almost commonplace among his characters. They are eccentric weirdos, people whose entire being revolves around a single trait, often a personal blend of mental illness, fear, or phobia.
Obsession is the leitmotif in Junji Ito’s Tomie, which features a woman so beautiful that any man who sees her becomes obsessed. Many other stories also center on obsession. It can be caused by love, animosity, jealousy, or even the urge to possess a particular object. Each of these stories ends with people giving in to their obsession, being changed by it, and ultimately facing dire consequences.
Love, too, is something Ito often exploits and distorts. What begins as a harmless crush soon becomes a dangerous obsession that drives people mad. Strong examples include Tomie, Lovesick Dead, and the chapter Jack-in-the-Box in Uzumaki.
As mentioned before, Junji Ito often pushes his characters’ fears and phobias to their limits, driving them into despair and insanity.
The reason is simple: his characters are often inevitably doomed. Similar to figures in the works of Franz Kafka or H. P. Lovecraft, they have little power over their world.
We see it clearly in Uzumaki, where an entire town becomes an inescapable hell and characters realize there is no hope, no way out. In a similar way, The Enigma of Amigara Fault toys with curiosity and with inevitable fate. People flock to the human-shaped holes that mirror them and, compelled by a primal urge, enter despite themselves.
Existential dread sits at the core of our being. As humans, we are the only creatures on this planet who know that we will die one day, and there is nothing we can do about it.
Ito’s stories are full of this dread, and his worlds are harsher than our own, stranger, more dangerous, and indifferent to the people within them. The horror often arises from the most mundane places, showing that nothing is safe in Junji Ito’s world. There are no safe spaces, and even the most ordinary thing can lead to a terrible, irreversible event.
Town Without Streets is a prime example. It examines privacy and pushes it to its extremes. What would you do if privacy no longer existed? Would you reject such a world and fight against it, or accept it and discard the idea of privacy altogether? It is a topic that feels even more relevant today.
Another strong example is Long Dream. It asks whether endless dreaming could be a way to defeat death. Is it better to be trapped in a dream forever than to die? Is even a never-ending nightmare preferable to ceasing to exist?
Isolation is another dominant theme in Ito’s work. As mentioned before, many of his characters struggle with problems and isolate themselves from society.
Ito presents a different view of isolation in Army of One. Safety in numbers is usually the rule in horror. In Army of One, however, he twists that idea, and those who stay alone, who truly isolate themselves, are the ones who remain safe. It is a strange story, but one ripe with meaning. It seems to point to our urbanized society and the forced social interactions common in it, especially in Japan. Is it ultimately better to remain on your own than to join an often forced social life?
Lingering Farewell is a study of holding on and refusing to accept the death of loved ones, and it is also one of Junji Ito’s best stories.
Black Paradox is one of Ito’s weirdest works, but in its later parts it raises an interesting question. In the story’s context, humanity uses its own souls as a new source of energy. The broader idea is clear: we may bring about our own end through greed and the hunger for power.
Hanging Balloons may seem nonsensical at first glance, but there is more here than meets the eye. The first person to die is Terumi, an idol. If you are familiar with Japanese pop culture and the idol industry, you know suicides are an unfortunate reality. Yet the story is not simply a critique of the idol system.
Similar to The Enigma of Amigara Fault, the story engages with Sigmund Freud’s death drive, our fascination with self-destruction and the compulsion to move toward it. Most of us suppress those thoughts, but some do not.
While The Enigma of Amigara Fault shows characters driven by a strange, almost supernatural obsession to find their holes, Hanging Balloons takes a different route. The balloons are a personification of the death drive, and the story functions as an allegory of that impulse catching up with and preying upon people.
Examples like these show that while Junji Ito is predominantly an artist who creates visual nightmares, his work often carries deeper meaning.
It always strikes me that works as bloody, surreal, and twisted as Ito’s can also convey layered themes. That added depth gives readers something to ponder when they want more than blood and gore alone.
