Anime Hajime Review: Junji Ito Collection

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Junji Ito Collection. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

What makes a Master of Horror?

That’s a hard question to answer, but Junji Ito makes a pretty convincing claim to that title.

In this series, take a trip through the mind of one of manga’s most celebrated horror artist.

These are twenty-four tales of the strange and the terrifying.

Meet a boy who casts curses on those who cross him. A fashion model who sends chills down the spines of everyone who sees its picture. A mysterious fortune teller who only appears at the deserted crossroads on a foggy night. And a beautiful woman who drives those around her insane.

Those and more make up the following collection.

Although they are vast and many, each of these stories has one thing in common.

And his name is Junji Ito.

Series Positives

There can still be a first for me. This series based itself on the works of one man. Or perhaps, what I should be saying is one legend.

Given the nature of LofZOdyssey Anime Reviews, I feel as though I have heard Junji Ito's name in passing. However, I have not had the opportunity to check out any of his work. That is why Mr. Ito wasn't the element which got me interested in this series.

No, what caught my eye about Junji Ito Collection was it being a new horror anime, and I am always on the lookout for the next great one.

I knew Junji Ito Collection was going to be an anthology series much in the same vein as Kowabon and, of course, Yamishibai. For those who are unsure, an anthology series is a collection of stories that have little to no narrative connection. While there may be a central theme, there isn’t usually an overarching plot.

If there is a genre that thrives best in this style, it’s horror.

On top of that, each episode of Junji Ito Collection split itself into two segments. This meant we would get two stories for the price of one. To me, this suggested this series would focus on short bursts of horror, another similarity to both Kowabon and Yamishibai. And speaking of Yamishibai, especially season one, when in the hands of a skilled storyteller, time limitations can be a benefit in adding focus to potential scares.

While these points were promising, they also led me to a few assumptions. For instance, I assumed this would be a short form anime with, at most, fifteen minutes an episode.

Nope, this ended up being a standard length, half an hour per episode, anime. That dampened my excitement for those quick bursts of horror. Doing this seemed to defeat the purpose of making this an anthology series.

Junji Ito Collection could have gone either way, but I was willing to give this show the benefit of the doubt. After all, this series did take its name from a man who, as far as I can tell, is a pretty big deal when it comes to horror manga. That is why I want to make this next statement as clear as possible.

This review only applies to the merits and faults of Junji Ito Collection. This is not an examination of the actual works or talents of Mr. Ito.

With that said, Junji Ito Collection was bad. Like, yeah, this was pretty awful. The last thing I want to hear is this show being an accurate adaptation of Mr. Ito’s stories. Should this be the case, and again, I’m not claiming it is, I will have zero desire to pick up any of Mr. Ito’s books.

Junji Ito Collection made one crucial mistake when it comes to effective horror. It made plenty of other mistakes elsewhere, and I will discuss those in a moment, but regarding horror, this series relied excessively on imagery rather than atmosphere to create a sense of fear. It took three episodes to convince me this show was actually trying to be a horror series and not a dark comedy.

And there is nothing anyone can say to make me believe episode one wasn’t meant to be a joke. More on that later.

One particularly memorable case of this show’s silliness was episode two’s first segment, Fashion Doll. The monster here was so blatantly dangerous I could not stop myself from laughing. Adding to that, the other characters in this story were doing everything they could to ignore the obvious threat on their hands. This made the moment when everything hit the fan that much funnier.

I don’t think this was intentional.

To the show’s credit, Fashion Doll was as ridiculous as it was because the monster was legitimately creepy. I am willing to bet Mr. Ito's art style is part of his true legacy since the creature designs in this series were outstanding.

It didn’t take long for me to lose confidence that anything in Junji Ito Collection would be scary. Nevertheless, I always wanted to see what the next ghost, monster, or being was going to look like. If a Junji Ito art exposition came to town, I would buy a ticket to it.

But in the context of this show, I need to make a distinction. Creepy imagery is a component of horror. Think of it as the cherry on top of a sundae. It would be weird not to have it. But do you know what every sundae on the planet needs to have to work? It needs to have the ice cream.

When talking about scary stories, there should be something to make you hesitate. There should be something that causes you to brace yourself. There should be something to make you want to cover your eyes in fear. That means you are actively trying to avoid the imagery. You not wanting to look is a mark of good horror. Throughout almost the entirety of Junji Ito Collection, there was nothing like that.

And although this was a lackluster horror series, please reread my last sentence carefully. One episode got it right.

