The Art of Junji Ito
Illustration ‘Eyes’ by Junji Ito
The nickname “master of horror” is often given to famous author, Stephen King, without any objection. However, when we talk about horror genre comics, there’s no mistaking the name Junji Ito, the maestro of horror stories from the Sakura Country. Born in 1963 in Gifu Prefecture, Junji Ito is a phenomenal comic artist who introduces readers to a world full of phobias, existential anxiety, and fear of the unknown. His boundless and terrifying imagination has terrified readers for more than three decades.
Junji Ito posing with his manga series, ‘Tomie’
Junji Ito is a manga artist and author who is able to inject fear and horror into the veins of his readers. He truly understands phobias, various existential anxieties and terror of the unknown. It could be said that this author has mastered this theme more than manga artists and even authors in the same genre.
Combined with unlimited imagination in every stroke of his pen, it is guaranteed that readers will continue to remember several of the panels drawn by Ito. What makes him unique is the fact that he is not a novelist or short story writer, the usual medium for many horror writers. Ito’s stories, whether long in serial form or short in one shot manga form, are all drawn with a sensation of surreal horror.
Ito’s debut manga, drawn when he was still 24 years old, is Tomie, which is a collection of stories from various points of views about a girl who defies death and aging. Tomie is portrayed as a femme fatale capable of driving the men who fall for her to the brink of madness.
An illustration of Tomie Kawakami, from ‘Tomie’ by Junji Ito
Just like Stephen King, this Japanese writer is also not a horror author who relies on jump scares. The essence of Ito’s story can be explained in two main elements: namely, an interesting idea and the execution of the story. Several short one-shot stories by Ito really illustrate this quality.
Junji Ito is a master at depicting human body horror, suspense, and supernatural weirdness that feels both strange and relatable. Ito understands the quickest way to create tension and mystery, and never states the explanation of the mystery clearly, leaving the resolution purely to the reader’s thoughts.
The stories he develops usually start with a normal world, which gradually falls into madness due to supernatural elements, monsters, and things born of our everyday lives. He takes inspiration from his own fears as well, including death, war, insects, and being watched.
A cat biting into a spider, from Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu