Favorite thing about Ito is that he creates some of the greatest horror manga in existence but when he's interviewed he's just Some Guy™ that loves his cats
I think the people who create the weirdest art are often pretty regular people. For instance, from what I've seen of his interviews John Waters seems like a fun and affable guy.
@@calowenby1654 i think it's more of this idea that they're really comfortable with themselves and the deepest parts of their psyches. theyre in touch with their subconscious and took the time to explore their shadows and bring them to light.
Spirited Away freaked me out when her parents became pigs in the very beginning of the film. Something of it was very disturbing and grotesque as they slammed down food. No face as well had a very unsettling presence whether it be a neutral being or not. Another film that did this was The Last Unicorn. Although it's a sad story, there are plenty of horror aspects that stay in your brain whether you're a child or adult. Strange disfigured faces and disgruntled voices and bizarre creatures really feed that emotion of fear and stress.
nah fr SPIRITED away that moment kinda hit me in as in like a trauma of absent parenting like the ones who were supposed to care your needs and protect you doesn't
Yes! When in spirited away her parents turned into pigs and shes just alone in that world, i felt a sense of dread, of being alone. Like that fear when you were young and you are with your parents in the mall and you are scared of being left by them
OMG LITERALLY!! The Last Unicorn was so unsettling when I watched it as a little child, like it was a good movie, and a sad one but god DAMN was it scary
Bluer Sora Right!!! I always thought so as well. There was a particular eerie-ness. I think the thin line between normalcy and fright is quite good which makes for a good horror movie/show. A good horror movie for me is when it's so subtle that it'll seep through the cracks of the conscious mind and unravel your deepest fears subconsciously.
Funfact about Danny's actor, for years he never knew that he was in a horror movie until he actually watched The Shining himself. Kubrick didn't want him to get traumatized as a kid so he hid anything that might hint that it's a horror set to the guy. Once he accidentally got into the set where Jack Nicholson is holding the axe, and Nicholson immediately danced so the kid wouldn't ask questions.
Considering how much of a prick Kubrick was to the rest of the cast, that's honestly kind of heartwarming that he'd be that considerate towards Danny's actor.
That's true I have yet to read one of his works where the character is experiencing things due to consequences of their own actions (like in modern horror films). It just...happens.
Also in Junji Ito’s works there is a fair share of characters that _know_ what they are doing / the situation they’re putting themselves in will turn into death or worse, and they are scared as hell by it, but also still feel compelled to go on and fall into the corruption and horror The same way we as the readers know that very likely by the end of the story we’ll get scared / unsettled as hell, sometimes for quite some time after finishing reading, but we still feel compelled to turn those damn pages until the end
@@promienodrzutowysamuel790 well that, uzamaki, tomi? I think. But the one with the girl that every guy simps for, and more. Most of the characters in his writing tends to be aware of the dangers, but fall into it, due to desiring something, often something not large, but minor or by needing something to survive. The majority of them tend to feel really human due to it. Wait a
like in fashion model when the guy is like "horrifying woman whose face has terrorized me for months? yeah i should definitely go into the woods with her that'll definitely turn out well"
Actually I've seem more people do what he did then people who do put jump scares when they talk about them but I appreciate it I don't deal well with horror
When he said he doesn't think perfect blue was friteninng I completely disagre as it may not have the creepy visuals it's the realism and the fact that this could happen to anyone type that makes it fritening
Slug girl is the Junji Ito story that made me feel most uncomfortable, mostly due to personal phobias. It was like he knew exactly what would make me personally feel uneasy and amped it up to 10
He has a special preoccupation with slugs, snails, and worms. Flatworms feature prominently in Tomie. Uzumaki has a thing with snails. Some horror writers do spiders, Junji does slugs and worms.
@@ashleyshanks6821love him for that. my arachnophobia physically can't handle spider stuff (not in a horror way. in a "if i look at a spider too long i want to scratch my skin off" way) so ito's work is somewhat of a relief
Horror vs Terror. Horror is the reaction to the jumpscare, the jolt of adrenaline and fear you get from it while Terror is what Silent hill builds upon, your expectations of what's to come and the feeling of everlasting uneasiness every time you open a door or enter a new place.
Tbh I expected it even after he said that, but it still wouldn’t have been a good jumpscare for reasons explained in here so it makes perfect sense why he didn’t do it
I see horror as an organic thing, kinda like comedy in a weird way. It's not something you can force, it's something that should come naturally and evolve naturally.
I think good comedy works exactly like good horror - it's a subversion of what we are expecting. It's just, instead of a funny joke, it's something terrifying.
the main thing about Ito's work that always disturbed me was how he warps people - their bodies, their minds, their sense of self - into these horrible infested things. and worse, the affliction causing this is often contagious, or otherwise inescapable. there's nothing you can do to prevent yourself from being twisted and warped by a spiral, it'll just start happening to you and you can't stop it. loss of bodily autonomy or form is one of the scariest things I've found in his art
Yeah, I think that's another big part of why his stories are so effective- it's just plot that unravels itself as you're reading and as you can't understand it, you also can't escape it. Even if you were to enter each story with the mindset that you know the gist of what's gonna happen (freaky images, bad endings), that's about the only thing he lets you predict. With the rest you are subject to inevitably grow attached to certain characters simply because you follow their adventure or they stick out with some sort of sympathy or relatability, and then you watch as their world is twisted, and maybe even them, too. Even if they come out "alright" in the end, the story will always find a way to leave their situation off on an unnerving note, like things will never be the same again. coupled with his mastery of art and how he can convey feelings not only through narrative themes but by the stroke of his pen alone, it's a great pairing with amazing potential (that he has shown) for a genre like horror.
I’ve actually met someone who has a fear of certain geometric shapes and pattern, spirals being on of them. It’s amazing what he can find a spiral in. Simple pictures or paintings that look to have no spirals at basic glance, he will find one. It’s unnerving when you start to think how these little things are everywhere without notice.
Yeah, it is weird how specific fears can be. I once saw a reddit post where someone said a music video gave them serious feelings of dread because it had this little mini-video in one corner, the size of its frames changing in a loop quickly, so that it was sort of pulsating. (FYI, the video is Streaky, by Death Grips.)
Since spirals are so recurring in nature it makes a lot of sense to develop a fear of them, and for that reason it's worse because we do see and create them constantly
Analog Horror like the Mandela Catalog, the backroom and even stuff like the trollge incidents demonstrates how the internet as a media can be used as a unique vehicle for horror
The last page legit made me question everything I just read, I was starting to drawn into the spiral. I was so drawn to his skill to turn this simple concept of a spiral and turn it into a terrifying thing, over and over again
I found Uzumaki years ago, and I thought it was enthralling. The disgusting wrongness of it all drew me in. The disgust I felt when seeing the mother's stomach about to burst with children fed on blood. It was exquisite.
Loli Aku The thing that scared me about the beast was that he had such a “normal” sounding voice and the fact that they just always had him in the shadows and all the build up and previous paranoia from the previous episodes to just reveal how horrifying the beast looks.
Yo that’s what I was gonna say, it’s not scary in general but that aesthetic should be mentioned and it never leaves the show even after they show what really happened
What made me feel weird or scared as a kid is when the parents in Spirited Away turn into pigs and when Neo in the matrix got the big thing implanted in his belly button.
There's a famous sculpture of a wall with a person-shaped hole in it and I remember seeing a picture of it posted and all the Junji Ito fans were in the comments freaking out and ever since then I've been curious to read his stuff. But I'm also not a fan of horror, I just can't handle feeling frightened very well. Which is super frustrating because I feel like I'm missing out on some really interesting stories.
@@jdprettynails If it helps, I'm also scared of horrors. But I started to slowly introduce myself with 'easier' horrors, and watching 'how to survive' or 'how it was made'. Dissecting the horror (Like in this video, where we learn it's the fear of the unknown/uncanny valley) helps logic out the fear, I suppose. For example, I was scared of Saw, I was worried I'd be kidnapped for something stupid and die. But watching how the traps were made really helped me create a barrier between fiction and reality that helped me consume horror more easily.
Another media that (understandably) gets often overlooked when discussing horror is music. People have this idea that music has to be pleasant, so horror is automatically swept under the rug because unsettling is seen as opposite to pleasant. One of my favourite albums is Mutant by Arca, and the best description of it that I’ve heard is that it’s like an exorcism. I do enjoy listening to it a lot, and I think it’s one of the few albums I know of that I think could fit under the horror category, if such a genre were to exist.
Anyone who's curious if music could be scary or not, go listen to Frankie Teardrop by Suicide. (I have more examples but this is just.., just listen to it)
Exactly! The album Psychosadistic Design by Vulvodynia is absolutely disgusting. It’s death metal, which even though I enjoy the genre, is undoubtedly harsh on the ears. But where the album really gets gross is the lyrics. Every song describes, in great detail, horrible crimes against humanity, and it’s genuinely hard to read through them without getting nauseous. I mean fuck, just look at the titles. “Forced Fecal Ingestion”, “Castration Multilation” Is it enjoyable? No. Because it’s not meant to be. And it’s pretty fuckin cool that they did that.
One thing that made me unsettled while reading a few of Junji Ito's work is that sometimes only one character(and you!) finds the events happening to be weird, while the others accept it as normal. The world has gone insane but that character is still normal. And you feel cornered along with them.
Yes, I felt that it was so weird in Uzumaki how the protagonist girl seemed so nonchalant about it all. Only her boyfriend seems to be taking things seriously, and ~he's~ the one who comes off as unhinged at times
@@victoriaaz6014 THAT'S what made him extremely likable tho imo. He obviously desperately wanted to leave but stayed to help out his girlfriend, completely selfless.
Nicely expressed point. Similar to being in a dream and waking up to realise maybe that wasn't so natural. Neil Gaiman has a similar method, American Gods uses it a lot.
Please watch Mononoke, it’s a BEAUTIFULLY animated horror anime that is incredible at creating an unsettling atmosphere and story. I’m not talking about Princess Mononoke, just Mononoke. You won’t regret it
The entirety of Junji Ito's Cat Diary is him basically confronting his fear of cats because his wife wanted some. It's one of the funniest and most wholesome things I've ever read but he makes sure you understand why he's scared of them. Definitely worth a read.
The thing I love about Junji Ito’s stories is how they can make me feel actually physically sick. They make you squirm. I can’t remember the name of it, but that one short where a family is addicted to drinking grease made me ill. That page where the brother (I think? Maybe the dad) pours his grease/pus filled pimples onto the main girl’s face stayed with me forever. He is unlike any other mangaka out there.
I'm sure it's already been said but The Promised Neverland created an eerie, suspenseful and paranoid environment without relying on jumpscares. It's gorgeously animated and the voice acting is incredible, so much so that it lures you into a false sense of security before reminding you of the danger everywhere
One of the few anime that got me binging it, which is a feat since I tend to get bored and start doing other stuff. It only has a sub, so I couldn't multitask, but it got me hooked. There's happy sugar life, haven't watched it, I heart it's pretty good but I guess it's more thriller or suspense base rather than horror.
Ito's work feels almost like the flip side of Hayao Miyazaki's creations: where Miyazaki embraces the mundane and infuses it with whimsy, Ito inverts it into twisted distortions of possibility. Both examine the cracks of our reality and explore them as a vehicle to carry their respective themes, but where Miyazaki sees fantastical beauty in the unknown, Ito treats us to the underbelly of uncertainty. There's something so surreal that permeates Japanese horror, where its subjects are presented as something that simply *is*, but is not explicable; where victims aren't punished so much as they become unfortunate, silent casualties to entropic forces. Ito's contributions showcase why J-Horror, at its finest, is so uniquely existentially threatening.
