Horror artist and author Junji Ito has spent decades of his life painstakingly illustrating some of comics’ most fucked-up imagery. This gives him a certain level of insight into what a creepy picture should look like. And it makes him the perfect subject for a video where comics publisher Viz showed off some of the internet’s creepiest monsters (no, not those kind) so he could offer a sober, well-informed evaluation of their scare-factor.
As we’ve mentioned before, Ito doesn’t come off as a particularly spooky guy in interviews—his most horrifying secrets, like that he used to be a dental technician, are hidden beneath a pleasant exterior. That means his reactions are pretty understated, even if he’s saying the pictures he’s looking at are freaking him out.
When he’s shown an image of a gangly skeleton man with a siren for a head, Ito says “The siren head gets me right here” and touches his chest, laughing quietly. He sees a strange snake-like horse half-illuminated in a car’s headlights and sighs with delight. “This one is interesting in a fantastic sense rather than a scary sense,” Ito remarks. “I think it’s very mysterious art.” He approves of the lighting choices used in a drawing of a smiling, long-legged turtle-thing and points out a few monsters he thinks should star in movies.
Along the way, he relates to some of the art with reflections on his own work. He sees a picture of a child looking at a black-eyed reflection of himself in the mirror and says that “the ‘other me’ is a theme [he] love[s]” and that he’s “very fond of bats” and has, as any good horror artist should, put them in his comics in the past. He also adjusts his glasses and at one point wonders aloud if the picture of a ghost he’s looking at is actually a smudged screen, as if the video’s creators are just trying to mess with him.
For more Ito, check out trailers for the upcoming, Colin Stetson-scored adaptation of his famous 1998 comic, Uzumaki, which was supposed to come out in 2020 but is now set to be released sometime this year. We’re willing to bet it’s got some scary pictures in it, too.
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13 Comments
He’s so nice! He finds something complimentary to say about all of them and its always something unique and insightful. Great video.
It’s funny how a former dental technician who gives me nightmares can also be someone who I’d want to meet. Beware the nice ones, I suppose 😄.
In the meantime there’s the 2000 live-action version of Uzumaki. Although not entirely successful it has a truly creepy atmosphere and some borderline disturbing images. Needless to say, this is rather NSFW or wherever your workplace is these days.
Yeah, his manga is great. The movies and anime based on his work are…not as great.
The Uzumaki movie is great for riffing. The manga gave me nightmares. Not as many nightmares as his short story The Enigma Of The Amigara Fault. I do NOT recommend reading it if you are claustrophobic in any way, shape or form.
And as they say about multiple murderers, he’s seems to be such a nice man!
I love how the trailer ends with a generic anime theme song that completely contrasts the creepy and gruesome tone of the rest of the trailer.
The band is called Do As Infinity, and the song is called “Raven”. I loved this band when I was a teen. Dai’s double-fretted guitar is admittedly pretty cool.
I don’t really read manga or comics or horror stories, but somehow ended up reading all of Uzumaki in one night. That was….wow. Equal parts great and disturbing, and am curious how an adaptation will approach some of the more surreal material.
“For more Ito, check out trailers for the upcoming, Colin Stetson-scored—”
Shut up and take my money.
Uzumaki is absolutely horrendous, and I mean that as the greatest compliment. It’s genuinely disturbing, and so bleak. Although I could do without the tornado riders.
I could have done without the….pregnant women/mushroom placenta storyline. Tally ho, barf barf!Fiddlehead ferns grow in my backyard in spring, and all I can think of is “Okay, when are the row houses going to be built?”.
Kind of interesting that his comments on the pics, while affable enough, offer no particular insights beyond what I or any schmo might say. Well, nothing wrong with that; better a creator than a critic!