A Glance into Junji Ito's Horror: Uzumaki, Black Bird, and Enigma at Amigara Fault

Over the years, Japanese media has earned a distinguished place on the stage of contemporary horror. Some may even consider them a forerunner, with works such as Ringu and Ju-On setting the bar for the genre. That said, the boom of J-horror in the 90s' was perhaps not entirely surprising; as a culture well-known for its legends, ghost stories involving yōkai, obake, and yūrei made up a good part of Japanese fiction even before technological development pushed them forward to Hollywood.

Urban tales of cursed places and dead women coming back for retribution have a specific charm to them that appeal to worldwide audiences, and they are popular enough that Japanese urbanism has been rendered into a genre in itself. And while cinema enthusiasts would paint us intrigued with detailed descriptions of these pillars of Japanese filmmaking, manga readers are more than glad to introduce the curious to a whole new dimension of horror: Junji Ito.

Junji Ito is a horror-focused mangaka, famous for his ability to evoke strong emotions within his readers with no more than a page. Without sound effects or other tools filmmakers have at hand to produce suspense, Junji Ito spills his ink to unsettle the audience, deftly conjuring up jump scares waiting at the page-turn and vivid imagery that sticks with one long after finishing the manga. When asked what is the most important thing to focus on in a horror story in an interview with ANN, the simplicity in Ito's response was a key description of his work: “it's the mood and atmosphere.”

In the context of pop culture, Ito's style has come to stand out from the norms with unique characters and stories that leap off the page, not only setting a fresh staple in manga communities but also building up the foundations of his signature house of horrors. There were multiple adaptation projects in the past, among which Uzumaki (the live-action film) and Junji Ito "Collection" encase some of Ito's most popular short stories in anime form. And now with a new anime series Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre recently released on Netflix, and the aforementioned Uzumaki also waiting for an anime in the future, a new wave of attention has been cast over their source manga.

Initially a manga serialized from 1998 to 1999, Uzumaki tells the unnerving story of a small town on the coast of Japan through the lens of teenager Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito. The manga does not take long to introduce the central theme of the plot while also justifying its choice of title; Kurouzu-cho is cursed, fixing its eerie vibe at an incredible pace, but not in the way some may expect.

The author unveils in this vein an antagonist that is neither human nor spirit, but a concept, a pattern. A key feature of Ito's creative genius, the horror here lies in naivety. No one knows how, or why, but the people of this town seem to nurture a bizarre obsession with spirals. In all their sizes and forms, this mysterious pattern fascinates the onlooker to the point of taking over their lives. It seems subtle at first, but soon the common and the mundane turn into something else. “They're everywhere once you look for them”, we find out from Shuichi's father at the beginning of the story, strengthening the almost unbearable claustrophobia of later events. People collect them, stare at them, until they eventually wish to turn into one themselves. Kirie and Shuichi have slowly become victims of the damage spirals inflict on the town and its people and are incessantly trying to find a way of breaking the curse.

It always starts with a small eccentricity. Mundane settings that carry with them only a faint feeling that something is going to happen – a withdrawn boy who wants to leave without clear reasoning, and a girl with a bad hunch. Then, as the narrative builds up, the reader pays witness to a dramatic crescendo into monstrous figures, dynamic fits of madness, and even natural disasters, leaving behind a mystery that is hardly solved.

Uzumaki, a conspicuous example of Ito's grip on horror, stirs deeper sentiments within readers on top of disturbing them with an ugly image. As in the case of many other classics of the genre, his linework layers over anxiety, obsession, and paranoia to worsen the terror. Even a shape can be fatal – that is the main idea that can make illustrations take an even more dreadful form than they actually have. Though we cannot ignore the fact that one of the reasons this manga stands out is the art itself.

Here, for instance, the focus is particularly set on the characters' eyes. They are given a more realistic touch than in most manga out there, stirring and widening under the influence of the spirals, so wildly that becomes hurtful to watch. This is not something new for Ito's art, however, which often shows a keen attention to detail and delivers a multitude of feelings without being too elaborate. Raw, vivid, and ingeniously tailored to the story's themes, it is an art style that is often difficult to adapt to other mediums.

There is no wonder why Uzumaki received the acclaim it takes pride in nowadays, as the world remains in shock for its unique plot and hypnotizing imagery. Through this story, readers have the chance to experience a gradual terror that grows from uncomfortable to horrifying, while Kirie and Shuichi's lives spiral further into the inexplicable.