Ooh that's a great comparison. I've had nightmares that utterly terrified me, but when I explain it to my fiancé it sounds so mundane. "I was sitting in our living room watching TV and.....there was a really sudden zoom effect." I woke up drenched in cold sweat because of this dream!
Yes! One that's stuck with me for years still makes no sense everytime I try to explain it to people. It was just me, lying in a field, staring at the night stars. All of a sudden, I felt as if I was being pulled into the night sky, like the solar system itself was exerting some unstoppable force on me. My field of vision expanded as I was pulled into the overwhelming cosmos. In that instant, I understood the true size of the universe and felt engulfed by it. I don't think it's scary to read, but when I dreamt it, it filled me with such anxiety and discomfort that I woke up very startled
When I was younger (like 8 to 11 years old) I used to have nightmares similar to the spiral ones. but, instead of that, it was about smooth and straight stuff like silk, thread, straight hair etc. and there was a weird eery voice that was raspy whisper-talking to me about this stuff. It was creepy, I didn't know how to explain it. every time I had that nightmare I used to jolt up awake in a cold sweat and either cry in my room (that I used to share with my siblings and our maid, It was split between us 'cause we used to live in a small two bedroom apartment) and wait 'till I fall asleep or go to the living room and sit at the couch that was next to my parent's room (because I didn't want to wake anyone up) and cry until one of them hears me and comes out, and if they don't I just cry myself to sleep. I'm 14 now and we moved out of that apartment when I was 11, and I've only had it once since we moved. So thank god I don't have them anymore.
I’ve always believed the best horror comes from corrupting the ordinary; things we’ve always viewed as innocuous or even endearing. If I want to avoid the monster in the woods, I’ll just stay out of the woods, but I can’t avoid what I live with every day.
When you challenge people's perception of normalicy, then horror takes on a whole new form. It seems to scare people more than say, a jumpscare of a demonic face. All of our lives, even as children, monsters were seen as otherworldly, gargoilish beings. Now, Junji challenged our perception of monsters by making them human. Such as 'Dissolving Classroom', he took something as innocent as an apology and made it deadly.
Unless the woods begins to encroach upon and consume your home, or the monster just comes out of the woods. Then what? You might want to reconsider your beliefs. Since you don't seem familiar with the horror of monsters finding ways invade your safe spaces. You're only afraid of the familiar becoming unfamiliar. Don't be so quick to dismiss one type of horror for another.
It's the effect of 'nothing is scarier', which I adore in horror. The idea that a lack of any direct scare allows our minds to fill in the blanks or build a sense of creeping anxiety or dread, which is almost always worse.
If you know Junji Ito, then you will hate Konami even more: Creator: Hidejo Kojima Director: Guillermo del Toro Script: Junji Ito Game: Silent Hill The demo was pure horror and what Konami did? Cancelled it. Man, if Dead Stranding is good, then he better gather those team again and make a horror game.
I think it would be better if Junji was director, he is not the story person at least to me, but he has amazing ideas on what and how put something in a work.
I’m still heart broken over that game being cancelled.. imagine if Hideo got them all to work with him under his new company Kojima productions? Imagine the terrifying master pieces they would bring us
Higurashi When They Cry is a really good anime. It has scenes where you just know somethings not right with the characters. They’ll go from talking to staring at eachother as the camera angle flips back and forth from their faces. No sounds but birds chirping or crickets singing can be heard. Then they go back to normal. Those scenes are just bone chilling to me.
That anime is a prime example of when something looks really dumb (sorry, I am not a fan of the art style at all) but the story is so. Freaking. Addictive.
I remember when I was at a birthday party and it was just me and a couple of other girls were around 12 and we did watch Perfect Blue by ourselves cuz one of the girls brought it from her sister's room who like the anime and we all thought it would be like a cute Studio Ghibli kind of film but dang were we were wrong and we were all literally scared to death.
There's an ocean of difference between startling someone and actually scaring them. Your not scared of your dog but if it comes up quietly behind you and barks really loud your gonna jump.
Really. My physical reactions to being startled get confusingly interpreted as fear by other people when my main physical reaction to fear is that I get clammy skin and start to tear up. Maybe it’s because what scares me is usually inescapable existential or cosmic horrors and the unknowable. Like, if I see a ghost I know I’m seeing it but there’s no way to know for sure if anything is there. If nothing is wrong with my environment and apparently nothing with my brain and body… *then wtf am I seeing?* It’s happened a couple of times when I was young, it didn’t matter that I *knew* there was no danger, it’s just… “wait what’s going on?” and nothing explained it.
Have either of you considered that maybe this is a positive thing, that is you wanting to expand your horizons and erode a weakness somewhere deep down? I think it's a good thing. Don't hate yourselves!
its the same masochism that lead horror lovers to more horror. the only difference is ther esistance. i myself im not he best (nor the worst) with thorror. and is odd but i laugh at the emily rose exorcist (that demon looked like a heroine addicted trans), but things like the ring, i dont find them appealing. not that they dont scare , just i cant enjoy them i hate those (sorry for bad english) Anyway, there are many manyessays on why we incstinctively look into for horror and its unsettling feeling while we are on apleacefull enviroment
Puella Magi Madoka Magica was pretty horrifying; it was the first time I had seen the magic girl genre portrayed as psychological horror. The anime remake of the manga really captured that spirit, too.
bro, the series was such a slowburn. I was 13 watching it, and got bored so skipped it to the end.. I'll never forget what that last ep showed me n made me feel ever...
This omg I was thinking of that as I was scrolling through..I love psychological horror animes and also love magical girl animes and that put together. Legitimately one of my favs
one of the most horrible scenes in Coraline (movie) is when she returns to the other world and she sees Wybie's jacket displayed like a flag flapping in the breeze with no explanation as to what happened to him. Unsettling. The mere deceptive concept of the book and movie is also unsettling. Although I found the other father to be very endearing as he was created only to love Coraline and doesn't actually mean her any harm at all. plus... that song.
Oh maaaannnnn. When the two old ladies were in the candy wrapper and they kept grabbing at Coraline while she was trying to get the ghost eye from their hands, that freaked me out. And when the dad sunk into the ground after Coraline got ghost eye from the pumpkin he was riding, and how his voice was all wonky- OH MAN- such a good freaking movie.
I honestly find that the scariest things are the twisting of things we know and see on a daily basis. Because we expect to see these things with certain features but it doesnt have them.
This is one of the fundamental concepts of the body horror genre (which Ito is very clearly a part of and influenced by). It relates to our psychological rejection of graphic or disturbing violations of the human body and its the "normals" we expect of it.
I also felt uneasy about spirals after finishing Uzumaki, but I got over it after a while. But I never got over the snails. The snails man. I was never afraid of or disgusted by snails, but now every time I see one I'm just like "nope"'. Spoilers for Uzumaki: The fact that humans turned into snails, got roasted in a fire and then humans ate them is disgusting and traumatizing enough, but I think the thing that got to me the most was that one panel where there was a burnt snail and it's face, the expression it had...it sent shivers down my spine. It wasn't even some detailed and complicated drawing, but that face will forever haunt me.
Dude I can relate so hard to this like even right now I have a small fan in my room that is kinda in a spiral pattern and its making me nervous, I also had to look away when he first put that white spiral on screen cause it made me dizzy and gave me a sense o f unease.
Another horror series I find that works with these more abstract concepts is The Magnus Archives, it's a podcast with 200 episodes and it slowly transforms from unsettling one off stories to full lovecraftian horror, it's wonderful.
Two things about Ito's work especially stand out to me. The first is his mastery of the uncanny valley. His horror never feels out of the blue, it feels like a rising sense of discomfort as you notice things that are wrong, that are ever so slightly different from real life. He earns his surprises. Even in something longer, like Uzumaki, he always slowly twists the status quo from the last chapter, so you feel constantly rising tension, rather than tension that just suddenly ratchets up every jumpscare. The other thing I've noticed about his work is that it's not conventionally pretty, but it's still mesmerizingly beautiful. It's terrifying and lopsided and viscerally disgusting, but it's very intricate and good at drawing your eye around the page in arcing patterns. I can't help but feel like it's pretty in a way that I as an individual just am not equipped to understand, and it conveys that in emotion, not just technical prowess. Which is perfect for his brand of horror, because it lets you totally accept that there's something happening beyond the scope of humanity.
His artstyle seems pretty normal/average in most panels, but somehow all the panels manage to hook u in and they are immersive af. It is almost cozy and comfortable so much that it is almost addicting. Also, his pacing is pretty fking awesome.
what do you meancan't help but feel like it's pretty in a way that I as an individual just am not equipped to understand, and it conveys that in emotion, not just technical prowess."? You wrote an entire article about you understanding his art.
I've read all the junji stories. All of them. 70% I read when I was a kid. And I guarantee all the stories are scary, and creepy at the same time. Most of the stories don't end well for the main character, and that's the reason why I always end up depressed and feel uncomfortable for several days after I finish reading the story. I'm fine with a spiral face, humans being sucked into holes in the mountains, endless labyrinths whose walls are made of monks who are silent and fast to death, I endure with humans hiding in sofas, and others. Most of the stories above, only gives an uncomfortable feeling for a few days or even a few hours. But. There is one. There is one title that still makes me feel uncomfortable, even now after a very long time when I last read this story. The title is 'The Bully.' Little Belown Spoiler: The Bully, really makes me still ask about the fate of the child. Coupled with the quality of pictures of junji ito who managed to provide a panel that revealed the figure of the mother of the child that I had to admit, I was still afraid of that figure. In fact, it was the figure who often appeared when I closed my eyes while bathing.
@@dread.champloo1368 The protagonist also , just like the others , goes into the hole and in the end , the last panel , u can see those researchers getting horrified over something coming from the cracks from the other side of the mountain , that is probably the protagonist's body , living ( I guess) but horribly disfigured and looking inhumane . So like , if UDK , once somebody enters into their hole , the can't go out of it , it's carved in that way and as you go deeper , it becomes narrower and longer and stretches your body into that shape and the body becomes like a noodle corpse . The ending is not so clear ( just like any other Junji Ito ending) but u can kinda come to some conclusion
the one story of Junji Ito's works that still come up to my mind randomly is the one with the grease. Like seriously, I wanted to throw up when I was reading it. I just can't imagine... ew! But that's really what's amazing about his works honestly.
@@itslonelysaram6722 I think it's called "Glyceride". It's still one of the stories that made me feel nauseous and uncomfortable at the same time. This is why I love Junji Ito's work.
the moment you fade to black my mind automatically assumes defensive position and awaited the jumpscare, in which you beautifully show how easy it is to do, and how cheap it is for pop media to overuse it along with that stupid booming sound effects. whenever i go to watch horror movies, this is what i always point out to whomever im with. that scare and panic/shock is not the same.
Still, it works just fine for some people. I have a friend who is a 350 lb MMA fighter who could stomp most people into a finely ground dust, but every time there's a jump scare (even in non-horror movies) he's libel to go through my ceiling.
