What type of story scares you the most?
Perhaps something dark, visceral, rooted in physical danger?
Or something subtle, psychological, with layers of unseen dread?
Or maybe something unknowable, inexplicable, that lifts the veil on reality and exposes
the cosmic terrors of the universe? The work of Japanese horror manga artist Junji Ito exists
at the intersection of all our greatest fears. His tales capture primal anxieties so expertly
they can seem truly mysterious. So, what I want to do today is peel back those layers
of mystery, and explore what makes Junji Ito’s worldbuilding so… darn spooky. And to do that,
we’ll need to find our courage and dive headfirst into this ocean of terrors…
Our first specimen from the inky depths of Junji Ito’s imagination is a fish with strange,
spider-like legs. The creature comes from the story “Gyo” — a narrative famous for being both
deeply innovative and utterly unhinged. The tale begins with a young man named Tadashi enjoying a
vacation in Okinawa, Japan. Returning from a scuba trip, he discovers at his house a strange fish
possessing what appear to be metallic legs. There is no indication of where such a baffling lifeform
could have come from, with Tadashi wondering if it’s an undiscovered species. But this creature
is just the beginning... On the beach later that night, more fish scuttle out of the water on long,
spindly limbs — a visual that is equal parts absurd and unsettling. These fish,
however, are merely scouts: the first wave of an incomprehensible invasion. Across Okinawa,
sightings of limbed marine life become more frequent. On a fishing trawler,
a day’s haul turns deadly and attacks the crew. The entire ocean seems changed into
an ecosystem of ravenous terrors, with no species left unaffected. From there,
the narrative escalates at a breakneck pace, with an army of fish sweeping over the land like
a great wave. Species from higher and higher up the oceanic food chain venture out of the depths,
a trend that eventually results in a massive shark rampaging across the surface. Beyond the obvious
horror of a land shark trying to eat you, there’s an uncomfortable sense of shattered boundaries
in this scene — a feeling that you’re seeing something that simply should not be. Terrors
from the sea are a familiar trope, coming with set expectations as to when the monster can strike,
and when characters are safe. But “Gyo” destroys that barrier of safety, eliminating all places
to hide from the creatures of the abyss. The violent collision of realms creates a tangible
helplessness, a certainty of extinction central to Junji Ito’s style of horror.
…There’s another story about dark things emerging from the depths, one that can help us better
understand the madness of Junji Ito’s “Gyo.” The surreal video game “Death Stranding” is
set in the wake of a cataclysm where entities known as “beached things” entered our world.
And though the creatures emerged not from the sea but from a purgatory-like realm called the Beach,
the parallels between the apocalypses of “Death Stranding” and “Gyo” are illuminating. Both are
stories of worlds colliding — of incompatible environments smashing together with catastrophic
consequences. The clashing of worlds can be felt in designs that merge the mechanical with the
biological — the incongruent elements forced together in a way that seems almost… painful.
There’s a sense that the marine life in “Gyo” and the beached things in “Death Stranding”
didn’t ask to be dragged ashore, and are just as much victims of this collision as humanity.
One lesser-known short story of Junji Ito’s, titled “The Thing That Drifted Ashore,” dives
deeper into the horror and tragedy of a lifeform stranded out of its element — and is the missing
puzzle piece in understanding how Ito and “Death Stranding” fit together. The narrative begins with
the corpse of a massive creature washing up on the shores of the Pacific Ocean. It resembles a mighty
serpent, although decompression from rising from the abyss has turned it into something grotesque.
Its body is bloated and rotting, with a head covered in tumors and parasites. A crowd has
come to watch this shipwrecked creature decompose, among them a boy with a strange connection to the
sea who serves as the narrator. For much of his life, the boy has been tormented with dreams of
the deep ocean — cursed with distressing visions of great fish that swim through the hostile dark.
The dreams started following a traumatic trip to an aquarium, where the boy witnessed deep
sea fish his mind wasn’t ready to perceive. In this regard, the boy and the beached creature
have a peculiar connection, with both suffering from their exposure to the other’s environment.
The theme of environmental suffering in “The Thing That Drifted Ashore” is reminiscent of a
real tragic phenomenon. Throughout history, whales and other marine mammals have been
observed beaching themselves, then collapsing under their own weight. The phenomenon seems to
have worsened due to the invention of sonar, and is known as ‘Cetacean Stranding’ — which, notably,
is where “Death Stranding” gets its title from. On a surface level, the beached things in “Death
Stranding” parallel the marooned creatures of Junji Ito and Earth’s real shores. Yet the human
survivors inhabiting the post-apocalyptic world of the game are also ‘marooned’ in their own
way. In the wake of the cataclysmic clash of realities, Earth has been transformed into an
inhospitable land reminiscent of the sea floor. Like marine life on dry land, humans suffer in
this new environment, their bodies not built for such an ecosystem… In the latter half of “The
Thing That Drifted Ashore,” the onlookers notice something inside the creature’s stomach. Through
a layer of transparent skin, human beings stare back at the crowd. Cutting the creature open,
the onlookers are shocked to discover the people are still alive. The survivors of a boat accident
from seven years prior, they somehow became zombie-like parasites living in the intestines
of the leviathan after being swallowed. Like the boy traumatized by the aquarium, the years
of staring into the abyss through the creature’s transparent skin caused them to lose their minds.
