‘Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre’ Season 1 Review: Junji Ito’s Works Finally Receive a Decent Anime Adaptation

Horror is one of the most popular genres in film, books, and even video games. The genre knows how to extract that sensation of doing something dangerous that can be very exciting to some people. We, as a species, might not be hunting dangerous animals or exploring new unknown places every single day, but the need to feel that rush is still there, and horror knows how to tap into it. Junji Ito is a master of horror, and his stories blur the line between the mundane and the fantastical in amazing ways. A new Netflix series brings some of these tales to life in the form of animation.

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre is a long title for a series that basically contains only short fiction. Junji Ito’s works have the peculiarity of being mostly composed of short stories. Long-form storytelling is very common in manga, with other series like Hajime no Ippo and One Piece reaching past a thousand chapters mark. One thousand chapters plus one single continuous story. That is a lot. Meanwhile, Junji Ito prefers his stories to last maybe just a dozen pages at most.

Junju Ito has created some long-form storytelling, Uzumaki being the most famous one, but for him, long stories are the exception. We are still waiting for that Uzumaki black-and-white adaptation from Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. Let’s hope it comes sooner than later. So, because most of Ito’s works are short stories, it makes it easy to assemble an anthology series that, in this case, adapts twenty of his short stories into anime form. There have been other series trying to do that, but they have been a bit disappointing.

Why? Because some of these series severely lack any sort of budget at all. Uzumaki’s adaptation seems to be the only high-budget adaptation we will get from a Junji Ito story, everything else that has been adapted has come off as cheap, very cheap. Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre avoids this pitfall and becomes the first decent adaptation of Junji Ito’s works. I use the word “decent” because it is still a low-budget effort, but thankfully this time, the adaptation reaches a level of production that could be considered acceptable and not just a cash grab.

The first thing that makes this adaptation, a decent one, is that the animation, while basic, still respects many of Ito’s most famous characteristics. The anime has managed to translate some stories very well, and yes, we would like for all stories and all anime to have Mappa-level animation, but that is impossible. Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre does what it can with its budget. The result is an anime that still feels limited by its budget but manages to pull through thanks to a great selection of moments where the animators know they have to raise the level.

The animation feels very traditional, but there are some small instances when the series uses CGI to recreate an effect, creature, or situation. There aren’t many of these CGI moments in the series, but when the animators make use of the tool, it is very well implemented. Especially in an episode involving some weird and creepy balloons. Either way, the rest of the show uses mostly 2D animation that might take you back to the anime we used to watch in the early 2000s. Characters’ designs are preserved, and that also makes the show really feel like Ito’s work.

The story selection is admirable. The anime really takes from Ito’s most well-known stories as well as from some more obscure ones, and the package feels like an interesting representation of his work. Most stories are just full-on creepiness with very little room for levity. However, the series also chooses to adapt some of Ito’s stories, starring the character of Soichi Tsujii, a young man who has an inclination for the occult and the macabre. These stories, while creepy in their own right, are also comedic. So the series ends up having a good variety in tone.

While all the stories are different, there are still some common motifs in Ito’s work. He loves to take mundane situations, like going to school, play in a park, and looking for a job, and then add some terrifying element. Elements that make the entire situation go from a normal one to one filled with dread and despair. Almost all of Ito’s stories follow this pattern. So, while it makes them feel a bit predictable at points because you know something bad is going to always happen, you still keep reading or watching just to see what crazy direction the story takes.

In the end, Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, becomes one of the first and, so far, the best adaptations of Junji Ito’s works to the anime realm. The collection of stories is good and varied, and the animation is decent enough that you can watch the show without being horrified at the animation level instead of the stories themselves. We cannot wait for that Uzumaki adaptation to come to our screens. Maybe with that one, the name of Junji Ito will finally be known by the masses, as one of the best masters of horror working at the moment.

SCORE: 7/10