Junji Ito Books In Order

Publication Order of Black Paradox Books

Publication Order of Gyo Books

Publication Order of Museum of Terror Books

Publication Order of Uzumaki Books

Publication Order of Standalone Manga Books

Publication Order of Collections

Publication Order of Anthologies

Junji Ito is Japan’s most lauded and successful horror writer. Born in 1963 in the Gifu Prefecture, he is a unique storyteller as he is not a short story writer or novelist in the conventional sense. Ito has been called a mangaka with his stories drawn and written with an off kilter, surreal and otherworldly eeriness.

The writer made his writing debut with “Tomie,” when he was just twenty four and has never stopped writing since. While it was quite a successful series of novels, Tomie did not propel him into the halls of famous artists and writers immediately. He would soon decide to pursue a comically bland career as a dental technician.

It was not until the publishing of Uzumaki, his phenomenal horror series that he would come into his own. He slowly but surely made a name for himself in Japan and across the world as the king of terror that has beencompared to the likes of Stephen King.

Following the horror boom in the late 1990s, “Tomie| was made into a film and since then several of his works have also been made for cinema and TV.

As for his biggest influences, Junji Ito has cited Hideshi Hino, Kazuo Umezu as well as legendary creator of the cosmic genre and American author HP Lovecraft. Umezu is one of the greatest mangaka’s in horror and created some of the most celebrated works such as Orochi: Blood.

Hideshi Hino is a film director and mangaka that is known for his “Guinea Pig” films and “Hell Baby.” With such illustrious storytellers as influences, Ito has made quite the legacy for himself. The sweet, mild mannered, charming and calm man is remarkably different from the content and themes of his stories and art.

Junji is a master of suspense, body horror and supernatural otherworldly wrongness. The author very much understands that the most effective way of spoiling mystery and tension is to give the mystery away. As such, he has become very adept at never giving the mystery away.

He usually begins his stories full of normality before they descend into a monstrous and supernatural madness that is usually never resolved. This is what results in the spine tingling feeling in readers, long after closing the last page of any one of his stories.

Junji Ito has said that he gets his ideas from ordinary existential and physical fears. He gets them from the fear of being watched, the claustrophobia and the unknown depths of the ocean.

From there, he usually expands these sparks into terrifying and deadly wildfires. The author has an uncanny ability to develop a shiver of discomfort in his reader as he depicts the supernatural in uncomfortable and grotesque detail.

Ito has a good understanding on how to twist or disfigure the human body to drop his readers into enormous shocks and tingles of discomfort when reacting to his nasty creations and monsters.

In some of his stories, he does not include great cosmic horror as he makes use of impossible mysteries, which are never solved as they are just explored. This is what has made him one of the most popular horror authors in the space.

Junji Ito’s work “Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror Volume I” is a nightmare inducing, creepy and atmospheric story. The premise of the story is that spirals known as Uzumaki seem to have taken over a town and cursed it for some unknown reason.

Could it be that the citizens have a collective madness or OCD? Just like in “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock, the pattern starts with one man and spreads that in the end it infects everyone. The Uzumaki spirals are horrifying, beautiful and powerful things, but their purpose remains a mystery.

In one chapter, Azami develops a swirling scar that suddenly turns her into a femme fatale attracting all manner of guys. In another chapter, Yoriki and Kazunori who live in the projects where almost no one is sane, fall in love in a relationship that looks doomed to failure.

In another story, Kiri who is the lead in most of the stories sees her hair grow into Uzumaki. Another girl’s hair also grows into spirals and does battle with Kiri’s hair. It is a macabre, weird and initially amusing premise that soon turns darker.

Ito’s work “Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror Volume II” is a novel set in a fogbound small town on the Japanese coast known as Kurouzu. The town seems haunted by a bizarre curse of the spiral. Shuichi Saito is the reclusive young man that notices the spiral patterns around town.

Most people have not noticed them and the strange effects they are having until it is too late. Given Shuichi’s history, he is ignored as a conspiracy theorist spinning paranoia induced ramblings.

When his father becomes a victim obsessed with spirals that almost hinges on madness, Saito knows he has to do something to turn things around. He has to act fast, especially after his father decides to become a human spiral by throwing himself into a pottery machine.

The machine crushes his body and contorts his remains into a baggy lump of spirals. He leaves behind a grotesquely disfigured lump that horrifies his wife and son. But the nightmare is not over, as a grotesque humanoid spiral looms over the town when they cremate his fathers remains.
It is at this time that the townsfolk realize that the dangers of the spiral curse are not to be taken lightly.

“Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror Volume III” is a novel set in the Japanese coastal town of Kurozu-cho. It is a town that has repeatedly been haunted by manifestations of spirals that present in increasingly horrifying ways.

Kirie and her family have recently moved into their new refuge following a huge storm. But the spiral curse strikes again as there is a rumor of a family suffering a skin disease manifesting in spirals.

The spiral curse only gets crazier and intense as the small town almost gets destroyed by a storm even as a snail person survives an unsurvivable calamity. Meanwhile, Kirie and her friends and family are kicked off their refuge since it happens to be one of the very few houses that is unscathed from the hurricane.

While they are ready to leave they soon find themselves going in circles as it seems they have become victims of the spiral curse once again. It is an engaging and compelling read that gets more disturbing and dark.