There are some things humans are not meant to witness. Things our mind cannot fathom,
that defy all reason. The crowd in “The Thing” attempt to rationalize the unknown creature,
theorizing how it might have moved through the depths — yet are ultimately unable to understand
it. Likewise, multiple explanations for the limbed fish are put forward in “Gyo,” from a military
experiment gone wrong to a natural phenomenon, but none seems quite right. A central element
of what makes Junji Ito’s horror worldbuilding so effective is how much he withholds from the
reader. Without a clear sense of how a threat functions, your rational mind goes blank,
letting you experience terrors on a primal level. In some respects,
the creator of “Death Stranding,” Hideo Kojima, takes the opposite approach, as his game has
hours upon hours dedicated to explaining how its universe works. And side note: Junji Ito himself
actually makes a cameo in one of these expository sequences, making his influence on the game more
evident. But Junji Ito’s own horror rarely grants the comfort of an explanation. Like staring into
the depths of the sea, reading his work can feel like gazing at something truly unfathomable...
And perhaps no story wields the terror of the inexplicable better “The Enigma of Amigara
Fault.” The setup is deceptively simple: an earthquake reveals a several kilometer long fault,
and upon the rockface, foreboding holes shaped like the silhouettes of humans become visible.
People from across the nation are drawn to the unfathomable sight after seeing it on the news.
Each of the thousands of holes appears to extend endlessly into the dark of the mountain. There’s
no indication as to where they came from. They simply are. And then, things get stranger. People
in the crowd start to realize that certain holes are shaped exactly like them. And one by one,
they are overcome with a compulsion to enter their holes, disappearing into the suffocating
depths. There’s an unbearable sense of claustrophobia this story can instill,
making it impossible not to imagine what it would be like to be stuck within the holes yourself,
unable to move. Beyond this physical terror, there’s real psychological dread in the way people
can’t escape the impulse to trap themselves, their agency slipping away as the inexplicable need
becomes all-consuming. It’s really grim stuff. And maybe… kind of funny? For as disturbing as
the situation can be, there’s an absurdity to the concept that can at times feel almost comedic.
This humor is present in the margins of a lot of Junji Ito’s work, and can at first be difficult to
reconcile with the disturbing subject matter. But understanding how absurdity and fear intertwine is
central to appreciating why these stories are so affecting — and to do that, we have to talk about
“House.” [Sounds of Chaos] Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, “House” is… a lot. A psychedelic
blend of horror and comedy, the film involves a group of friends visiting the mansion of an old
woman in the remote countryside. This seemingly standard plot soon derails into total insanity
as common household objects attack the group, the effects designed to look fake as possible. A piano
eats someone, another character has a fight with sentient futon cushions and loses, one person gets
teleported inside an evil clock. It can seem like nonsense, and a lot of it is — but like the works
of Junji Ito, there’s a method to the madness. The silliness makes the rare moments of genuine terror
more visceral and unexpected. Because you’re never sure what kind of scene you’ll get next,
it’s hard to relax. Compared to Ito’s horror, this film definitely leans harder into absurdity, to
the point where it can outright break your brain. There’s a scene where a pair of disembodied legs
kick a cat painting, which destroys the spirit of a cat, because the cat’s soul was in the painting,
or it was the painting, but then the cat was also a part of the lady who owns the house,
so she’s destroyed, but then it turns out, not really. Do not ask me what is happening because
I do not know. A guy goes to a watermelon stand and asks for bananas, which transforms him into
a mound of bananas? I still don’t get what this scene has to do with anything? If parts of “House”
sound like they were written by a child… they were. Obayashi used story ideas from his young
daughter, as he believed the irrational thoughts of a child would help the movie frighten people on
a more intrinsic level. Yes, much of “House” is absurd — but ultimately, all absurdity means is
a lack of reason, and if you can’t reason with something, you aren’t safe from it.
At the end of “The Enigma of Amigara Fault,” every main character succumbs to the need to enter the
hole they were made for. Months later, a research team discovers the fault extends to the other side
of the mountain — but the holes are no longer the same shape. And from the darkness, something
horrifically twisted is creeping slowly closer. …And that’s the last glimpse you get. You’re left
with no explanations. No resolution. Just the terrifying, bewildering absurdity of it all.
…If there’s a culmination to Junji Ito’s work, an ultimate merger of fear and absurdity,
I’d say it’s probably a little story titled “Uzumaki.” I say ‘little’ story,
but “Uzumaki” is one of the longest Ito ever wrote, and in my opinion, ultimately the most
unsettling. The narrative is centered on a city plagued by a mysterious, supernatural curse that
takes the form of… spirals. Yes, spirals. Every scare in the story links back in some way or
another to this simple pattern. And if that sounds too strange to be frightening… well, wait and see.
