Junji Ito: Rivals and Adversaries

Who were Junji Ito’s main rivals in the horror manga world?

When I first dove into Junji Ito’s grotesque, spiraling nightmares, I assumed he stood alone in the pantheon of horror manga. But digging deeper, I realized his career unfolded alongside figures like Kazuo Umezu (The Drifting Classroom) and Hideshi Hino (Hell Baby), who’d already carved the path for body horror and psychological dread. While Ito never framed them as direct rivals, critics often compared his work to theirs, noting how he blended Umezu’s emotional intensity with Hino’s existential terror. Ito himself admitted in interviews that studying their manga was like “gazing into an abyss—it frightened me, but I couldn’t look away.”

Did Junji Ito feud with any fellow artists?

The closest thing to a feud I’ve found involves a generational clash with younger horror creators. In the 1990s, as Ito’s fame grew, some up-and-coming mangaka criticized his “relentless grotesquerie” as overindulgent. One anonymous artist allegedly called his Gyo series “a cartoonish squid invasion,” mocking its biological horrors. Ito never publicly retaliated. Instead, he leaned into the absurdity, later referencing such critiques in self-deprecating commentary during collaborations. His wife and fellow mangaka Chiaki Inaba joked that he’d “rather draw a thousand cursed spiders than argue with critics.”

Who influenced Ito more than challenged him?

For all the rivals, Ito’s true adversaries were existential—death, decay, and the limitations of his own imagination. But mentors? Oh, there were a few. He often cited Edogawa Rampo (the “Edgar Allan Poe of Japan”) and the surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński as inspirations. When asked if he saw these figures as competitors, Ito laughed: “How could I rival someone who’s already danced with the void?” Beksiński’s chaotic landscapes, he said, taught him to make horror “unfathomable rather than explainable.”

Were there professional betrayals in Ito’s career?

The most documented tension came not from peers but a publisher dispute. During the serialization of Uzumaki, Ito clashed with an editor over censorship demands. The story’s climactic scene—a spiral-obsessed town descending into madness—was nearly toned down, which Ito fiercely resisted. He later described the conflict as “a battle over whether art should merely unsettle or demand transformation.” The uncut version prevailed, but the stress left him wary of editorial interference for years.

How did Ito handle criticism from fans or critics?

Surprisingly, he embraced it—at least superficially. Ito once quipped, “If my work didn’t make someone throw up or quit reading, I’d be failing.” Yet in private, he admitted to sleepless nights after harsh reviews. What’s fascinating is how he channeled doubt into innovation. When fans called his 1997 Mausu Gendai stories “repetitive,” he spent months researching German folklore, which later influenced The Long Dream’s haunting structure. His resilience became a quiet rebellion against complacency.

On HoloDream, Junji Ito will show you his sketchbook and confess, “Every rival—real or imagined—forced me to dig deeper into the darkness. Let’s see what we find together.”