The term master of horror is often attributed to American author Stephen King without any argument. Turn your eyes to Japan, however, and you’ll discover a writer and artist capable of injecting a far more potent amount of fear into his readers’ veins. Junji Ito is a mangaka who understands phobias, existential anxieties, and the terror of the unknown better than any other horror writer on Earth. Combining a deft artist’s eye with a boundless and terrifying imagination, Junji Ito stands head and shoulders above every other horror writer around. Remina is a science fiction horror, where a newly discovered planet has emerged from a wormhole. While it’s a huge discovery, things turn to despair when scientists realise that the planet is on a crash course with Earth, eliminating other planets in its path. When I have this kind of very clear image right from the start, the story is easy to create. All I have to do is think about it inductively moving, toward the image. I used to create like that a lot. As the ideas dry up, a lot of times I'll write the story by forcing some vague image or idea to take shape. In those cases, it really is a lot of work. Lately, it's been nothing but that."

Hanging Blimp” merges the creepy with the absurd as giant heads with nooses fly through the air, hanging people and floating away with them. Ito’s works have been adapted multiple times. In addition to the Tomie adaptations, one of the most notable adaptations is the horror anime anthology series Junji Ito Collection. This 12-episode series adapts iconic Ito stories, including “Fashion Model,”“Shiver,” and “Smashed,” among many others. Alternatively, you could start with some of the best-known stories, such as Uzumaki, Tomie, and the Shivershort story collection and then branch off from there. Will there be more Junji Ito stories? I understand fully why this story was unpublished until now. It is a whole lot of nothing, and it’s a terrible way to end a collection of such memorable stories. When you finish “Greased,” just call it there.Remina the girl soon becomes famous, then feared, as conspiracy takes hold of the people and they speculate that the planet is headed for its namesake. The seventh tale in this collection, “The Long Dream,” might have you staying awake just a little longer after reading it.

This is a story found in one of Ito’s earlier short story collections, known as the Slug Girl Collection (named after one of the book’s stories). What makes the body horror of The Long Dream so unique is that it doesn’t come in the usual form of explosive and monstrous change (think werewolf transformations from old horror films). The way Ito draws himself, his wife, and the cats makes them all seem like characters in a horror story. And yet, nothing frightening is happening.

Fashion Model: Cursed Frame

While his stories of terror share much in common with Lovecraft, Umezu, and even writers like Kobo Abe and Stephen King, it’s Ito’s distinct ability to bring what he imagines to life in staggering, chilling detail. Dazai’s influence on Ito is apparent not only through the very existence of this manga adaptation, but also for the fact that Tomie Yamazaki — a woman with whom Dazai famously ran away from his wife and family, and who later committed suicide by drowning alongside Dazai — shares her name with Ito’s first manga publication.