Drake Ford as Super eyepatch wolf said, still he was not afraid. its a shock that got overused by modern horror films. like in the example of the shining, and insidious. (although sometimes it works) i think the overuse of jump scares are because of the transition of the directors and/or writers who handle older and modern films.
Drake Ford true, like when in this video he fades to black right? you know it's coming. thats what happens in modern horro xD thats why i cringe everytime theres an advertisement about insidious, the conjuring, annabelle, etc.
Jesslee Tumamao my reaction is always putting down my phone, or any device, and watch from a safe distance, its not that i think whatever the Jump scare (if any) would literally come out, its very different, it helps me to calm down and help not get my heart racing, it is exciting the way that happens but not always for me....
One thing I find striking about Junji Ito's work is that in many stories, the bizarre and horrifying often happens on a large scale. Most horror plays on the fear of being alone. In works like Uzumaki, you could be with your family, your boyfriend, your classmates, or your whole town, and it wouldn't make a difference at all. Suddenly people you've known your whole life could be infected by the horrifying thing and they're no longer safe. I also love how everyone who retains their sanity adjusts to and deals with the bizarre. The difference between build up, suspense, dread, atmosphere, etc, and momentary thrills is why I skew towards supernatural horror in movies over slasher flicks. Although I have seen quite a few supernatural horrors that try to be scary by borrowing from slasher flicks. I think we all know ghosts aren't scary because they might kill us. In most cases they can't even touch us.
The best form of horror is slow build up, and never actually any solid moments of "horror". Just a feeling of unease like something WILL happen. Basically what I'm saying is, psychological horror is the best. -especially if you live with extreme- -anxiety and paranoia already- -lol. Just extra fear after- -the shows over-
I totally agree. That's why I really like Stephen King books because he builds the scene for so long and by the end of the story, each character has gone completely insane somehow and it feels so tangible. Pet Semetary was a good one. And when they tried making it into a movie, it definitely fell short in terms of suspense. I think I like horror so much because the adrenaline it gives me is like low key addicting.
Four years ago yesterday, you introduced me to Junji Ito's work. Now I'm only a month away from getting a panel of Tomie tattooed onto my arm. Thank you for introducing me to my now favourite artist. It's changed me, and I have you to thank.
When I think of animated horror, my brain immediately skips to Courage the Cowardly Dog. From the lonely atmosphere to the somber color palette of many of the episodes, the setting was top notch. I always felt uneasy as a child watching the show. Then take into account the songs they would add in, or the attention to detail the animators would put on every small thing. Courage was not an aesthetically pleasing show, but it had rules that defined how it operated. Not to mention, it did a great job of mixing the different methods of animation to make something so abhorrently wrong. When a show is defined by a specific style, and then that style is subverted with a character or setting that is meant to be there, and is meant to be in the wrong style, you come up with something that leaves people with nightmares. I still, almost 2 decades later, think about the clay-mation girl or the CGI ghost. It's terrifying, and I think a great example of animated horror done right, when the animators wanted to delve into that.
It definitely was not aesthetically pleasing, but it definitely knew horror. And it also knew how to be heartwarming as well, still makes me tear up to this day!
Tara Alexander I don't know I never got scared of the show actually I found it funny but there was one character that was really scary and that was that red cat
Honestly jump scares are so hated, because they're increadibly easy to pull off...and INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE. most people hate it when the "easy road" is taken, but jump scares work on a primal level due to ambush predators working that way. We fear it because its built into us to fear it. Just like the unknown.
BEX if you're into novel and short stories, I find some similarities with Edogawa Rampo (the author, not the manga/anime). had you read Junji Ito's Human Chair, you may like the original version by Rampo :)
berserk mayhaps, although thats more of a drama with horror elements it has no shortage of fucked up imagery and artwork especially during the conviction arc
yeah, for me the execution, artstyle and characters make up for it but if thats not your thing i can understand, if you are unsure and need more information i believe this very channel has a good video accurately describing the appeal of berserk "why you should read berserk"
I feel like drawing this stuff is scarier than consuming it- having these visuals and terrifying characters come to fruition right before your eyes, and you’re making it. And then, after that you put the pen down and go to bed, knowing that be it in an office or in your house, your work is there.
As someone who creates stuff like this, yes, it is scarier to create it, because that kind of stuff is in your head all the time, always evolving and becoming more and more.
As an illustrator that specializes in horror, I don't feel it is quite like this. My characters are part of me, and I can't detach them from the analitical perspective I need to inmerse myself to create them. Precisely because I see them come to fruition slowly, I am familiar with them by the time I'm finished, the uncany valley is completly lost on me then. With my own work I could never experience the chills and the suden uncanny feeling I get from watching other's people art.
an animator who has a cute style but also manages to creep me out when intended is cuptoast. her style is cute, bubbly, and simple yet “cat on mars”, “amnesia was her name”, “two times”, and others i cannot remember have made my skin crawl. for some her art style might take away any scariness are for others they might think that there’s nothing scary at all. but the idea of being the last living person because you were in space when the earth blew up and slowly running out of food and your will to survive, is quite terrifying.
another artist with a normally cute/upbeat style who is surprisingly good at horror is shen(bike cuck guy lol). he makes pretty good horror illustrations for scary story comics every halloween
I actually got a chance to read Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki” because of your video and I’ll never forget how completely disturbed and terrified I felt reading it. It was the same feeling I felt when I first watched “The Shining” when I was 11 on Halloween night. This analysis is well thought out. Thank you for making me a Junji Ito fan.
I remember reading the entire Uzumaki story in one go after checking out the Jack in the Box story first. The whole book was such a trip but I was really shaken up after already reading Jack in the Box XP it’s cool to see the story get more exposure and be introduced to many through video essays like these, but oh man-the dread/thrill(?) of heading in without much preparation was something else
@@alphalax7747 Im pretty sure he was refering to the whole pack of directors... One Kubrick, Junji Ito (altough im not sure if comic director work exist at all...) One Kon... i dont know many people who likes the three of them
When I first heard of Uzumaki, I thought it was just a weird concept by a bored artist. By the end of it, I had a deep sense of dread and horror that persisted for days. I didn't become afraid of spirals or anything, but every time I saw one, I felt a flash of unease like I was walking a bridge and peeped through a chain-link fence that served as a barrier, and saw how high I was. There was no danger of me falling or the bridge collapsing, but it still made me uncomfortable
The last page legit made me question everything I just read, I was starting to drawn into the spiral. I was so drawn to his skill to turn this simple concept of a spiral and turn it into a terrifying thing, over and over again
The fact that you incorporated Silent Hill OST , is an instantaneous subscribe. Also , because I appreciate how smoothly put together your content is :)
I agree with you. Horror is not about jump-scare, gores scene, some deformed monster or even "based on true story crap", it's more about emotional impact and unsettling feeling. And as the horror fan myself, I think the most effective tool of horror is "plot-twist". In short, I love when there is something unexpected about the story or better it betrays the expectation of the reader/audience.
yuhihe I think that’s why I like Hereditary so much. They didn’t depend on Jump Scares or gore to create a Heavy and Unsettling feeling in the Audience. They focused on using the subject material, and misdirection in their commercials in order to create that feeling in the audience. Granted, the movie isn’t perfect by any means, but it does better than most other movies do today. I’ve noticed that people who enjoy and prefer cheap horror that depends on jump scared and gore HATE Hereditary.
Junji Ito: See this Raven? Me: Yes Ito: Perfectly normal, right? Me: Yes Ito: Imma fuck that up Me: *Unholy screaming as the raven contorts into a monstrosity*
Adam Zahavi True, look at something like ‘Hoarders’ while not a great example of horror, compulsion can be unintentionally terrifying. I think these kinds of expressions have a lot more truth to them because while we notice our compulsion towards things, we’re ‘enigmatically’ drawn towards our own demise anyway. It’s almost poetic in a way.
Coraline is unsettling. I think in order to make animation horror you need to make it into the uncanny valley and switch it slightly between fine and uncanny. So it needs to be on the edge. Constantly.
@@LeBornMajes Caroline is popular as the scariest shit on this category and due to that none has ever seen it.From my experience 1/10 people who have seen and met the terror of monster house has also seen Caroline.Myself included, I haven't seen Caroline but i know what it is known for.
My favorite artistic horror works are the ones that can balance aethstetically pleasing and aethstetically unnerving moments. Like a character can have a cute design, but when the artists wants to give off a feeling of dread, they'll add extra details that make the character seem uneasy. Take for example: Kagegurui. This anime is in no shape or form a scary anime, but has certain scenes where the art style sort of shifts to invoke a feeling of fear. A character's features may become much too detailed for a stylisticly-porportioned body, which can make a viewer uncomfortable.
I dont know if this is what you were looking for but seNMU does some pretty unnerving mangas, like I'm Not Scared, I'll Always Be With You, and What Hides In Your Mind? (Also, this isnt all that scary, but A Classroom Bereft Of Angels is pretty good)
Yes, great..Of course I watched some dub versions here on youtube. And now I couldn't unforget the slurping voice of the woman in "Window next door"! "Deeeaaar Boy..."
camille diane sanks. I'm kinda hating myself right now for not f***ing choosing to watch this the other times I saw the thumbnail, which was at day light, but when it's all ready 12:00 PM great.
My favourite genre as of now is psychological horror. Instead of using jumpscares to quickly scare the viewer/reader/player, it uses your emotions and messes with you while being able to build an immersive and unsettling story. Mainly, I play psychological horror video games because, as was said in the video, they don't show you the story of the victim, but make you one. I really enjoy Junji Ito's works because they are different from other usual horror stories. I would love to see how he even makes up his ideas. Great video!
Not gonna lie, when you talked about jumpscaring us, I immediately lowered my computer volume by 60% and got into a fetal position. The wave of relief that flowed afterwards was immense.
Junji wrote a story that was almost identical to a dream I had once and reading it I was just saying "no no no" the whole time. It was crazy to read something I had dreamed.
I read that too! And apparently loads of people experience these dreams, which is just so messed up and can't even deal with that. 'Cause then you have to ask, what shared memories do we as a species have that make us all have these dreams? What used to hunt us that's left identical nightmares in our psyche even now? And is it still out there...?
Depends how much information constitutes a spoiler to you. Personally, I often find even trailers have too many spoilers. For example, I never watched the trailer for the movie "The World's End" and so to me it had a really great plot twist, whereas for everyone else that's just what the plot was supposed to be.
Im the same as you. As soon as Im interested, I stop watching trailers or looking for info. To this day Im avoiding anything related to Bloodborne, because some day Im buying a PS4 to play it...
Believe me, if that pages seems scary to you... You really have to read it! He just stops in the right moment just to show the less possible. There are no spoilers in this video. And yes, Ito's work is really awesome.
Animated horror: I'm quite a wimp when it comes to horror media, the feeling of something being out there to scare me scares me more than the scare itself. Salad Fingers used to scare the shit out of me. Still does, never watching that shit again.
SOMEONE FINALLY SAYS THAT JUMPSCARES ARENT GOOD HORROR THE AMOUNT OF JUMPSCARES SHOVED INTO 'HORROR' MEDIA MAKES ME HATE MOST OF THE GENRE BECAUSE THEY ARENT EVEN SCARY AND ITS JUST A SAD EXCUSE FOR THE REAL BEAUTIFUL AND UGLY EXTENTS THAT IS THE HORROR GENRE thank you for this video
jumpscares can be used correctly though. like in the movie poltergeist or the sixth sense, they can be used wonderfully. it's not the scare itself that's supposed to terrify us, its the buildup. if there's no buildup for a jumpscare, or no suspension, then it's not powerful and is just cheap. its also with how much you use it, because if you do, then your audience is always on edge and the scares dont scare them. you have to use them sparingly. there's a video by now you see it ( i think? ) where he talks about it i highly recommend.