The spirals start small. A man becomes obsessed with the whirl of a snail’s shell, staring at it
for hours. Tiny whirlpools appear in the city’s water supply. But soon, people’s bodies begin
to horribly contort into the spiral shape. The pattern spreads like a disease, with everything
in the city becoming infected. Buildings loop back onto each other like a swirling labyrinth.
Plants grow in endless, dizzying twirls. Even the sky itself becomes a horrible spiral, the
clouds becoming a dark omen of the city’s fate. One of the most discussed elements of “Uzumaki”
is how helpless the main characters are in the face of such a cosmic, incomprehensible threat.
Like the shape itself, there’s an inevitability to the spirals — a sense from the beginning that
things will only get worse and worse. The story conveys a level of powerlessness very few pieces
of media have achieved. [Music] If “Uzumaki” has a companion, another narrative experience that makes
you feel similarly insignificant in the face of unknowable dangers, I’d argue it’s the indie game
“World of Horror.” Created by Polish developer Pawel Kozminski, the point and click adventure
is all about making the player feel as defenseless as possible. In the story, you solve mysteries in
a city afflicted by enigmatic entities known as the old gods. The plot and aesthetics are
explicitly inspired by the work of Junji Ito, and playthroughs really can feel like you’re living
through one of his stories. You’re constantly on the backfoot, trying to manage your character’s
dwindling sanity and stamina as you experience a never-ending parade of nightmares in a randomly
generated order. It’s not really a game that you win so much as a game that you… undergo.
Play for long enough, and some form of dark fate is virtually inevitable. I don’t think it’s much
of a spoiler to say that “Uzumaki” has a similar ending. As is the case across Junji Ito’s stories,
there’s no winning against something so irrational it’s impossible to understand. In the final
chapter, there’s some explanation as to where the spirals come from, but it’s so vague it functions
less like an answer and more like another question — another layer in an infinite mystery.
Balancing ambiguity and irrationality with genuine fear is a tricky thing. Junji Ito pushes these
concepts near their breaking point in “Hellstar Remina,” an absolutely bonkers narrative about
a planet that appears in Earth’s solar system out of blue. What at first seems like a passing
celestial object turns out to be something else entirely, as the planet opens a single giant eye
and beholds the Earth. Ito’s reoccurring theme of humanity’s insignificance is perhaps at its most
extreme in these panels, with Earth rendered a meaningless speck in a cruel cosmos. All
attempts by humans to understand the interstellar visitor end in disaster, and mass hysteria grips
the entire population. And from there, well, let’s just say that the rogue planet turns out
to have a rather large appetite. It’s some truly out-there media, to the point where it might
be too much for some people. But Junji Ito’s content is meant to be ‘out-there’ — meant to
be so surreal and at times even ludicrous that you can’t anticipate what happens next. One of
Junji Ito’s more lighthearted works is his “Cat Diary” — an autobiographical story about getting
over his fear of his wife’s cats. And while nothing disturbing happens in the actual plot,
the art is still so comically unsettling — with the ordinary cats portrayed like they’re
cosmic terrors. To me, this is Ito reminding us that the absurdity of his horror is a feature,
not a bug — an essential part of what makes his work so consistently unpredictable. Junji Ito’s
stories are an exercise in tonal contradictions, which is likely why his work is so hard to adapt.
Despite many attempts, most translations of his narratives to other mediums feel like they’re
missing something. Even something as simple as adding color to his illustrations can throw off
his delicate balance of ambiguity. That’s why one of my favorite adaptations is probably “Mold,” an
episode from a recent Netflix anthology that keeps things in black and white. The original
short story tells the tale of someone returning to an old house only to find a nauseating mold
has taken over the foundations. The lack of color is a huge part of what makes the art so effective,
as it’s difficult to tell what the mold really is. The episode’s choice to keep the color drained
from each scene preserves that uncertainty, that creeping sense that something else is going on in
the house. The visuals work so well, I honestly wonder if all adaptations of Junji Ito shouldn’t
stick to black and white. Adult Swim has been working on a pen and ink adaptation of “Uzumaki”
for a long, long time, and I sincerely hope it’s as good as early footage makes it seem. For the
dream of a perfect adaptation that recaptures everything that makes Junji Ito’s art so special
is difficult to let go of. But ultimately, Junji Ito’s work is irreplaceable for a reason. The
artist has been quoted as saying that he’ll spend multiple days refining a single panel, making sure
the image perfectly captures the terror of what he’s trying to convey. And you can feel that in
every line — that relentless attention to detail that makes his art so rewarding to revisit and
analyze. Yet at the same time, his stories often don’t take themselves too seriously, reminding us
that absurdity is just as much a part of life as bodily horror. In the end, like a pair of severed
legs kicking a cat painting, Junji Ito’s art is a deeply original blend of fear, silliness,
ambiguity and irrationality — as difficult to summarize as it is to duplicate. As always, thanks
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