Junji Ito Collection

Junji Ito is a master of horror to which there is no rival. His pacing, detail and compositions are unbelievably calculated and well-made. Each panel drips with the oppressive weight of his inking and nail biting suspense. There is no bland or useless panel in a Junji Ito manga. ... So why is it this whole anime seems to be full of nothing but that blandness? Moments that shocked and unnerved readers are now so awkward and poorly paced they border on humor. The art apes Ito's incredible eye for detail with flatly shaded pastiche, and the colors used seem slapped on with a paint bucket. In trying to recreate Ito's manga with a shoestring budget and cheap animation, they've severely hampered its quality. To rate this anime highly, I assume, can only be due to the overall quality of Ito's manga. But to equate it to this dreck is giving him a great insult. Read the manga instead.

Sadly, this is in fact a pale imitation of Junji Ito's work, and while it is faithful and picks some of his strongest work, it's, uh... Slapdash? Poorly focused? It's hard to describe how a static image can have so much more impact than a fully animated, acted scene, but in every single episode it does. I'm not going to tell anyone not to watch, since it's still enjoyable for fans and a great introduction to his work, but I would say it's probably a better idea just to read the far superior manga works.\ That said, I love the opening. Might not be anything special in a technical sense, but the music choice and visuals work very well together. That's a plus?

I'm a huge Junji Ito, I have a lot of his books, and love his art. This anime is a straight up insult to his art. Things are just animated horribly. The scene where the fashion model is chasing them in the second episode is so poorly animated. It's pathetic how poor the animation is. Both of the stories in episode 2 are in the book Shiver. They are drawn way better, and are actually scary. This is just a horrible joke.

Dear Junji Ito Collection, I was never really a fan of horror my entire life. It just made me scream and make myself afraid of the world. But, this anime changed my perspective of that. I live in the United States, and the horror movies we are consuming consist of ones that are meant to scare you. But, Junji Ito Collection is different. Junji Ito Collection doesn't scare me. Rather, it creeps me out in a pleasant way. A typical American Horror would try to make you scream and hide under a blanket. Whereas, Junji Ito Collection makes me pleasantly uncomfortable with its detailed and creative events. Even though Junji Ito Collection is suppose to be a Horror Anime, it doesn't scare you. Rather, it makes you pleasantly uncomfortable with its art and creativity. As I'm writing this review, I've only seen the first episode. But, if things keep going like this, then I would give people a recommendation to WATCH IT. Again, it's not scary. Its pleasantly uncomfortable. Which is why I give Junji Ito Collection a 5/5???? Sincerely, InfiniteAnime1

Having watched the first episode. It's understandable that people new to Junji Ito's works would be rather underwhelmed and confused by it. As the show's marketing kind of paints a picture that this is going to be a definitive anime collection of truly terror-inspiring horror short stories from one of Japan's kings of the horror manga. To only get an almost comedic first episode about Souichi a demented youth who plays uninspired childish tricks on others using voodoo doll curses. To then find down in the comments a mixture of people either defending and/or trying to sell this series protentional or others questioning the show's worth based solely on a lackluster first episode. Unfortunately, for the sake of the anime itself. It appears to be suffering from a poor choice of an audience hooking first episode storyline. Basically, the show should have really started out with a bang and hits hard with one of the best of Ito's terror-inducing works from the start. Once we're hooked and the tension starts to ease. At this point bring on some of the stories like Souichi's to give us a breather now and then. Allowing for the initial viewer hook and then the pacing of the overall tension the viewership well experience throughout the show's season. Instead of feeling a bit underwhelmed and questioning this show's worth to even continue on to the next week. Especially, given that the show is in an episodic format of individual short stories. Which are for the most part independent of one another. Yet, affects the show's overall value when they're considered together. This makes me wonder why did they choose this particular story from Ito's large library. After doing some research, I found that Souichi is kind of a fan favorite in Japan and appears to be used as one of the manga series' mascots of sorts in its marketing. So this fact leads me to believe the first episode was intended to draw in longtime fans of Junji Ito, not so much to acquire new fans, and maybe the shows a victim of some cultural differences in what is perceived as horror. Sadly these possible facts kind of makes me question, whether if the anime creators actually believe in the show's potential on its own merit and are instead just making a love letter collection to longtime fans of the author. Which kind of seems a bit counter-intuitive as most anime is created to draw new readership to the original works and most importantly gain more buyers to sell more merchandise to. So that leaves the question. Do I recommend if people should watch or even give this show a few more episodes? The short answer at the moment is "yes, but it depends". I mean it depends on what we get with episode 2 and ultimately based on what stories the anime creators decided to use from the author's vast library of works. I can say with a little research. I've come across some really phenomenal horror stories in his collection that are quickly making me a fan. Having admittedly never read any of his works before. He has truly earned all his accolades with them and his art is excellent. But as with most, if not all long-time authors. His collection of works appear vast and memorable but overall really are hit or miss storywise. With some of his stories only being merely decent horror-wise. With their real selling point actually being the artwork he has portrayed them in. So I can say that the commenters who are singing the series' potential with high prise are very well founded, but there is also some of his more meh stories that might make their way into the show as well. Overall, I have chosen to give this review 4 stars. As it did not take me very long to find some stellar stories in Junji Ito's catalog. That, if used, would make this show a truly 5-star horror series in my eyes. Yet, as of the time of this writing, I can't give a 5-star rating to this show based solely on potential alone, especially with the rather poor choice of the first episode's short story.