Junji Ito: Masterpieces Hidden Behind Sloppy Adaptations
Junji Ito is one of the most influential and prominent mangakas (manga artist) of all time, producing several works that have grown to be renowned worldwide. These works contain grotesque, detailed imagery that encapsulate feelings of dread, sadness, eeriness, and fear seamlessly with a storyline that will leave a reader thinking existentially. Though they sound like morbid intrigue, these works are some of the most well-known and talked about on a global scale, and that’s because of the universal feelings that Junji Ito brings about in his approach to storytelling. Ito’s stories have simple characters with an understandable, everyday motivation, forced into a straightforward but horrid situation.
Junji Ito is no newcomer to the horror genre and has produced these works since the late ’80s, with his first serialization titled Tomie running for 13 years; however, Ito didn't stop there, creating dozens of short and serialized short stories—many of which are available in our bookstore! But unfortunately, as with all great stories, the public demanded a “big screen version” of the work as traction grew for Ito’s works. As time passed, the certainty of an adaptation was inevitable, but no one was prepared for how poorly the finished products would turn out.
There have been sixteen movies to come out over the last 25 years based on these works, all of which have been met with mediocre success, scoring anywhere from a 2/10 to 6.4/10 on IMDb, plus significant public criticism. Some of these movies include Tomie (1998), Uzumaki (2000), Long Dream (2000), Kakashi (2001), with the most recent entry being Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack (2012). Like many failed adaptations, the core issue with these projects wasn’t the source material but the team behind the adaptations.
For example, the Tomie series is a total of nine movies based around the first-ever story serialized by Ito, even though the serialized manga didn’t have enough material to span these many films. The sad truth is that the movies are beyond sloppy and clear cash grabs for those just trying to capitalize on those who enjoy the work of Ito.
The next adaptations to Ito’s work would come after a large gap of time had passed, enough time for the general populace to forget about the movie adaptations’ travesties. After a seven-year hiatus, the next adaptation was released in 2018, titled Junji Ito Collection. This was a twelve-episode, one-season series premiered on Crunchyroll to mediocre success. Like the movie adaptations, the reasoning behind this was the team behind the work. Throughout the show’s runtime, it’s abundantly clear that it will be a clear-cut retelling of the short stories produced by Ito. However, this was too close of a retelling for it to work.
The main issue with the adaptation was that it looked like assets from the manga were just copied and pasted into the story, while the team behind the show did nothing to capture the feel of the manga. Everything in this story feels flat and one-note, nothing like its manga counterpart, which caused any further seasons of the program to be canceled indefinitely. The public backlash from this show forced any team wanting to adapt Ito’s work to be very cautious, knowing the audience would be watching and criticizing.
These failed adaptations, among many others, have left many people feeling as if Junji Ito’s work is unadaptable, but that’s simply not the case. A successful adaptation just needs a team that is willing to put in the effort to transfer the feeling of these manga to the big screen; it’s not going to be easy to adapt this work successfully, but it’s nowhere near impossible.
Adult Swim’s “Toonami” is adapting Uzumaki, set to air later this year. It seems to be sticking very closely to its manga counterpart in a way never before attempted—bringing the manga to life in the same art style. The history of Junji Ito’s adaptations is one littered with subpar work, but the future is looking hopeful for a promising, faithful adaptation.