Why Junji Ito's Worldbuilding is so Terrifying

You have nothing to fear, but fear itself. And spirals. An exploration of Junji Ito’s worlds of terrors, and the secrets behind his unique style of horror.
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What type of story scares you the most?

Perhaps something dark, visceral, rooted in physical danger? Or something subtle, psychological, with layers of unseen dread? Or maybe something unknowable, inexplicable, that lifts the veil on reality and exposes the cosmic terrors of the universe?

The work of Japanese horror manga artist Junji Ito exists at the intersection of all our greatest fears. His tales capture primal anxieties so expertly they can seem truly mysterious. So, what I want to do today is peel back those layers of mystery, and explore what makes Junji Ito’s worldbuilding so darn spooky. And to do that, we’ll need to find our courage and dive headfirst into this ocean of terrors…

0:00 Horror of Junji Ito
0:55 Gyo and Death Stranding
4:06 Thing that Drifted Ashore
8:05 The Enigma of Amigara Fault
12:23 Uzumaki
15:26 Translating a Nightmare
18:28 Understanding Junji Ito

Copyright Disclaimer: Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. All video/image content is edited under fair use rights for reasons of commentary.

I do not own the images, music, or footage used in this video. All rights and credit goes to the original owners.

Media Shown: Gyo, Death Stranding, Thing that Drifted Ashore, The Enigma of Amigara Fault, Uzumaki, Remina, House, The Mist, Psycho, It Follows, Eyes Without a Face, The Ritual, Beyond the Black Rainbow, World of Horror, Cat Diaries, Honored Ancestors

♫ Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio:
Mysterious Green Fluid, Sanity Unravels, Haddonfield Horror, Alone in the Dark, Dusk, The Witching Hour, The Vanishing, Tenebrae, The Guardian

Beauty Flow
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

#CuriousArchive #Worldbuilding

[mythicandco]

Junji Ito is awesome because a lot of his stuff comes to him like "hey wouldn't it be fucked up if this happened?" and then he just goes with it

[Yora]

I think when Ito was asked what his inspiration was to create Gyo and the deeper meanings behind the story, he said that he was simply thinking that shark are scary, but would be even scarier if they could chase you on land.
And then he just went to draw fish with legs chasing people on land.

[impcityangel]

When I saw the human shaped holes, I thought about what it would be like to go into one. I was frightened to know that the characters thought the same thing.

[rebelsnowflake]

Really respect Ito for going "man, I'm so scared of sharks. What if they could come on land and get me" and then making all of us scared of that too

[Tyrex_Productions]

It’s so interesting how this channel went from weird biology to cosmic horror. I’m not even mad.

[georgekostaras]

Jungi Ito has a sense of humour, I think that's why he's so scary. He doesn't take anything too seriously. It's why when he gets serious it hits like a freight train.

[EverTheFractal]

I adore that you put focus on how funny and absurd some of his stories can be. I feel like when a lot of people review his works they leave this out and ignore it entirely because they feel like it's somehow an insult or antithetical to the "point" of horror. I think that, in itself, is a disservice. Horror and comedy aren't as distant relatives as a lot of people try to believe! Sometimes the fact that something is so horrifying it loops back around to being funny can leave you with an awkward dissonance that really sticks with you. Yeah the idea that a large version of your head is floating around with a rope like it's some sort of balloon is hilarious! That's a funny concept! That doesn't make the panel where they find out killing the balloon kills you any less stuck in my brain.

[badger]

I never really understood how Junji Ito’s horror really scared people until I read the enigma of Amigara Fault. It sunk into me reading it through, page after page: horror just within comprehension yet it’s true scope beyond the human mind. The telling of a hell so uniquely cruel and terrifying, repellent yet calling out to the characters like that. So I’m a fan :)

[rmt]

"If you can't reason with something, you aren't safe from it." That's an amazing line!
And an even better motif!

[matrythethird]

Something I see a lot in junji ito's work is the invasion of privacy, In a lot of his storys the horrors get really close to the characters, to their space, even the spiral are not a physical monster attacking, they creep in the life of everyone, leaving them unsafe in their own homes

[robertgronewold]

The irony that Junji Ito is a giant cinnamon roll, and yet he creates these stories.

[nattonow]

As a fan of juinji ito and death stranding
Am glad to hear that it was announced he was working with a gane studio on an open world horror game

[Coyoteari]

I love that the actual basis for a lot of junji ito’s work is just “hey wouldn’t it be fucked up if—“

[JustToSaveYou]

The art style Junji Ito uses is so perfectly suited to comic form that it doesn't translate 1:1 to animation. It can be done, but you have to change things to maintain the feeling instead of just animating the image.

[cookiecutter]

I think a huge part of my fear actually comes from the art style itself.
The stark black and white making such detailed, intricate, busy patterns makes me so nervous
I can't begin to understand why.

[casualsatanist]

The cat story is honestly hilarious going from his other stuff, you expect the cat to be some cosmic horror, but in reality it’s just a story about a man who’s afraid of a normal cat, and honestly the suspense reading it got me more than anything else.

[anakin-is-panakin]

I think the thing that traumatized me the most from Junji Ito was when that kid and his bully both become snails and mate together in front of their classmates. It’s just so unsettling.

[purplehaze]

I'm not sure how Junji Ito manages to make such superficially ridiculous-looking imagery and ideas absolutely horrifying, but he manages it. I'd compare the feeling it invokes to the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, but frankly, Bosch only manages to make superficially goofy imagery intimidating through its.. _abundance, _ as though a complete and utter breakdown of order as we understand it has taken place. By contrast, a lot of Ito's work generally conveys that feeling through smaller-scale, more intimate imagery; so I'm at a loss for what to compare it to.

[TheKrilicious]

Junji Ito is the H.P. Lovecraft of our time

[deesevrin]

I read Uzumaki in one sitting, perpetually convinced that my imagination was going to do worse to me than the next chapter if I dared go to bed.
I was traumatized. I was phobic of spirals for solid month after that...and my business' logo which I designed is a spiral I had looming over me every day.
11/10