Junji Ito: Master of Japanese Horror

It turns out I can't resist the urge to write something about one of my all time favorite contributors to the world of ultra bizarre Japanese horror. He comes up with the most freakish and nastiest stories I've ever seen, and yet I got nothing but love for this guy. Junji Ito is a manga artist and some of his most notable works include Gyo, Tomie and my personal favorite: Uzumaki. Those have all been adapted to the big screen, but Ito has been writing stories for many, many years so there's literally a ton of amazing stories left to read. How about Glyceride, where a whole house has been swallowed by grease and turns its inhabitants faces into disgusting pimple nightmares? Or about when people steps into human-shaped holes in the side of a mountain, only to emerge on the other side as something else in The Enigma of Amigara Fault.

Ito's stories are very easy to get into because for one, they're often pretty short, and secondly, almost all of them are so uncomfortably interesting and scary that you just have to see what happens next. Nearly all of his stories can easily be found online, so if you just read through some of them I won't blame you if you get completely hooked and MUST READ EVERYTHING (trust me, I've been there). I recommend the short story Fashion Model, where a group of film making students hires the wrong kind of lead for their movie. So many of Ito's stories are perfect nightmare fuel and if you, just like I have, been wondering what's happened to the once almighty Japanese horror scene, Ito is the answer to that. One influence I can see in his work is H.P. Lovecraft, in that his stories often involve a very grounded reality with ordinary people being exposed to horrors beyond their imagination and goes through personal breakdowns. 

As I've said, some of the stories have been adapted into movies (this is Awesome Asian Movies, after all). Gyo, a story where the fish starts to walk and invades Tokyo, became an animated project in 2012. Uzumaki and Long Dream both got the movie treatment in 2000, and Tomie was released in 1999 as the start of a long-running film series. Uzumaki, which has appeared on this blog before, tells the story of a small town where spirals are becoming the obsession of more and more people, and in Long Dream we meet a young man who's begun to have longer and longer dreams without being able to wake up. Ito always manages to win the readers with utterly gross imagery and really captivating, original stories. You'll wish more of the stories had been adapted into movies because some of this stuff is just beautifully horrific and deserves to be shown to more people than just manga readers.

Junji Ito is still drawing manga today, so be sure to check his new stuff out when you're done with his previous work. Hopefully we'll see another movie adaptation in the future (fingers extremely frikkin' crossed) but until that day comes, let's just enjoy all the slugs and ghosts, all the tall scary women with dark eyes and other stories that makes the majority of all new horror films look like kindergarten stuff.

   Red Turtleneck

    The Bully

Uzumaki (2000)

Genre: Horror

Berserk Manga/Anime series (Japan, 1997-1998)

Guts was brought up by a mercenary group since birth. After killing his guardian in self-defense, he runs away. Years later, he encounters Griffith and The Band of the Hawk. The Hawks fight for the King of Midland, and after winning the 100-year war against the neighboring Tudor, they become the King's personal guard. However, once they reach the top, things take a turn for the worse.

Here's an unusual recommendation, coming from this site. A series, instead of a film is what's up today. Now, don't worry, this will most likely be a one-time thing only but I feel I just can't ignore such a huge chunk of a Japanese gemstone. 

Berserk started as a manga series in 1989 and is still running today (if you can believe that). It's set in a medieval high fantasy world which gradually becomes a more nightmarish place and focuses on Guts, a mercenary with a sword twice the size of the soldiers he's chopping down with it. A 25-episode anime series was adapted in 1997, and covered most of the series first story arc. That's where you'll most likely get hooked, and then get your hands on the manga and the three animated films: The Egg of the King (2012), The Battle for Doldrey (2012) and Descent (2013), which I've covered here before.

The characters are one of Berserk's biggest strengths. After multiple viewings of the anime and readings of the manga, The Band of the Hawk starts to feel like your own comrades. The leader Griffith, a beautiful young man who's just as smart and cunning as he is loyal to his friends. Casca, a petite woman but one of the best fighters The Hawk's ever had, and Judeau, a master of knives and wits. The list goes on, but the point is that these are amazing characters you'll fall in love with. 

Also one of my favorite aspects of the series is how Guts is just a human being who's up against seemingly unbeatable odds. While the towering tentacle demons and colossal monstrosities are all coming down on him, Guts only have his trademark sword to fight them with. Berserk has also inspired other high fantasy work, the hardcore and now hugely popular 2011 video game Dark Souls for example have tons in common with the series. What it all comes down to is that it's a tour de force of raw violence and emotions, disgusting monster slaying and a powerful struggle for the fate of mankind, which starts with just a small band of ambitious mercenaries but grows infinitely larger until it reaches beings residing in an existence far from our own. 

Genre: Animation/Action/Fantasy

Berserk Golden Age Arc III: Descent (Japan, 2013)

A year has passed since Guts parted ways with Griffith on that snowy day. Led by Casca and constantly on the run from the Midland army, the Band of the Hawk is plotting a rescue mission to save Griffith from his captors. One night, a group of assassins catches them off guard, and a bloody battle for survival begins. Just as things are beginning to look grim for Casca, Guts reappears and saves the day. With the Band of the Hawk in shambles and Casca determined to return things to normal, Guts rejoins his friends and embarks on a mission to save Griffith.

Descent (a.k.a. Advent) is the third entry in the Berserk film series, and ends the first arc of the popular manga. Luckily there's not as much awful CG as in the first two films, so we can drool even more over the superb animations. Fans of the series knows how Descent ends, but to newcomers the last scenes will stun them without a doubt, as it is one of the most violent and insane moments in animation history and first feels like a cruel, brutal joke. Dark, epic fantasy to say the least.

Genre: Animation/Action/Fantasy