J-Horror and its grandmaster: Junji Ito

Cover for Another by Yukito Ayatsuji

J-Horror is always lots of fun! Creepy ghosts of school girls, haunted houses with vengeful spirits, and unique forces of nature such as technology and the spirits of the environment haunt the pages of many a horror manga and novel. I've taken in quite a lot of J-Horror in my life because my parents wanted me to absorb media from all over the world at a young age. Meaning I got into anime and manga as a wee lad (Spirited Away was the first movie I ever watched, thanks dad).

My first experience with J-Horror was the American remake of The Ring. While it was cool, I was left wanting more. Soon I started watching horror anime and reading Junji Ito manga, and I got my J-Horror fix from there!

The first real J-Horror I experienced was the anime Another, which is based on the novel by Yukito Ayatsuji. It's the final destination of J-Horror, boasting untimely and gruesome deaths. However, the story is believable and takes lots of twists and turns, and has you guessing about the mystery until the very end. It blends the supernatural themes of classic J-Horror with modern American horror elements, making for a suspenseful mystery. I'll see if I can find a PDF of the novel since it's a good read.

Frames from Junji Ito's Cat Diary

Aaaannndddd then there's Junji Ito. I read his multi-volume manga Uzumaki as a sophomore in high school and got immediately hooked. Junji Ito has a way of drawing faces that are horribly realistic in showing the internal feelings of his characters. Fear, shock, depression, and worry are always present on a character's face via wrinkles or sweat, or even the way their pupils dilate. I never liked body horror before reading Uzumaki, I still don't, but something about Junji Ito's art draws me in.

I've read most of Junji Ito's work, so I decided to read something of his I haven't read: Cat Diary. This short series chronicles Junji Ito's experiences with his cats, and what being a cat owner is like. Nothing scary happens, it's just an exaggeration of how we fight for the devotion of our pets because we crave that feeling of being validated by them. There are tons of creepy images and dramatic moments that make Cat Diary feel like a horror story, even though nothing sinister happens. I think this is what makes Junji Ito a horror master, he shows us that anything can be scary if you try hard enough.