Episode Six

Spoilers, I am not going to recommend Junji Ito Collection. However, I will use the fact this was an anthology to my advantage.

Since this show had no all-encompassing story, you can skip right to its one jewel and then jump back out. I wouldn’t want a disappointing series to be the reason you miss out on solid storytelling.

For a show that struggled to be anything scarier than a five-year-old shouting, “Boo,” the sixth episode of Junji Ito Collection stood out. Like the rest of the series, episode six had two segments. And wouldn’t you know it, both were really good.

To start, I want to focus on episode six's second segment, Gentle Goodbye. While this was a ghost story, it wasn’t a horror story. Before you go thinking that’s a point against this segment, hear me out.

Gentle Goodbye was a bittersweet tale which stemmed from an experience we all must deal with. Sooner or later, we will need to say farewell to a loved one.

In this story, through their willpower, a family could create a projection of someone who had passed on. This wasn’t the spirit of the deceased returning, but instead, this was more of an afterimage shaped by the memories of the dead’s family. While this manifestation could interact with the world around them, over time their presence would fade away.

For the family in the story, this allowed them to say their goodbyes over an extended period. The idea was, by the time the deceased’s image disappeared, the family would have gotten over the initial death. Thus, this made the grieving process much easier to handle, getting to the point where it was, usually, nonexistent.

What I liked about Gentle Goodbye was how it explored the logistics of such a practice. While a nice idea, in theory, it didn’t take into account something important. On occasion, there are some deaths you can never get over. It doesn't matter how long a person may be gone, the pain of them not being around will never go away.

Gentle Goodbye may not have been a horror story, but I highly recommend you check it out. But if you want something with a bit more fright, don’t worry, the first segment of episode six has you covered.

Window Next Door was what I had hoped Junji Ito Collection would have been. Not only did this segment have creepy as hell imagery, but it also created an atmosphere that was tense and foreboding. This story was smart about what it decided to show and when it decided to show it. Operating with a simple premise and the unknown factor made this one segment terrifying.

I won’t go into details, but during the first night of this story, something happened, and my immediate thought was, “Nah. This is my ass, and you can suck it. I’m out.”

It may have taken six episodes for it to happen, and unfortunately, the feeling never returned, but Junji Ito Collection managed to get one real scare out of me.

Series Negatives

If it were possible, I would say everything wrong with this show simultaneously. I can’t decide which problem I found to be either the most annoying, the most infuriating, or the most unusual. Making this even harder, all these issues were a mixture of the three.

But since I need to pick a place to start, I will go with the lack of concern in this show.

I can only speak for myself, but the horror stories that get to me the most are the ones where I can sympathize with the characters. When I can put myself into what is going on, the fear is more tangible. It doesn’t matter how mystical or fantastical the setting is, when a person’s attitude or reactions feel realistic, that’s all that’s needed to create a sense of immersion.

And an instant immersion breaker is when characters act like the morons in Junji Ito Collection. Almost without fail, most of the people in this show were hard to watch. It wasn’t as if anyone was making poor decisions; it was more they were not reacting to the craziness that was going on around them.

Two segments that come to mind are Marionette Mansion and Cloth Teacher from episodes four and five respectively.

The first was about a young man from a family of traveling puppeteers. The man’s older brother ran away, and years later the two reunited. The man visited his brother who had settled down with a big house, a beautiful wife, and a son. For a while, this was just your typical family catching up with each other. Nothing was strange about this. Except for the fact that EVERYTHING WAS STRANGE ABOUT THIS.

The brother, the wife, the son, they were all attached to strings that hung down from the ceiling, and they were being controlled like puppets. And the first thing out of the main guy's mouth was not, “Hey, what’s that about?” It took several subsequent visits for this dude to finally bring up how not normal any of this was. Really!? What gave that away jackass?

And this wasn’t even the worst example in Junji Ito Collection. No, that title has to go to Cloth Teacher.

At a school, students were beginning to think their teacher was acting a little off. He was behaving strangely. He would flip between being super goofy and super violent. Not only that, he was a lot more physically flexible as well as durable. He took a freaking nail to the forehead and brushed it off like it was nothing.

So I guess you could say there were two possibilities. One, the teacher wasn’t feeling well. Or two, and this may be me speculating, the teacher's bizarre behavior had something to do with him recently being turned into a GOD DAMN DOLL.

