Junji Itou

Spouse: Ishiguro Ayako https://twitter.com/ishiguroayako Twitterhttps://twitter.com/junjiitofficial Introduction: Junji Itou is a Japanese writer penciller inker and mangaka who is best known for his horror manga. Some of his notable works include The Enigma of Amigara Faulthttps://anilist.co/manga/112978/TheEnigmaofAmigaraFault/ Tomiehttps://anilist.co/manga/30912/Tomie/ Uzumakihttps://anilist.co/manga/30436/UzumakiSpiralintoHorror/ and Gyohttps://anilist.co/manga/30909/Gyo/. He was inspired from a young age by both his older sisters drawings and the work of Kazuo Umezuhttps://anilist.co/staff/97777/KazuoUmezu. Itou first began writing and drawing manga as a hobby while working as a dental technician in the early 1990s. In 1987 he submitted a short story to Gekkan Halloween that won an honorable mention in the Kazuo Umezu Prize with Umezu himself as one of the judges. This story was later serialized as Tomie. In addition to Kazuo Umezuhttps://anilist.co/staff/97777/KazuoUmezu Itou has cited Hideshi Hinohttps://anilist.co/staff/99735/HideshiHino Shinichi Kogahttps://anilist.co/staff/119971/ShinichiKoga Yasutaka Tsutsuihttps://anilist.co/staff/97488/YasutakaTsutsui and H.P. Lovecrafthttps://anilist.co/staff/101086/HPLovecraft as being major influences to his work. The universe Itou depicts is cruel and capricious his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or they are punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order. Some of the recurring themes of Itous work include body horror seemingly ordinary characters who begin to act out of irrational compulsion the breakdown of society deepsea organisms and the inevitability of ones demise. Film director Guillermo del Toro cited on his official Twitter account that Itou was originally a collaborator for the video game Silent Hills of which both Del Toro and game designer Hideo Kojimahttps://anilist.co/staff/100732/HideoKojima were the main directors however a year after its announcement the project was canceled by Konamihttps://anilist.co/studio/85/Konami the IPs owner. Itou and Del Toro would later lend their likenesses towards Kojimas next project Death Stranding. In 2006 Junji married Ishiguro Ayako who is a picture book artist. As of 2013 they have two children. In 2019 Itou received an Eisner Award for his manga adaptation of Mary Shelleys Frankenstein.