Ghost hunt was a paranormal ghost hunting anime that is fantastic. It plays on that silly real life ghost hunting trope but takes it to a fictional world where you can really immerse yourself in the lore of the universe which is closely relatd to our own. It played really well with the creepiness
i've noticed with both Lovecraft and Ito, if you try to explain the premise some of their stories they don't sound scary at all. A bunch of Fishmen live in a fishing town, a dude wanders around an island for a while being watched by some weirdo monster in the distance, a town becomes cursed with spirals, sharks start crawling on land with robot legs, and human shaped holes start appearing in a cliffside. it shows the craft they put into their horror to make the mundane unfathomable.
I think it's natural and inevitable at this point. Nothing against super wolf,It's just mean content creators in general. I just tend to enjoy them while I can and hope their golden age lasts for as long possible.
I think David Lynch set the bar for horror and the power of the ideas proposed in this video since his debut in the late 70s. I'd recommend his films to anyone who appreciates art, not simply just horror.
+Murderotica That scene in Mulholland Drive where we slowly turn around the corner to see that creature is one of the most shocking/scary scenes. He knows how to make the audience uncomfortable
I totally agree. Horror movies need to go back to being MOSTLY Dread and Atmosphere with MINOR scare tactics/Jump scares. I'd say a good 80/20 or 90/10 balance would be ideal.
![ARGENTINA vs. PERÚ [1-0] | RESUMEN | ELIMINATORIAS SUDAMERICANAS | FECHA 12](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/xtI25ENDDSY/mqdefault.jpg)
not jumpscaring me was scarier than jumpscaring me
Anticipation is scary, man.
even after the black screen, I was still waiting for something,
and it scares me
I just covered my ears in panic and faced away
Made me realize how dark my room was 😖
I know. Just jumpscare me, dude.
i appreciated you not jumpscaring me.
The anticipation was worse though
Half of your likes is because of your profil picture
@@mateal_2769 Jealous much?
Nope it's just hilarious
@@mateal_2769 Fair enough
Normal horror fans: scared of: ghosts, monsters, vampires..
Junji Ito fans: scared of : spirals, balloons, Grease
I'm pretty uneasy with mountains now. Those fucken holes man.
And apparently, apologies.
I'm scared of fish now
Chairs.
@Daruxma 4hi parasyte is not junji ito's work
Favorite thing about Ito is that he creates some of the greatest horror manga in existence but when he's interviewed he's just Some Guy™ that loves his cats
I think the people who create the weirdest art are often pretty regular people. For instance, from what I've seen of his interviews John Waters seems like a fun and affable guy.
@@calowenby1654 i think it's more of this idea that they're really comfortable with themselves and the deepest parts of their psyches. theyre in touch with their subconscious and took the time to explore their shadows and bring them to light.
@@calowenby1654 same with fujimoto tatsuki
@@Kgopani3101 nah hes as fucked up as his manga lmao
@@lanny007 a masochist
“Jump scares are the equivalent to a comedian tickling you to make you laugh”
-some tweet I read
It's more like a sucker punch compaired to real martial arts. It's maybe effective but doesn't take much skill and doesn't work when you expect it.
Holy shit thats such an accurate comparison
Jump scares can be done well, but relying on them is moronic.
LivingOnLifeDyingfromLife187
What a boomer
LivingOnLifeDyingfromLife187
Kk but what if I wasn’t making a joke? You legit sound like ur fuckin 58 or something
Horror is what cripples your mind, not your stomach.
The stomach cripples your body ;)
It cripples both
That's terror
@@timesweeper9778 stephen king fan?
@@distantsea A bit. Not much though.
"I kid you not, he turns himself into a spiral. Scariest shit I've ever seen."
spiral rick
Teehee
@@MotobugGaming oh shit
"I TURNED MY SELF INTO AN ELDRITCH SPIRAL MORRRTTTY!!!"
Is that quote from something?
Spirited Away freaked me out when her parents became pigs in the very beginning of the film. Something of it was very disturbing and grotesque as they slammed down food. No face as well had a very unsettling presence whether it be a neutral being or not. Another film that did this was The Last Unicorn. Although it's a sad story, there are plenty of horror aspects that stay in your brain whether you're a child or adult. Strange disfigured faces and disgruntled voices and bizarre creatures really feed that emotion of fear and stress.
same... made me quit watching the movie in disney channel as a kid
nah fr SPIRITED away that moment kinda hit me in as in like a trauma of absent parenting like the ones who were supposed to care your needs and protect you doesn't
Yea the pig scene was horrifying to me as a child.
Yes! When in spirited away her parents turned into pigs and shes just alone in that world, i felt a sense of dread, of being alone. Like that fear when you were young and you are with your parents in the mall and you are scared of being left by them
OMG LITERALLY!! The Last Unicorn was so unsettling when I watched it as a little child, like it was a good movie, and a sad one but god DAMN was it scary
I think the show "courage the cowardly dog" did the best horror animation in any cartoon ive seen, even today I think its creepy.
Bluer Sora Right!!! I always thought so as well. There was a particular eerie-ness. I think the thin line between normalcy and fright is quite good which makes for a good horror movie/show.
A good horror movie for me is when it's so subtle that it'll seep through the cracks of the conscious mind and unravel your deepest fears subconsciously.
yup couldn't agree more
Bluer Sora For me it's gotta be Coraline and Courage the cowardly dog as my number one picks for the scariest animations.
"you're not perfect"
The forced proportions and perspectives always made me uncomfortable
Funfact about Danny's actor, for years he never knew that he was in a horror movie until he actually watched The Shining himself. Kubrick didn't want him to get traumatized as a kid so he hid anything that might hint that it's a horror set to the guy. Once he accidentally got into the set where Jack Nicholson is holding the axe, and Nicholson immediately danced so the kid wouldn't ask questions.
Tamaki742 omg REALLY! Poor thing! That's honestly kind of funny!
Considering how much of a prick Kubrick was to the rest of the cast, that's honestly kind of heartwarming that he'd be that considerate towards Danny's actor.
huh what a nice guy
Ok then why was he being a prick kamalindsey?
He probably didnt understand what he was saying or what he was pretending to be. Besides there are plenty of lies they could come up with for that.
A thing that terrifies me about Junji Itos work is that the horrific events always happen to innocent people without explanation
That's true I have yet to read one of his works where the character is experiencing things due to consequences of their own actions (like in modern horror films). It just...happens.
The spring guy. He got kinda bullied right? Dunno kinda forgot
Not really innocent people . Some deserved it lul
kek lul well all part in part of life I think the manga is trying to tell us that there is no innocent people just people
@@gypsyfreak7934 based
Also in Junji Ito’s works there is a fair share of characters that _know_ what they are doing / the situation they’re putting themselves in will turn into death or worse, and they are scared as hell by it, but also still feel compelled to go on and fall into the corruption and horror
The same way we as the readers know that very likely by the end of the story we’ll get scared / unsettled as hell, sometimes for quite some time after finishing reading, but we still feel compelled to turn those damn pages until the end
I feel like you are specifically referring to The Enigma of Amigara fault
@@promienodrzutowysamuel790 well that, uzamaki, tomi? I think. But the one with the girl that every guy simps for, and more. Most of the characters in his writing tends to be aware of the dangers, but fall into it, due to desiring something, often something not large, but minor or by needing something to survive. The majority of them tend to feel really human due to it. Wait a
like in fashion model when the guy is like "horrifying woman whose face has terrorized me for months? yeah i should definitely go into the woods with her that'll definitely turn out well"
@@noel2641 nah
The little Boys in the lighthouse in Uzumaki. For example.
i admire your sincerity of totally not putting a actual jump-scare in there, anyone else would have.
Actually I've seem more people do what he did then people who do put jump scares when they talk about them but I appreciate it I don't deal well with horror
yms wouldn't xD
Erraticpillow LOL your thumbnail makes it look like you're especially thankful he didn't! XD
I literally said "Come on wolf, get on with it" right before he said he wasn't going to do one.
I could not stop laughing.
I was expecting one at the end of the video.
Perfect Blue was one of the scariest things I have ever seen. It was confusing and had no jumpscares.
Satoshi Kon is a great director who puts his works creep factor to the max
I’m still thinking about it months later. Just the pure unease in certain scenes is stuck in my brain
the movie makes you SO uneasy
When he said he doesn't think perfect blue was friteninng I completely disagre as it may not have the creepy visuals it's the realism and the fact that this could happen to anyone type that makes it fritening
will watch.
Lets be honest, Courage the Cowardly Dog did a great job at scaring us
.
Bruh I legit could not watch that as a child.
Duuuude to this day I'm still traumatized, they only aired that ish at night.
I’m still can’t watch the mummy episode
@@thegirlwholovedhercrushbac9278Naah that weird barber and the cat were scarier than Ramses slabs🤣
Terrifying but lovely
Slug girl is the Junji Ito story that made me feel most uncomfortable, mostly due to personal phobias. It was like he knew exactly what would make me personally feel uneasy and amped it up to 10
after reading it, if i stick out my tounge far enough, i get nauseous. i read it like a month ago.
My mouth feels uncomfy whenever I get reminded of the "Slug Girl" I feel compelled to drink water and take a shower
@@user-nb5jo2xi1g what? I wouldnt wanna
Theres slug in the water.
No cat tho.
He has a special preoccupation with slugs, snails, and worms. Flatworms feature prominently in Tomie. Uzumaki has a thing with snails. Some horror writers do spiders, Junji does slugs and worms.
@@ashleyshanks6821love him for that. my arachnophobia physically can't handle spider stuff (not in a horror way. in a "if i look at a spider too long i want to scratch my skin off" way) so ito's work is somewhat of a relief
Jump scares aren’t horror, they’re simply streams of adrenaline. That’s it.
Jump scares aren't scares. They're a momentary startle.
“A man could jump out in front of me and mug me, but that’s not horror. That’s just living in the U.K” ~ Pyrocynical
@@aquafreshfan3022 😂
Horror vs Terror.
Horror is the reaction to the jumpscare, the jolt of adrenaline and fear you get from it while Terror is what Silent hill builds upon, your expectations of what's to come and the feeling of everlasting uneasiness every time you open a door or enter a new place.
So what you are saying is that they are more a tool for action than for horror.
i guess things really...
_spiralled_ out of control with uzumaki
I wanna hate this but I can't
Ha.....ha....haha
I stepped on a snail the other day and it haunts me
Idk why but after reading a different comment the inside of my ear hurts.. I'm terrified.
Badum tsss
"I'm not going to, but i could have."
[H UMONGOUS EXHALE OF RELIEF, FAITH IN HUMANITY RESTORE D]
Tbh I expected it even after he said that, but it still wouldn’t have been a good jumpscare for reasons explained in here so it makes perfect sense why he didn’t do it
@@galacticat7144 It did a pretty good job of building the tension.
I was flippin waiting for it to punch my computer
came directly to the comments after he said that, thinking he was still gonna do it 😂
CONSIDER: a truck went by and beeped effectively jump scaring me.
