The Father of Horror Manga: Junji Ito Vallencia Eyma
In his early 20s, he worked as a dental technician while simultaneously creating manga as his hobby. Ito contributed a short story to a monthly magazine titled “Monthly Halloween,” winning an honorable mention in 1987 for the ‘Kazuo Umezu prize.’ This story was then developed into a manga series Tomie, thus becoming Ito’s First horror manga.
Born on July 31, 1963, in Nakatsugawa, Gifu, Japan, Junji Ito is known to be the father of horror manga with his detailed yet distinguishable art style. Ito was introduced to the world of manga by his two eldest sisters and found solace in the work of artists such as Kazuo Umezu and Shinichi Koga, moving onto the work of Hideshi Hino, Yasutaka Tsutsui, and H.P. Lovecraft. Finding their work exciting surprisinglybut not scary at all, Ito was motivated to learn the art of creating manga, drawing inspiration from stories his parents told him, memories,childhoodor from his surroundings.
The birth of an artist
Uzumaki was inspired by Ito when he lived as a child in an old row house, and his deep fascination with spirals and finding out it’s answers.
As Ito worked as a dental technician, he has gained extensive knowledge of human anatomy from photos and diagrams, which come into play on creating his detailed yet twisted and gruesome images of aliens and monsters.
Some of Ito’s notable works are Tomie, Uzumaki, and Gyo. Getting his ideas from past experiences, Tomie was inspired by the death of a classmate, with Ito exploring the concept of people regenerating after their death. Gyo is inspired by the horrific war stories told to him by his parents—having genetically altered fish as the main antagonist of the story—after naturally developing anti-war feelings.
Junji Ito’s art style can be described as detailed, yet beautiful, grotesque, yet intriguing, dramatic, yet fascinating. Ito’s artwork tends to feature beautiful women thrown in these chaotic, almost always grotesque, and overly dramatic situations. Topics of his work would include jealousy, envy, and greed.
The art style
Ito intended for his audience to lose themselves in this dark pit of despair and succumb to insanity but using supernatural and non-human tactics. He also sheds light on Japanese society, painting it in a negative light. He invokes improper treatment of the dead, addresses Japan’s war crimes during world war 2, the high exploits of Japan’s pop idol industry, and the constant invasion of privacy.
influence
There is this wonder why the media so well receive Junji Ito’s work for such gruesome and detailed stories. Although body horror isn’t new, classic western body horror only showed humans turning into scary monsters of some sort or growing limbs. Ito approaches the subject by distorting the human body in his stories into something that is non-distinguishable.