Was this a thing? Did this happen all the time? Was this kind of black magic BS normal in this world? Why did no one show the slightest bit of immediate concern?

Onto the next issue.

Junji Ito Collection had a horrible habit of wasting its good ideas. That’s another thing I have to give this series credit for, this show had good ideas. Scratch that, it had terrific ideas, fascinating ideas. But unless they were in episode six, none of these ideas went anywhere. That or the show tried to force in secondary plot lines that had no purpose to the main point.

There was a segment in episode two called The Long Dream. In this story, a man was suffering from a strange ailment where his dreams would last for a long time. What were moments for everyone else, to this man, his mind would be trapped in a dream that felt like a full day. And that was just where it started.

Soon, that day became two days. Then it became a week. Then those dreams started lasting a month, a year, decades, centuries. Seeing this kind of mental strain affect this man’s body was beyond interesting.

But because of reasons, this story tried to jam in a side plot of a woman with a crippling fear of death. Why, show, would you think anyone would or could care about this?

And yes, this series cramming these two aspects together so they would fit meant nothing. The only purpose this secondary plot served was to give this segment a “shock” ending. To be fair, I don’t know if “shock” is the right word. But regardless of the correct terminology, the final shot of this story was so meh it was a slap in the face to everything that had come before it.

The next problem was something I can only describe as a poor decision on the part of the storytellers.

With this show being our indication, there are a lot of stories to Junji Ito’s name. And like any author with such an extensive bibliography, Mr. Ito has his most notable works. One of those is a title called Tomie.

I don’t much about this story other than the titular character, Tomie, has become a prominent figure in Japanese horror. As of the publishing of this review, along with Mr. Ito’s original manga, there have been eight entries in a Tomie film series.

I am a little surprised there has been no anime adaptation of this story. But what’s even more surprising, Junji Ito Collection decided to give one of Mr. Ito’s most famous characters a single segment in this series. A segment that came in episode nine called Painter.

Had I not known the history of the Tomie character before getting to Painter, there would have been nothing to indicate she was one of Mr. Ito’s signature creations. Tomie in this story was like any other supernatural being in this show.

To me, it’s strange that such a prominent figure who is forever linked to Mr. Ito was regulated to a bit role in a forgettable anthology series.

And before I get called out on it, I am aware Junji Ito Collection will have two OVA episodes following the show's initial run. And this two-part story will be named, Tomie.

Ultimately this doesn’t matter since this is a look at the main Junji Ito Collection series. Ignoring any potential quality, good or bad, I do not factor OVAs into my critiques. Be that as it may, I’m not going to say I’m not considering giving my Impressions on these two extra episodes at a future date this coming October.

Before I finish off this review, I want to make this known. I feel like I have forgotten to mention many other things wrong with this show. This was a bit of a chore, and I'm ready to put this series down.

But first, I have to talk about the character Souichi (voiced by Yuji Mitsuya). He was the reason why I know the first episode, specifically his segment, Souichi’s Convenient Curse, was a comedy. Don’t try to convince me otherwise because as far as I see it, I’m giving this show a break with this assumption.

Every time Souichi was on screen I wanted to punch him in his smug face. He was a massive prick. Everything he did was slimy and gross, and everyone just accepted it. Why were people okay with ignoring him? Why weren’t more people trying to beat his ass into the ground?

You may be thinking to yourself, “Odyssey, why get this upset over one character? There were lots of people in this show. Why single this guy out?”

You are right. There were a lot of other characters in this series. But Souichi had two distinctions. The first being, no other character was even close to his level of annoying. The second, and more the prominent one, he was the only person to star in three segments. That’s right. Souichi was a reoccurring character.

Piss off.

And those two simple words best sum up Junji Ito Collection.

Final Thoughts

This was bad. It’s that simple.

There was one, and only one good episode, and that was episode six. I do urge you to at least give that one a look. Too bad I don’t think I’m going to remember it. Although episode six was solid, it's a shame it's apart of this series.

The horror was weak. The stories were bland. The ideas and monsters were tremendous but wasted. The characters were not worth anything. There is only a single reason why anyone would want to give this show a chance. And that has to do with name recognition.

As an anime for your next fright night, or whenever, Junji Ito Collection is not worth your time.

But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Have you seen this show? What would be your advice concerning Junji Ito Collection? Leave a comment down below because I would love to hear what you have to say.

And if you liked what you read, be sure to follow me on my social media sites so that you never miss a post or update. Also, please share this review across the internet to help add to the discussion.

I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.

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