I love how waiting for the Fake jumpscare scared me more than a Real one. Emotions are always stronger that reactions
I see horror as an organic thing, kinda like comedy in a weird way. It's not something you can force, it's something that should come naturally and evolve naturally.
Thats a really good way of putting it, fair play dood
Existential Crisis like a good fart if you have to force it it's sh*t
Joee Exactly. If you force a fart to be more then it is, it could end up a disappointment.
your name in combination with your icon and what you're saying is amazing
I think good comedy works exactly like good horror - it's a subversion of what we are expecting. It's just, instead of a funny joke, it's something terrifying.
the main thing about Ito's work that always disturbed me was how he warps people - their bodies, their minds, their sense of self - into these horrible infested things. and worse, the affliction causing this is often contagious, or otherwise inescapable. there's nothing you can do to prevent yourself from being twisted and warped by a spiral, it'll just start happening to you and you can't stop it. loss of bodily autonomy or form is one of the scariest things I've found in his art
you worded it so good! you can run away from monsters but not yourself
Yeah, I think that's another big part of why his stories are so effective- it's just plot that unravels itself as you're reading and as you can't understand it, you also can't escape it. Even if you were to enter each story with the mindset that you know the gist of what's gonna happen (freaky images, bad endings), that's about the only thing he lets you predict. With the rest you are subject to inevitably grow attached to certain characters simply because you follow their adventure or they stick out with some sort of sympathy or relatability, and then you watch as their world is twisted, and maybe even them, too. Even if they come out "alright" in the end, the story will always find a way to leave their situation off on an unnerving note, like things will never be the same again. coupled with his mastery of art and how he can convey feelings not only through narrative themes but by the stroke of his pen alone, it's a great pairing with amazing potential (that he has shown) for a genre like horror.
That's called body horror
I’ve actually met someone who has a fear of certain geometric shapes and pattern, spirals being on of them. It’s amazing what he can find a spiral in. Simple pictures or paintings that look to have no spirals at basic glance, he will find one. It’s unnerving when you start to think how these little things are everywhere without notice.
Did you recommend Uzumaki to him?
Jonah J Calm down, Satan.
nah it isn't unnerving at all. Why tf would it be? I understand it might be for this particular person but normal ppl? hell no.
Yeah, it is weird how specific fears can be. I once saw a reddit post where someone said a music video gave them serious feelings of dread because it had this little mini-video in one corner, the size of its frames changing in a loop quickly, so that it was sort of pulsating. (FYI, the video is Streaky, by Death Grips.)
Since spirals are so recurring in nature it makes a lot of sense to develop a fear of them, and for that reason it's worse because we do see and create them constantly
Analog Horror like the Mandela Catalog, the backroom and even stuff like the trollge incidents demonstrates how the internet as a media can be used as a unique vehicle for horror
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown"
Yotunfrau, a lotta people who were cool authors, scientists, and nice people in the past were mega racists, doesn’t discredit what they did!
racism isn't real, just like Hewlett Packard's "shorts"
It can also relate to the fear of death which goverment or whoever benefits from us uses it.
Amen brother
And that's y I don't want to see a joker origin movie
"There's nothing frightening about a spiral"
-Me being anxious everytime when I see a spiral after reading Uzumaki
Dusan Lekic i felt this
there's a snail in your ear. :v
The last page legit made me question everything I just read, I was starting to drawn into the spiral. I was so drawn to his skill to turn this simple concept of a spiral and turn it into a terrifying thing, over and over again
@@proweeb4141 Yeah, that's what one of the greatest horror story telling manga artist does to you
lmfaooo i thought i was the only one
i remember the first time ive watched spirited away, the scene where her parents turned into pigs terrified me so much
Saammee
sushi devil “no name” creature scared me
Woooooooord.
M 511hh MEEE FUCKING TOOO
I had dreams about that years later when I already forgotten from which movie it was because I was that young
I found Uzumaki years ago, and I thought it was enthralling. The disgusting wrongness of it all drew me in. The disgust I felt when seeing the mother's stomach about to burst with children fed on blood. It was exquisite.
Ugh don't remind me, I just finished reading it
That was…a sentence that I simultaneously wish I never read and also fills me with the worst morbid curiosity-
What was exquisiste? The story, the children, or the blood? Guess we'll never know.
That one felt the worst for me. I don’t think it was all that well written but it was so incredibly fucked up compared to everything else.
THESE MUSHROOMS ARE DELICIOUS.
Over the garden wall is an underrated masterpiece with amazing visuals and aesthetic choice and it can be truly horrifying at times
Hi There The Beasts true form terrified me
Loli Aku The thing that scared me about the beast was that he had such a “normal” sounding voice and the fact that they just always had him in the shadows and all the build up and previous paranoia from the previous episodes to just reveal how horrifying the beast looks.
Yo that’s what I was gonna say, it’s not scary in general but that aesthetic should be mentioned and it never leaves the show even after they show what really happened
I'm so glad someone else noticed this about the show 🥺
Not really
What made me feel weird or scared as a kid is when the parents in Spirited Away turn into pigs and when Neo in the matrix got the big thing implanted in his belly button.
You mean Neo?
J F yeah shit
yeah it was the bit where neo's mouth closed up that freaked me out so much as a kid
Yeah spirited away
I REALLLY didn’t want my parents turning into pigs, so the thought of that fucked me up too lol
Because I read Junji Ito's novels I can never look at windows, ceilings, floors, containers and much more the same way again.
@Hecantonchire s I have developed phobia for dreams, long dreams to me more accurate
I can't look at birds the same...
@@jayjo8607 WHERE IS MAMI
There's a famous sculpture of a wall with a person-shaped hole in it and I remember seeing a picture of it posted and all the Junji Ito fans were in the comments freaking out and ever since then I've been curious to read his stuff.
But I'm also not a fan of horror, I just can't handle feeling frightened very well. Which is super frustrating because I feel like I'm missing out on some really interesting stories.
@@jdprettynails If it helps, I'm also scared of horrors. But I started to slowly introduce myself with 'easier' horrors, and watching 'how to survive' or 'how it was made'. Dissecting the horror (Like in this video, where we learn it's the fear of the unknown/uncanny valley) helps logic out the fear, I suppose.
For example, I was scared of Saw, I was worried I'd be kidnapped for something stupid and die. But watching how the traps were made really helped me create a barrier between fiction and reality that helped me consume horror more easily.
Another media that (understandably) gets often overlooked when discussing horror is music. People have this idea that music has to be pleasant, so horror is automatically swept under the rug because unsettling is seen as opposite to pleasant. One of my favourite albums is Mutant by Arca, and the best description of it that I’ve heard is that it’s like an exorcism. I do enjoy listening to it a lot, and I think it’s one of the few albums I know of that I think could fit under the horror category, if such a genre were to exist.
Kikuo is a very good horror music artist, as a good starter horror song by him would be cotton candy I think
like LORN
Anyone who's curious if music could be scary or not, go listen to Frankie Teardrop by Suicide. (I have more examples but this is just.., just listen to it)
@@squelar844 Try the album "Transformalin" by Diagnose Lebensgefahr
Exactly! The album Psychosadistic Design by Vulvodynia is absolutely disgusting. It’s death metal, which even though I enjoy the genre, is undoubtedly harsh on the ears.
But where the album really gets gross is the lyrics. Every song describes, in great detail, horrible crimes against humanity, and it’s genuinely hard to read through them without getting nauseous. I mean fuck, just look at the titles. “Forced Fecal Ingestion”, “Castration Multilation”
Is it enjoyable? No. Because it’s not meant to be. And it’s pretty fuckin cool that they did that.
One thing that made me unsettled while reading a few of Junji Ito's work is that sometimes only one character(and you!) finds the events happening to be weird, while the others accept it as normal. The world has gone insane but that character is still normal. And you feel cornered along with them.
Yes, exactly! Underrated comment!
Yes, I felt that it was so weird in Uzumaki how the protagonist girl seemed so nonchalant about it all. Only her boyfriend seems to be taking things seriously, and ~he's~ the one who comes off as unhinged at times
@@creativename8275 sadly he never left the city, lol
@@victoriaaz6014 THAT'S what made him extremely likable tho imo. He obviously desperately wanted to leave but stayed to help out his girlfriend, completely selfless.
Nicely expressed point. Similar to being in a dream and waking up to realise maybe that wasn't so natural. Neil Gaiman has a similar method, American Gods uses it a lot.
4:30 when the screen is faded to black I immediately put my phone far from my face lol
ME TOO LOL
Same
Dude I was so waiting for something
I put it on mute and prepared to look away
i saw my reflection and through my phone out he window
Psychological horror has this long lasting fear effect that stays with you even after seeing it. Jump scares are made for just that one moment.
Thats why i prefer jumpscares 😭
junji's work is prime example of 'never let them know your next move'
I guess the story of Uzumaki spiralled out of control
l e a v e
That was pretty funny
OMG that was so fuNny haha lol *puts gun to head*
b u d m t s s s s s.
Davog Devenney u r my new best friend omfg
Please watch Mononoke, it’s a BEAUTIFULLY animated horror anime that is incredible at creating an unsettling atmosphere and story. I’m not talking about Princess Mononoke, just Mononoke. You won’t regret it
Mononoke is such a great show (but doesn't get the attention it deserves)! I also recommend Ayakashi which is like a prequel to this series
just finished watching perfect blue, i was looking for more horror anime, thank you i'll check it out :D
@@shihuasun1973 i see, you're a man of culture as well.
@@ohwell7101 Can you recommend me some?
Shiki is also a great psychological horror
Two videos and I'm already convinced he would make the most intense English teacher ever
Absolutely. I’m sick right now and have been on a binge of his videos, and holy shit I’d pay to listen to him rant for hours.
The entirety of Junji Ito's Cat Diary is him basically confronting his fear of cats because his wife wanted some. It's one of the funniest and most wholesome things I've ever read but he makes sure you understand why he's scared of them. Definitely worth a read.
When the screen went black I thought there was gonna be a jump scare I was wrong but I saw my face so does it count?
honestly same
Yes because you are scary ugly
Lol same
I’m the 666th like 😏
Mood
The thing I love about Junji Ito’s stories is how they can make me feel actually physically sick. They make you squirm. I can’t remember the name of it, but that one short where a family is addicted to drinking grease made me ill. That page where the brother (I think? Maybe the dad) pours his grease/pus filled pimples onto the main girl’s face stayed with me forever. He is unlike any other mangaka out there.
That one is called glyceride, I just finished reading it and I think I'm traumatized
Glyceride genuinely took me off of fried food. So I did a cosplay of yui...
I'm not one to have nightmares (seriously, I've had maybe 3 in my lifetime), but Glyceride made me so disgusted that I nearly threw up mid-nightmare.
After reading it my friends decided to torture me with it so that was fun
But that's not horror.
That's disgust.
I'm sure it's already been said but The Promised Neverland created an eerie, suspenseful and paranoid environment without relying on jumpscares. It's gorgeously animated and the voice acting is incredible, so much so that it lures you into a false sense of security before reminding you of the danger everywhere
One of the few anime that got me binging it, which is a feat since I tend to get bored and start doing other stuff. It only has a sub, so I couldn't multitask, but it got me hooked. There's happy sugar life, haven't watched it, I heart it's pretty good but I guess it's more thriller or suspense base rather than horror.
tpn is a work of art
@@yourmum569 facts
Season 2 though
Season 2 is FCKED up tho they should have followed the manga
Ito's work feels almost like the flip side of Hayao Miyazaki's creations: where Miyazaki embraces the mundane and infuses it with whimsy, Ito inverts it into twisted distortions of possibility. Both examine the cracks of our reality and explore them as a vehicle to carry their respective themes, but where Miyazaki sees fantastical beauty in the unknown, Ito treats us to the underbelly of uncertainty. There's something so surreal that permeates Japanese horror, where its subjects are presented as something that simply *is*, but is not explicable; where victims aren't punished so much as they become unfortunate, silent casualties to entropic forces. Ito's contributions showcase why J-Horror, at its finest, is so uniquely existentially threatening.