Black Bird may step closer towards the aesthetics of regular horror, but this wouldn't be a Junji Ito without the typical ‘Ito’ twist that crawls upon the reader's spine while changing their perception of everything they have known before. A short story of routine and continuity, Black Bird is the sixth chapter of Ma no Kakera (Fragments of Horror), a volume of collected works published in June 2014.

It all starts with Kume who has been bird-watching in the mountains. He stumbles upon a severely injured man, who we later come to learn is named Shiro Moriguchi. Moriguchi insists he managed to survive an entire month off his own rations. But in reality, there is something else he's not gathered the nerve to reveal until getting to the hospital. He could not have carried on by himself, he admits, having been rescued by a mysterious bird woman feeding him shreds of pre-masticated meat. Since then, she periodically returns to Moriguchi, and one night in the hospital Kume gets to see her with his own eyes as she leans over his face with an uncanny smile plastered on her.

There are a couple of typical motifs pushed forward by Black Bird's narrative; a succubus, in the regular sense, is believed to be an evil spirit taking woman form and visiting men in their sleep. At the same time, blackbirds are generally seen as bad omens and harbingers of death, often featuring in horror stories for either their symbolism or to fill in the atmosphere.

Despite all this, the terror factor still comes from somewhere else. It's not the woman's monstrosity that seeks to unsettle, but her insistence, to keep returning, that awakens people's fear of a reality that keeps repeating itself. Between the creepy smiles, the bizarre shapeshifting, the repulsive visage of a human nursed by a being, the paranormal manages somehow to grasp onto the most humane of truths. This feeling only intensifies when the reader is met with the conclusion of the story, and they realize time has been the real antagonist all along.

Along with Hanging Balloons, I personally find Enigma at Amigara Fault to be the scariest of Ito's works. Another short story, published this time at the end of Gyo, this work leads us to meditate on some curious phenomena of the human psyche: the call of the void, instinct, compulsion. Placed in Ito's terms, the work is also a creative take on seeing oneself from outside, emulating the discomfort that comes with it.

Two hikers, Owaki and Yoshida, run across each other at Amigara Mountain, where a mysterious fault has been the talk of the press shortly after an earthquake occurred. What's most unusual about the fault is the holes extending into it, gracing in myriads along the surface. Scientists assume them to be carved thousands of years ago, and their shapes are not far from resembling human silhouettes; in fact, there is one made for each of those who come to visit the fault. People feel drawn to them; once someone finds their own hole, they feel compelled to enter, and end up trapping themselves in the mountain.

The first thing coming to mind is curiosity. Questions unconsciously douse the air. Who made them? What for? Where do they lead? Entering them would solve all enigmas.

The psychological factor carries itself stronger here than in most of Ito's manga, as in and of itself the plot does not introduce us to any external dangers. Enigma at Amigara Fault relies on the characters' own self-destructive impulses to evoke the horror. Unlike Uzumaki, which describes a place of no escape from an exterior factor – spirals expanding everywhere – here the uncanny hides within each one of us. The anxiety increases even more when you realize the slightest impulse can lead one to their doom.

Mostly associated with standing on top of a cliff, or a staircase, the “call of the void” (l'appel du vide), also known as “the high place phenomenon”, is a common occurrence interpreted as a fleeting urge to do something spontaneous, unpredictable, and often deadly. In a similar attempt to explain people's tendency toward harmful behavior, Sigmund Freud called it a “death-drive”, or Thanatos, which soon became a prevalent theme in World Literature, from Goethe to Lovecraft and now in pop culture under works such as Ito's. As such, Enigma at Amigara Fault does not just announce a new direction of the horror genre, but also draws attention to complex talking points by trying to find atypical answers to one of the oldest human questions.

That being said, Junji Ito's manga is clearly not for the faint of heart. With grotesque linework, disturbing themes, and conflicted characters, it weaves real human phobias into the most unusual of settings, evoking fear for things that have been considered habits not long before.

Of course, there are many of Ito's other stories that deserve as much recognition. Fashion Model, Whispering Woman, and Dissection Girl, just to name some. Each of them holds a specific allure and embodies Ito's signature approach in one way or another. Lovesickness: Junji Ito Collection won the award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia at the 2022 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Although Tomie was published in 1987 as Ito's debuting piece, she remains up to this day an iconic figure within the manga community.

Whether pieces of Ito's imagination can be rendered into different mediums has been a topic of debate for readers worldwide. Watching the already-existing material can give an answer in itself, while enthusiasts are currently waiting for the Uzumaki anime adaptation to mend their conclusions. Until then, for both fans and newcomers, there are always the manga stories to run across or revisit with shortened breath.