The thing about Junji Ito is, he's a master of the page-turn. When you sit down and read his work, there's a great pacing where it really draws you in, and the scare is usually on the next page for you to turn over and reveal it to yourself; the reader exerting control enhances the anticipation.
I think it COULD work, but in the same way that I'm Thinking of Ending Things worked when adapted from book to movie, it was basically a different work entirely but both were good
Junji Ito, send tweeto.
I was reading Tombs from Ito recently and I was really suprised how few words he needed to tell a really full and scary story. he doesn't take a second longer than he needs to tell a story.
there are times reading his work where turning the page is like a jump-scare. but knowing that beforehand, it makes turning that page even scarier. like a sinking feeling knowing you need to turn the page yourself even though it's 100% guaranteed to show you something fucked up
with adaptations it comes down to if the team doing the adapting got inspired into a vision by the original or are just doing it cause brand mony The Thing (1982) and The Thing (2011) are a great display of that difference
The iconic wash tub scene is a full page spread, so after following them creaping up to it you're nice and full of dread and turn the page to this:
And this is after a whole chapter of build up, of watching dad go completely off his rocker. So by this point, when he goes missing, you know there's nothing good in that tub. But so do they, and they can't turn away so neither can the reader.
this image made me sleep with the light on on christmas eve, 2018 yeah it was a weird choice to binge Uzumaki at my parents' place during yuletide
He's a phenomenal artist and can drawn some truly unsettling and revolting stuff, but that's not all he is, he's exceptional at pacing out the story so they you've got a trepidation about turning over that page and seeing what's coming... Don't open the door! But you're the one opening the door.
One of those artists who has a real sense of the page as a whole
"There's a Monster at the End of this Book" but for adults! Amigahara is so, so good at this and probably why it's among his most known.
And I think there's always been lots of glaringly obvious shortcomings with adaptations of his work, from low budget (I do credit that movie with introducing me to Junji Ito) to poor animation, but it often misses the big reason adaptations haven't been able to really capture why his work, uh works.
happens a lot in tv/film adaptations to anything i suppose, loses a lot of that pacing due to the change in medium.
In fact, just about the only thing I thought that came close to really getting what makes Junji Ito so brilliant was a game inspired by him called World of Horror, which being a game, you the player also have a hand in the reveal of scares. store.steampowered.com/app/913740/W...
Absolutely! This game to me feels inspired by Arkham Horror LCG (the board/card game) which uses the classic Ito page turn effect via turning over double sided cards to occasionally surprise you with something horrible! They even sneak scary enemies into decks normally reserved for story text etc.
To the point where people have even made custom cross over investigators lol. Credit to EvyEltrian on reddit.
that's great!
I loved World of Horror! I wish it had gotten some more updates though. It was good but felt like it was missing some stuff.
Another game to nail this kind of horror was, of all things, Five Nights at Freddy’s. In the first few games, most of the scares could only occur in response to player action (or in short order afterward) so it builds the same sort of “what’s going to happen when I press this button?” anticipation
The bit at the end of the eel story where the player has to manually use the needle is probably the best game interpretation of “Scared to turn the page” I’ve seen in games
I love World of Horror.
Perfect theme for it too. Nothing like investigating eldritch horrors to go with Junji Ito's aesthetic.
would be interesting to see him work alongside a studio to write/design something unique for animation. a neat opportunity for an anthology or something!
There's little moments in Ito's work that I think could be made dramatically better through performance. I think you'd have to dramatically change any of his stories to make them good on screen, because you're right that he's a master of the page turn. His stories all revolve around a page turn1/1
I'm thinking about that one "This hole is mine" story. I think if you give a good performance of people being drawn to their hole then that performance becomes the central scare and the rest of the story loses most of its power to unsettle. 2/2
& also he uses detail in very... precise ways. Things are detailed in such ways that they move the eye in such ways that time & cognition & environment are expressed in the seeing. (It's related to the skill in pacing) His packing of lines suggests motion & like a lovecraftian excess of reality
I want, nay need to read his works but I have no idea where to track them down.
Got any bookstore with a manga section near you?
I have no idea I'll have to check, I wonder if my library does.
Whereabouts in the world do you hail? 'cos if you're Europe side, a fantastic shop is kennys.ie which I recommend
USA, California is where I live
In that case united-states.kinokuniya.com might be a great bet
They've got stores in SF and LA if you're nearby for a visit, the staff there have been wonderfully helpful when I was in the US.
Thanks
Some libraries in CA have Junji Ito books available in their graphic novel selection. Also highly recommend the Libby app, which is free with a library card and where I recently read his adaptation of Frankenstein
There's an app? Oh cool I'll have to check that out.
He is also a goofy goober. 💜
Probably the best description of their work i haven't been able to verbalize. It is genuinely HARD to stop one of their stories once you start.
Hoping the best Junji Ito adaptation this year will be GDT's Frankenstein