I want to see a hybrid.
This is why the SCP foundation is so good at being scary when it wants to be.
I agree
Saw this as the first comment, the comment algorithm has chose you.
I expect this to blow up
I also agree
Edit: but it depends
I disagree
The one about a watchtower with hundreds of levels above it creeps me out hard.
Junji ito gives you that feeling of a nightmare that you cant explain when you wake up
Ooh that's a great comparison. I've had nightmares that utterly terrified me, but when I explain it to my fiancé it sounds so mundane.
"I was sitting in our living room watching TV and.....there was a really sudden zoom effect."
I woke up drenched in cold sweat because of this dream!
And you keep that nightmare to yourself because you can't share it with people around you, like it's your own burden
Yes! One that's stuck with me for years still makes no sense everytime I try to explain it to people.
It was just me, lying in a field, staring at the night stars.
All of a sudden, I felt as if I was being pulled into the night sky, like the solar system itself was exerting some unstoppable force on me. My field of vision expanded as I was pulled into the overwhelming cosmos.
In that instant, I understood the true size of the universe and felt engulfed by it.
I don't think it's scary to read, but when I dreamt it, it filled me with such anxiety and discomfort that I woke up very startled
When I was younger (like 8 to 11 years old) I used to have nightmares similar to the spiral ones. but, instead of that, it was about smooth and straight stuff like silk, thread, straight hair etc. and there was a weird eery voice that was raspy whisper-talking to me about this stuff. It was creepy, I didn't know how to explain it. every time I had that nightmare I used to jolt up awake in a cold sweat and either cry in my room (that I used to share with my siblings and our maid, It was split between us 'cause we used to live in a small two bedroom apartment) and wait 'till I fall asleep or go to the living room and sit at the couch that was next to my parent's room (because I didn't want to wake anyone up) and cry until one of them hears me and comes out, and if they don't I just cry myself to sleep.
I'm 14 now and we moved out of that apartment when I was 11, and I've only had it once since we moved. So thank god I don't have them anymore.
@@jdprettynails me when I see a sudden zoom effect -> 💀
I’ve always believed the best horror comes from corrupting the ordinary; things we’ve always viewed as innocuous or even endearing. If I want to avoid the monster in the woods, I’ll just stay out of the woods, but I can’t avoid what I live with every day.
Very well put!
When you challenge people's perception of normalicy, then horror takes on a whole new form. It seems to scare people more than say, a jumpscare of a demonic face. All of our lives, even as children, monsters were seen as otherworldly, gargoilish beings. Now, Junji challenged our perception of monsters by making them human. Such as 'Dissolving Classroom', he took something as innocent as an apology and made it deadly.
Unless the woods begins to encroach upon and consume your home, or the monster just comes out of the woods. Then what?
You might want to reconsider your beliefs. Since you don't seem familiar with the horror of monsters finding ways invade your safe spaces. You're only afraid of the familiar becoming unfamiliar. Don't be so quick to dismiss one type of horror for another.
That's the element of cosmic horror.
As Abigail Hill started as a lovely girl in the beginning of The Favourite, and turned out to be a disgusting character.
ive loved junji ito for YEARS and it makes me so happy someone else if finally appreciating his work as much as i do :D
The lack of the jumpscare actually made me more uneasy for the rest of the video, great job :'D
I was low-key expecting a jumpscare at the end of the video.
And that's... How media scares us
*boom*
@@juanvazquez5836 *_d a m n_*
We always seem to be waiting for the jumpscares to find us.
It's the effect of 'nothing is scarier', which I adore in horror. The idea that a lack of any direct scare allows our minds to fill in the blanks or build a sense of creeping anxiety or dread, which is almost always worse.
If you know Junji Ito, then you will hate Konami even more:
Creator: Hidejo Kojima
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Script: Junji Ito
Game: Silent Hill
The demo was pure horror and what Konami did? Cancelled it.
Man, if Dead Stranding is good, then he better gather those team again and make a horror game.
I think it would be better if Junji was director, he is not the story person at least to me, but he has amazing ideas on what and how put something in a work.
You're right, this video made me hate Konami even more now
Oh yeah... I remember that. P.T. was the demo right? Silent Hills. Such a shame.
I’m still heart broken over that game being cancelled.. imagine if Hideo got them all to work with him under his new company Kojima productions? Imagine the terrifying master pieces they would bring us
Is that the game PT was made for? Cause I'm still super salty about that, this just makes it worse.
I thought he was actually gonna give me a jump scare, I instinctively lowered my volume to almost nothing
-and hid in the comment section (yeah im a baby)
You're beautiful
Same!!
Same here (if he watnted, after you calm down when he say it wont and start talking about something else, THERE a jumpscare would be really effective
Alannah lol same and i backed away from my phone xD
Higurashi When They Cry is a really good anime. It has scenes where you just know somethings not right with the characters. They’ll go from talking to staring at eachother as the camera angle flips back and forth from their faces. No sounds but birds chirping or crickets singing can be heard. Then they go back to normal. Those scenes are just bone chilling to me.
yes i was just about to comment this!! definitely recommend when they cry
That anime is a prime example of when something looks really dumb (sorry, I am not a fan of the art style at all) but the story is so. Freaking. Addictive.
Was coming here to comment this anime!
I remember when I was at a birthday party and it was just me and a couple of other girls were around 12 and we did watch Perfect Blue by ourselves cuz one of the girls brought it from her sister's room who like the anime and we all thought it would be like a cute Studio Ghibli kind of film but dang were we were wrong and we were all literally scared to death.
i watched it a few days ago. i am traumatised
@@Victor_Graves You think that’s scary? Yubaba is a real life person and her name is Susan Collins
I've watched Perfect Blue a few days ago. It was confusing to watch.
@@woooshifyougay5103 what was traumatizing about it?
@@mugiikari1641 what - 👁️👄👁️
There's an ocean of difference between startling someone and actually scaring them. Your not scared of your dog but if it comes up quietly behind you and barks really loud your gonna jump.
Really. My physical reactions to being startled get confusingly interpreted as fear by other people when my main physical reaction to fear is that I get clammy skin and start to tear up. Maybe it’s because what scares me is usually inescapable existential or cosmic horrors and the unknowable. Like, if I see a ghost I know I’m seeing it but there’s no way to know for sure if anything is there. If nothing is wrong with my environment and apparently nothing with my brain and body… *then wtf am I seeing?* It’s happened a couple of times when I was young, it didn’t matter that I *knew* there was no danger, it’s just… “wait what’s going on?” and nothing explained it.
Me: can't stand horror
Also me: watches videos about horror in the middle of the night.
Clearly, I must hate myself.
TheSecretLover I’m the same. Though I prefer the supernatural elements of horror rather than the horror itself.
Have either of you considered that maybe this is a positive thing, that is you wanting to expand your horizons and erode a weakness somewhere deep down? I think it's a good thing. Don't hate yourselves!
its the same masochism that lead horror lovers to more horror. the only difference is ther esistance. i myself im not he best (nor the worst) with thorror. and is odd but i laugh at the emily rose exorcist (that demon looked like a heroine addicted trans), but things like the ring, i dont find them appealing. not that they dont scare , just i cant enjoy them i hate those (sorry for bad english)
Anyway, there are many manyessays on why we incstinctively look into for horror and its unsettling feeling while we are on apleacefull enviroment
TheSecretLover yep. same here.
TheSecretLover
Good meme
Puella Magi Madoka Magica was pretty horrifying; it was the first time I had seen the magic girl genre portrayed as psychological horror. The anime remake of the manga really captured that spirit, too.
bro, the series was such a slowburn. I was 13 watching it, and got bored so skipped it to the end.. I'll never forget what that last ep showed me n made me feel ever...
This omg I was thinking of that as I was scrolling through..I love psychological horror animes and also love magical girl animes and that put together. Legitimately one of my favs
Madoka is probably one of my favorite animes. Man, its themes of hope and despair are soooo amazingly well done.
I say Coraline is good animated horror. The Other Mother and The Other Father are so creepy and uncanny...
gray leopard ill never forget how scary that tiny door and path is
one of the most horrible scenes in Coraline (movie) is when she returns to the other world and she sees Wybie's jacket displayed like a flag flapping in the breeze with no explanation as to what happened to him. Unsettling. The mere deceptive concept of the book and movie is also unsettling. Although I found the other father to be very endearing as he was created only to love Coraline and doesn't actually mean her any harm at all. plus... that song.
Oh maaaannnnn.
When the two old ladies were in the candy wrapper and they kept grabbing at Coraline while she was trying to get the ghost eye from their hands, that freaked me out.
And when the dad sunk into the ground after Coraline got ghost eye from the pumpkin he was riding, and how his voice was all wonky-
OH MAN- such a good freaking movie.
I got scared before I remember
I honestly find that the scariest things are the twisting of things we know and see on a daily basis. Because we expect to see these things with certain features but it doesnt have them.
This is one of the fundamental concepts of the body horror genre (which Ito is very clearly a part of and influenced by). It relates to our psychological rejection of graphic or disturbing violations of the human body and its the "normals" we expect of it.
One of the scariest things for me are people but one feature of them is off. Having eyes that are to big, way to many teeth, being to long
Domestic horror
Uzumaki is not horror.
It's a traumatic experience.
Now I can't see a spiral, without a feeling that that thing will swallow my existence
I also felt uneasy about spirals after finishing Uzumaki, but I got over it after a while. But I never got over the snails. The snails man. I was never afraid of or disgusted by snails, but now every time I see one I'm just like "nope"'.
Spoilers for Uzumaki:
The fact that humans turned into snails, got roasted in a fire and then humans ate them is disgusting and traumatizing enough, but I think the thing that got to me the most was that one panel where there was a burnt snail and it's face, the expression it had...it sent shivers down my spine. It wasn't even some detailed and complicated drawing, but that face will forever haunt me.
3nu! Same with me, the snail people concept was one of the scariest in my opinion. I wasn’t that fond of snails to begin with but now they horrify me.
Dude I can relate so hard to this like even right now I have a small fan in my room that is kinda in a spiral pattern and its making me nervous, I also had to look away when he first put that white spiral on screen cause it made me dizzy and gave me a sense o f unease.
Imagine living with curly hair :P
Spirals...spirals everywhere...
Yeah, hi from the future. I've come to say that said manga will be adapted into an anime on Toonami
Another horror series I find that works with these more abstract concepts is The Magnus Archives, it's a podcast with 200 episodes and it slowly transforms from unsettling one off stories to full lovecraftian horror, it's wonderful.
Two things about Ito's work especially stand out to me.
The first is his mastery of the uncanny valley. His horror never feels out of the blue, it feels like a rising sense of discomfort as you notice things that are wrong, that are ever so slightly different from real life. He earns his surprises. Even in something longer, like Uzumaki, he always slowly twists the status quo from the last chapter, so you feel constantly rising tension, rather than tension that just suddenly ratchets up every jumpscare.
