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When it comes to horror in anime, the conversation will almost always drift to the works of Junji Ito. Creating legendary tales such as Uzumaki, Gyo, Tomieand The Hanging Balloonsthe master of horror has spent decades weaving some of the creepiest stories in any medium. Recently, Viz Media unveiled a slew of new announcements when it comes to manga that arriving in North America, one of them being a collection of horror stories from Ito himself. STATUES: Junji this story collection is creeping its way to North America and Viz has given manga enthusiasts an idea as to when the anthology will arrive.
Viz Media confirmed that the new manga anthology will arrive in spring of next year, refraining from giving readers an exact date at the moment. Here’s how the manga publishers describe the upcoming horror release, “Announcement: Headless statues. A teacher’s gruesome murder. A cursed river ritual. Nightmare fuel distilled into ten short stories from the Eisner award-winning master of horror, @junjiitofficial. STATUES: Junji this story collection releases Spring 2026.” While the anthology will feature classic stories from Ito, such as the one focusing on headless killer statues, it will also most likely feature at least one original story, if past examples are any indication.
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Junji itto manga Meets Anime
Before the upcoming manga anthology arrives, you can check out the story of “Statues” in Junji Ito’s Maniac: Japanese Tales of The Macabre. The original anime series is a Netflix exclusive and focuses on a high-schooler who finds herself surrounded by countless creepy statues with lives of their own. On top of the killer statue story, the Netflix series also includes the likes of The Hanging Balloons, The Sandman’s Lair, Long Hair In The Attic, The Bullyand many others. Unfortunately, like so many other anime adaptations of Ito’s work, many horror fans felt that the Netflix series was unable to live up to the source material.
For many anime fans, the works of Junji Ito have almost felt cursed when brought to the small screen as many believe that it has become nearly impossible to translate his work. While the long-awaited Uzumaki hit the ground floor running with its premiere episode, controversy surrounded the remaining three episodes as creators expressed their dismay with the creative process behind the scenes. To this day, many believe that creating the perfect Junji Ito anime adaptation is impossible but hopefully, we’ll one day see a spooky anime series that lives up to the master of horror’s work.
Luckily, Ito’s works are preparing to come to the silver screen as Fangoria Studios is planning to release a trilogy of live-action adaptations. So far, two of the films have been confirmed in Bloodsucking Darkness and Mystery of The Haunted House which are both very different tales from one another but are still amazingly scary. Ironically, both of these stories have not been brought to the screen via an anime adaptation, though that could change.
Via Viz Media