The other thing I've noticed about his work is that it's not conventionally pretty, but it's still mesmerizingly beautiful. It's terrifying and lopsided and viscerally disgusting, but it's very intricate and good at drawing your eye around the page in arcing patterns. I can't help but feel like it's pretty in a way that I as an individual just am not equipped to understand, and it conveys that in emotion, not just technical prowess. Which is perfect for his brand of horror, because it lets you totally accept that there's something happening beyond the scope of humanity.
His artstyle seems pretty normal/average in most panels, but somehow all the panels manage to hook u in and they are immersive af.
It is almost cozy and comfortable so much that it is almost addicting.
Also, his pacing is pretty fking awesome.
what do you meancan't help but feel like it's pretty in a way that I as an individual just am not equipped to understand, and it conveys that in emotion, not just technical prowess."? You wrote an entire article about you understanding his art.
@@zakatayas8719 i may have gotten carried away haha
it's just pretty but also terrifying is my poiny
Hehe, "twists", that's a good one, even if not intentional.
I've read all the junji stories. All of them. 70% I read when I was a kid. And I guarantee all the stories are scary, and creepy at the same time. Most of the stories don't end well for the main character, and that's the reason why I always end up depressed and feel uncomfortable for several days after I finish reading the story.
I'm fine with a spiral face, humans being sucked into holes in the mountains, endless labyrinths whose walls are made of monks who are silent and fast to death, I endure with humans hiding in sofas, and others. Most of the stories above, only gives an uncomfortable feeling for a few days or even a few hours.
But. There is one.
There is one title that still makes me feel uncomfortable, even now after a very long time when I last read this story.
The title is 'The Bully.'
Little Belown Spoiler:
The Bully, really makes me still ask about the fate of the child. Coupled with the quality of pictures of junji ito who managed to provide a panel that revealed the figure of the mother of the child that I had to admit, I was still afraid of that figure.
In fact, it was the figure who often appeared when I closed my eyes while bathing.
What happened in the enigma
@@dread.champloo1368
The protagonist also , just like the others , goes into the hole and in the end , the last panel , u can see those researchers getting horrified over something coming from the cracks from the other side of the mountain , that is probably the protagonist's body , living ( I guess) but horribly disfigured and looking inhumane . So like , if UDK , once somebody enters into their hole , the can't go out of it , it's carved in that way and as you go deeper , it becomes narrower and longer and stretches your body into that shape and the body becomes like a noodle corpse .
The ending is not so clear ( just like any other Junji Ito ending) but u can kinda come to some conclusion
where can i read them online???
the one story of Junji Ito's works that still come up to my mind randomly is the one with the grease. Like seriously, I wanted to throw up when I was reading it. I just can't imagine... ew! But that's really what's amazing about his works honestly.
@@itslonelysaram6722 I think it's called "Glyceride". It's still one of the stories that made me feel nauseous and uncomfortable at the same time. This is why I love Junji Ito's work.
the moment you fade to black my mind automatically assumes defensive position and awaited the jumpscare, in which you beautifully show how easy it is to do,
and how cheap it is for pop media to overuse it along with that stupid booming sound effects. whenever i go to watch horror movies, this is what i always point out to whomever im with.
that scare and panic/shock is not the same.
Still, it works just fine for some people. I have a friend who is a 350 lb MMA fighter who could stomp most people into a finely ground dust, but every time there's a jump scare (even in non-horror movies) he's libel to go through my ceiling.
Drake Ford as Super eyepatch wolf said, still he was not afraid. its a shock that got overused by modern horror films. like in the example of the shining, and insidious. (although sometimes it works)
i think the overuse of jump scares are because of the transition of the directors and/or writers who handle older and modern films.
Jesslee Tumamao Nah, he's *definitely* scared. XD
In general though, you're right. For me they've gotten to predictable to even illicit a flinch.
Drake Ford true, like when in this video he fades to black right? you know it's coming. thats what happens in modern horro xD
thats why i cringe everytime theres an advertisement about insidious, the conjuring, annabelle, etc.
Jesslee Tumamao my reaction is always putting down my phone, or any device, and watch from a safe distance, its not that i think whatever the Jump scare (if any) would literally come out, its very different, it helps me to calm down and help not get my heart racing, it is exciting the way that happens but not always for me....
One thing I find striking about Junji Ito's work is that in many stories, the bizarre and horrifying often happens on a large scale. Most horror plays on the fear of being alone. In works like Uzumaki, you could be with your family, your boyfriend, your classmates, or your whole town, and it wouldn't make a difference at all. Suddenly people you've known your whole life could be infected by the horrifying thing and they're no longer safe. I also love how everyone who retains their sanity adjusts to and deals with the bizarre.
The difference between build up, suspense, dread, atmosphere, etc, and momentary thrills is why I skew towards supernatural horror in movies over slasher flicks. Although I have seen quite a few supernatural horrors that try to be scary by borrowing from slasher flicks. I think we all know ghosts aren't scary because they might kill us. In most cases they can't even touch us.
The best form of horror is slow build up, and never actually any solid moments of "horror". Just a feeling of unease like something WILL happen. Basically what I'm saying is, psychological horror is the best.
-especially if you live with extreme-
-anxiety and paranoia already-
-lol. Just extra fear after-
-the shows over-
that_kid nobody_notices I live with extreme anxiety and I absolutely adore horror because it makes me feel strong for watching it
A big yes to this. You know it's good when it kinda messes you up there
Hereditary did a good job with that
@@thehomiedani927 true
I totally agree. That's why I really like Stephen King books because he builds the scene for so long and by the end of the story, each character has gone completely insane somehow and it feels so tangible. Pet Semetary was a good one. And when they tried making it into a movie, it definitely fell short in terms of suspense. I think I like horror so much because the adrenaline it gives me is like low key addicting.
Four years ago yesterday, you introduced me to Junji Ito's work. Now I'm only a month away from getting a panel of Tomie tattooed onto my arm. Thank you for introducing me to my now favourite artist. It's changed me, and I have you to thank.
How did the tattoo turn out?
^
@@TheUcHiHaMaD prolly like shit
@@ABCDuwachui oof
I just discovered Junji Ito's work... absolutely amazing :D
When I think of animated horror, my brain immediately skips to Courage the Cowardly Dog. From the lonely atmosphere to the somber color palette of many of the episodes, the setting was top notch. I always felt uneasy as a child watching the show. Then take into account the songs they would add in, or the attention to detail the animators would put on every small thing. Courage was not an aesthetically pleasing show, but it had rules that defined how it operated.
Not to mention, it did a great job of mixing the different methods of animation to make something so abhorrently wrong. When a show is defined by a specific style, and then that style is subverted with a character or setting that is meant to be there, and is meant to be in the wrong style, you come up with something that leaves people with nightmares. I still, almost 2 decades later, think about the clay-mation girl or the CGI ghost. It's terrifying, and I think a great example of animated horror done right, when the animators wanted to delve into that.
robotigirl I absolutely agree, I always thought that show was too unsettling for even teenagers..Glad I'm not the only one!
It definitely was not aesthetically pleasing, but it definitely knew horror. And it also knew how to be heartwarming as well, still makes me tear up to this day!
Tara Alexander I don't know I never got scared of the show actually I found it funny but there was one character that was really scary and that was that red cat
that show unsettled the crap out of me as a kid but i still couldnt stop watching.
You're not perfect
Honestly jump scares are so hated, because they're increadibly easy to pull off...and INCREDIBLY EFFECTIVE. most people hate it when the "easy road" is taken, but jump scares work on a primal level due to ambush predators working that way. We fear it because its built into us to fear it. Just like the unknown.
Who else was waiting for the jump scare even after he said he wasn’t going to do it? 💀
That's true horror
That is true fear.
That is true fear.
I'm on my phone and have my headphones in...so I muted the video and turned my screen to the side 😂
I was honestly covering my phone’s speaker and slowly backing my phone away from me 🤣
I fucking love Junji Ito. His art is incredible and I've never come across another artist can can inflict fear the same way his works do.
BEX if you're into novel and short stories, I find some similarities with Edogawa Rampo (the author, not the manga/anime). had you read Junji Ito's Human Chair, you may like the original version by Rampo :)
berserk mayhaps, although thats more of a drama with horror elements it has no shortage of fucked up imagery and artwork especially during the conviction arc
+SerNoddicusTheGallant I google Berserk and from what I have seen the manga contain a lot of rape?
yeah, for me the execution, artstyle and characters make up for it but if thats not your thing i can understand, if you are unsure and need more information i believe this very channel has a good video accurately describing the appeal of berserk "why you should read berserk"
did he stop making stuff? :( i've been waiting for new ones for more than a couple of years
I feel like drawing this stuff is scarier than consuming it- having these visuals and terrifying characters come to fruition right before your eyes, and you’re making it. And then, after that you put the pen down and go to bed, knowing that be it in an office or in your house, your work is there.
Probably how your mother feels after birthing you.
As someone who creates stuff like this, yes, it is scarier to create it, because that kind of stuff is in your head all the time, always evolving and becoming more and more.
Especially things imagined in dreams. I have horrifying creatures I’ve dreamt about and it’s terrifying because of how real they seem.
As an illustrator that specializes in horror, I don't feel it is quite like this. My characters are part of me, and I can't detach them from the analitical perspective I need to inmerse myself to create them. Precisely because I see them come to fruition slowly, I am familiar with them by the time I'm finished, the uncany valley is completly lost on me then.
With my own work I could never experience the chills and the suden uncanny feeling I get from watching other's people art.
@@8insects I've had a dream being out of my power and getting held down and choked. I woke up and cried....
an animator who has a cute style but also manages to creep me out when intended is cuptoast. her style is cute, bubbly, and simple yet “cat on mars”, “amnesia was her name”, “two times”, and others i cannot remember have made my skin crawl. for some her art style might take away any scariness are for others they might think that there’s nothing scary at all. but the idea of being the last living person because you were in space when the earth blew up and slowly running out of food and your will to survive, is quite terrifying.
Are you talking about cuptoast?
@@Beano5 yes they are talking about cup also why did u reply this comment is 4 months ago
@@thirteenly13 idk lmao
another artist with a normally cute/upbeat style who is surprisingly good at horror is shen(bike cuck guy lol). he makes pretty good horror illustrations for scary story comics every halloween
ooo i love cuptoast
I actually got a chance to read Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki” because of your video and I’ll never forget how completely disturbed and terrified I felt reading it. It was the same feeling I felt when I first watched “The Shining” when I was 11 on Halloween night. This analysis is well thought out. Thank you for making me a Junji Ito fan.
I remember reading the entire Uzumaki story in one go after checking out the Jack in the Box story first. The whole book was such a trip but I was really shaken up after already reading Jack in the Box XP it’s cool to see the story get more exposure and be introduced to many through video essays like these, but oh man-the dread/thrill(?) of heading in without much preparation was something else
I was about to return the book bcuz my friends said it wasn't worth a reading, but after your comment i think i will keep it!
@@Haraenul Oh wow thanks so much! I’m glad my comment inspired you to keep Uzumaki. Junji Ito’s work is like art
The Shining, Junji Ito and Perfect Blue... you sir, have fantastic taste.
dont forget That mulholland drive scene!
BTW it's nice to see a lot others man of culture here
And Silent Hill music underneath it all too
Someone that likes The Shining?HOLY FUCKING SHIT YOURE THE RAREST KIND ON EARTH
@@alphalax7747 Im pretty sure he was refering to the whole pack of directors... One Kubrick, Junji Ito (altough im not sure if comic director work exist at all...) One Kon... i dont know many people who likes the three of them
To be honest kubricks movies weren’t good.
When I first heard of Uzumaki, I thought it was just a weird concept by a bored artist. By the end of it, I had a deep sense of dread and horror that persisted for days.
I didn't become afraid of spirals or anything, but every time I saw one, I felt a flash of unease like I was walking a bridge and peeped through a chain-link fence that served as a barrier, and saw how high I was. There was no danger of me falling or the bridge collapsing, but it still made me uncomfortable
The last page legit made me question everything I just read, I was starting to drawn into the spiral. I was so drawn to his skill to turn this simple concept of a spiral and turn it into a terrifying thing, over and over again
The fact that you incorporated Silent Hill OST , is an instantaneous subscribe. Also , because I appreciate how smoothly put together your content is :)
I agree with you. Horror is not about jump-scare, gores scene, some deformed monster or even "based on true story crap", it's more about emotional impact and unsettling feeling. And as the horror fan myself, I think the most effective tool of horror is "plot-twist". In short, I love when there is something unexpected about the story or better it betrays the expectation of the reader/audience.
yuhihe I think that’s why I like Hereditary so much. They didn’t depend on Jump Scares or gore to create a Heavy and Unsettling feeling in the Audience. They focused on using the subject material, and misdirection in their commercials in order to create that feeling in the audience. Granted, the movie isn’t perfect by any means, but it does better than most other movies do today. I’ve noticed that people who enjoy and prefer cheap horror that depends on jump scared and gore HATE Hereditary.
4:40 this jumpscare that didn't came was really unsettling
The anticipation freaks me out XD
Yeah
Yoo I’m on edge waiting for a surprise jumpscare 😂
Junji Ito: See this Raven?
Me: Yes
Ito: Perfectly normal, right?
Me: Yes
Ito: Imma fuck that up
Me: *Unholy screaming as the raven contorts into a monstrosity*
4:20-I’ve always appreciated how elegantly you prove your point about anticipatory vs. kneejerk horror with this little bit you do right here.
I believe the Enigma of Amigara Falls is about how people are compulsively drawn towards their own demise.
One of the creepiest things is the certainty/inevitability of "this is my hole, it was made for me"
Noodle people
Adam Zahavi True, look at something like ‘Hoarders’ while not a great example of horror, compulsion can be unintentionally terrifying. I think these kinds of expressions have a lot more truth to them because while we notice our compulsion towards things, we’re ‘enigmatically’ drawn towards our own demise anyway. It’s almost poetic in a way.
Like a “ curiosity is what killed the cat”
Coraline is unsettling. I think in order to make animation horror you need to make it into the uncanny valley and switch it slightly between fine and uncanny. So it needs to be on the edge. Constantly.
Cartoons can't be horror...pfff have you ever seen monster house.That shit terrorise to this day people on their mid 20s.
He didnt say it couldnt, but it isnt really in its full potential.
@@Naharu. Ik i was it was more of a joke.I do agree the horror on cartoons and anime is underwhelming.
I already had a trauma with being scared of ghosts , when i watched that movie i turned off the movie really quick cuz it scared me too much
Caroline?
@@LeBornMajes Caroline is popular as the scariest shit on this category and due to that none has ever seen it.From my experience 1/10 people who have seen and met the terror of monster house has also seen Caroline.Myself included, I haven't seen Caroline but i know what it is known for.
Junji Ito's whole collection of manga is way better than most modern horror movies today
THE ENGIMA OF AMIGARA FAULT LITERALLY HAUNTS ME TO THIS DAY I GOT CHILLS WHEN YOU MENTIONED IT
double damage if you were scared of holes and narrow spaces to begin with! i am literally covered in goosebumps rn
Hell yeah I have become a huge fan of his works 💕💕 I even ordered Uzumaki can wait to read it
My favorite artistic horror works are the ones that can balance aethstetically pleasing and aethstetically unnerving moments. Like a character can have a cute design, but when the artists wants to give off a feeling of dread, they'll add extra details that make the character seem uneasy.
Take for example: Kagegurui.
This anime is in no shape or form a scary anime, but has certain scenes where the art style sort of shifts to invoke a feeling of fear. A character's features may become much too detailed for a stylisticly-porportioned body, which can make a viewer uncomfortable.
Yesss I love kagegurui
I dont know if this is what you were looking for but seNMU does some pretty unnerving mangas, like I'm Not Scared, I'll Always Be With You, and What Hides In Your Mind? (Also, this isnt all that scary, but A Classroom Bereft Of Angels is pretty good)
Have you seen Higurashi?
Try the promised neverland too
Retsu Unohana
Of corse I would choose to watch this at night.
Caricamillediansanks 😂😂😂
why do we torture ourselves
Yes, great..Of course I watched some dub versions here on youtube. And now I couldn't unforget the slurping voice of the woman in "Window next door"! "Deeeaaar Boy..."
Ikr
camille diane sanks. I'm kinda hating myself right now for not f***ing choosing to watch this the other times I saw the thumbnail, which was at day light, but when it's all ready 12:00 PM great.
My favourite genre as of now is psychological horror. Instead of using jumpscares to quickly scare the viewer/reader/player, it uses your emotions and messes with you while being able to build an immersive and unsettling story.
Mainly, I play psychological horror video games because, as was said in the video, they don't show you the story of the victim, but make you one.
I really enjoy Junji Ito's works because they are different from other usual horror stories. I would love to see how he even makes up his ideas.
Great video!
Not gonna lie, when you talked about jumpscaring us, I immediately lowered my computer volume by 60% and got into a fetal position. The wave of relief that flowed afterwards was immense.
Does this video have jump scare ? I have weak heart.
Naw it's a fake out
@@hellatze No. He's just proving a point that the dread and anticipation is scarier than just having a cheap jump scare.
Creppiest story in junji was the damn creepy woman who only had one window. Omg the level of anxiety and adrenaline i had was driving me nuts.
@Ann It is called The window next door
Cristal Canario haha when you said that for a moment with “From Next Door” which is a Junji Ito inspired game and I got v confused
What's the story about? I'm scared to google it cause it's late at night and junji ito's art style gives me nightmares lol
@@idontevenknowwhyimhere7765 oh c'mon, be a champ and watch it or you can wait til morning 🤷
Nome fixe.
Junji wrote a story that was almost identical to a dream I had once and reading it I was just saying "no no no" the whole time. It was crazy to read something I had dreamed.
TheReeShow what was it?
Was it a LONG DREAM? lol
it is a long dream
I read that too! And apparently loads of people experience these dreams, which is just so messed up and can't even deal with that. 'Cause then you have to ask, what shared memories do we as a species have that make us all have these dreams? What used to hunt us that's left identical nightmares in our psyche even now? And is it still out there...?
it was the human shaped hole one for people wondering. A lot of others have sworn they've had the same dream. Collective consciousness.
Courage the Coward;y dog is a classic example of animation and horror. It used to scare the wits out of me and I still remember some scenes vividly
I stopped wathing the video because you completely sold me on Junji Ito's work and I didn't want spoilers.
Thanks for the awesome recomendation.
Orange Zone there are not any spoilers
I mean the pages itself, I want it all to come as a surprise.
Depends how much information constitutes a spoiler to you. Personally, I often find even trailers have too many spoilers. For example, I never watched the trailer for the movie "The World's End" and so to me it had a really great plot twist, whereas for everyone else that's just what the plot was supposed to be.
Im the same as you. As soon as Im interested, I stop watching trailers or looking for info.
To this day Im avoiding anything related to Bloodborne, because some day Im buying a PS4 to play it...
Believe me, if that pages seems scary to you... You really have to read it! He just stops in the right moment just to show the less possible. There are no spoilers in this video. And yes, Ito's work is really awesome.
Animated horror: I'm quite a wimp when it comes to horror media, the feeling of something being out there to scare me scares me more than the scare itself. Salad Fingers used to scare the shit out of me. Still does, never watching that shit again.
I hate horror but i also love it yk
Bobby yeah short film freaking scares me.
Never watched Perfect Blue more than once, too
SOMEONE FINALLY SAYS THAT JUMPSCARES ARENT GOOD HORROR
THE AMOUNT OF JUMPSCARES SHOVED INTO 'HORROR' MEDIA MAKES ME HATE MOST OF THE GENRE BECAUSE THEY ARENT EVEN SCARY AND ITS JUST A SAD EXCUSE FOR THE REAL BEAUTIFUL AND UGLY EXTENTS THAT IS THE HORROR GENRE
thank you for this video
jumpscares can be used correctly though. like in the movie poltergeist or the sixth sense, they can be used wonderfully. it's not the scare itself that's supposed to terrify us, its the buildup. if there's no buildup for a jumpscare, or no suspension, then it's not powerful and is just cheap. its also with how much you use it, because if you do, then your audience is always on edge and the scares dont scare them. you have to use them sparingly. there's a video by now you see it ( i think? ) where he talks about it i highly recommend.
but everyone knows jumpscares are shit
the amount of capslock in this comment scared me. but you are very right with what you are saying.
Mad?
I don’t think anyone has ever denied that jump scares are cheap and not real horror. It gets brought up in any and every discussion of horror.
Ghost hunt was a paranormal ghost hunting anime that is fantastic. It plays on that silly real life ghost hunting trope but takes it to a fictional world where you can really immerse yourself in the lore of the universe which is closely relatd to our own. It played really well with the creepiness
i've noticed with both Lovecraft and Ito, if you try to explain the premise some of their stories they don't sound scary at all. A bunch of Fishmen live in a fishing town, a dude wanders around an island for a while being watched by some weirdo monster in the distance, a town becomes cursed with spirals, sharks start crawling on land with robot legs, and human shaped holes start appearing in a cliffside. it shows the craft they put into their horror to make the mundane unfathomable.
Sharks crawling on robot legs sounds like the premise for a sharksploitation film, lol.
Also, a small homestead gets invaded by a color
You're going to make it big, wolf. Excellent video as always.
hopefully not big enough to decrease in quality and focus soley appealing to a wider audience then his focused specific one.
Sheer Heart Attack
Thats how Game Theory started sucking. Now only Film Theory is worth watching IMO
I think it's natural and inevitable at this point. Nothing against super wolf,It's just mean content creators in general. I just tend to enjoy them while I can and hope their golden age lasts for as long possible.
Hex PLAYS I agree 100% I even unsubscribed from GT cause it's content is just a bunch a cliff hangers and click bait
AegisGamer You mean Game Trailers?
Every horror movie director needs to watch this.
I think David Lynch set the bar for horror and the power of the ideas proposed in this video since his debut in the late 70s. I'd recommend his films to anyone who appreciates art, not simply just horror.
+Murderotica That scene in Mulholland Drive where we slowly turn around the corner to see that creature is one of the most shocking/scary scenes. He knows how to make the audience uncomfortable
I totally agree. Horror movies need to go back to being MOSTLY Dread and Atmosphere with MINOR scare tactics/Jump scares. I'd say a good 80/20 or 90/10 balance would be ideal.
This was a compelling description of Itos work, I’m a massive fan and I have to say you definitely nailed it dude.