Thread by @MinovskyArticle

Junji Ito at TCAF 2019

Junji Ito asked if his wife gives feedback on his stories: “Yes. I wouldn’t say that she knows a lot about horror, but she has a very good sense of what horror is.”

Junji Ito: “I’m 55, so the horror I enjoy is classic horror with a dreamy feel.” The horror that pains him are real life tragedies like “terrorism and holocausts.”

For awhile Junji Ito thought he would be able to balance a career as a dental technician and a manga artist at the same time. He had an understanding boss who adjusted his schedule, but he had stopped consistently sleeping and eating and lost 50 kilograms to keep up.

Junji Ito: “Sleep is very important. Everyone get enough sleep. Many manga artists die young and it’s because they don’t sleep. Your best ideas will come to you when you’re sleeping. Please everyone get some sleep.”

Junji Ito prefers short stories because he still doesn’t feel he totally knows how to write long form. If possible, he would only do shorts. With longform stories like Hellstar Remina, he once storyboarded everything before he drew a page. Now he goes “wherever the wind blows.”

Junji Ito still has a lot of anxiety about how a story will end up.

“Did working as a dental assistant influence your tendency toward body horror?” Ito laughs.

Junji Ito did not realize that people considered his work to be body horror until he read his own Wikipedia page. “Yeah, I guess that fits.”

While taking anatomy classes in college, Junji Ito considered the human heart to be the scariest thing in the world. The most useful thing he learned as a dental technician was how to modify his artistic tools to make it easier for him to draw like he did with his dental tools.

Junji Ito was primarily published in a horror magazine aimed at girls, Halloween. He would study fashion magazines to use as reference. This character was inspired by a striking model he’d seen once that made him pause. “She has a fearsome power to get work.”

What does environmental horror mean to Junji Ito?

“I’ve lived for 55 years now. It is clear that climate change is happening. Will we end up like Mars?”

Where Gyo came from

“Sharks are scary. If they came onto land, they would be very scary.”

Junji Ito on writing comedic horror

“I write down every idea. Sometimes I write down little jokes. It would be a shame not to use them. I like to use comedy as a breather in-between scares. I say that, but I just want to write little jokes.”

Junji Ito loves, loves, loves Kazuo Umezu so much.

How does Junji Ito feel about how Internet culture has transformed his work into memes? “Or are you even aware that we’re doing this?”

Junji Ito has seen an image of this Stephen Universe anime online. He thought it was fanart. “I’m happy when people parody my work like this.”

Junji Ito said Spongebob. He had seen a Spongebob picture parodying his work. “I can’t believe a television show like that exists.”

Junji Ito asked about Silent Hills.

“I don’t know anything about games. I don’t play them. I am afraid if I get into them I’ll miss deadlines. I have never played Silent Hill. I have known Hideo Kojima for 20 years. He is a nice older brother type.”

Kojima and Del Toro approached Ito around the time Pacific Rim came out. “I told them I know nothing about games. Kojima told me I would be fine. Del Toro gave me tickets to Pacific Rim. It was excellent.”

“Kojima was at Konami back then. I came to a meeting and Del Toro hugged me. It turns out Del Toro is a big gamer. Del Toro wanted the game to be in one location and keep the horror in the player’s face in that way.”

“Once the Silent Hills meeting was over, we went to karaoke. I didn’t hear anything after that. I heard that the plan got scrapped through outside sources. I have seen Kojima and Del Toro since. I never started designing monsters. Nothing exists. There are no roughs or sketches.”

“My wife is scary. Please don’t tell her that. We share a lot of interests, we find the same things scary, there’s a lot of overlap between us.”

What scares Junji Ito has changed as he gets older. “I used to be scared of other people’s gazes. As I get older the world seems narrower. I’m still scared of cockroaches and things like that.”

Does having children change his perspective as a horror creator?

“It hasn’t made my work kinder or softer. I have to take my kids to cram school and things like that, so I can’t dive as deeply into my work as I used to.” He jokes, “I kind of wish they’d hurry up and grow up.”

Do you let your children read your comics?

“I haven’t actively invited my daughters to read my work, but they go into my office and pull them off the shelves anyway. I don’t let them read No Longer Human because I don’t want them thinking about their dad writing sex scenes.”

That’s it. Thanks to Junji Ito, TCAF, Ryan Sands for interviewing, and @brainvsbook for translating.

Junji Ito live draw at TCAF 2019. This was announced as a panel attendance record for TCAF. More people have come to this than any other panel in the conventions history.

“What is the scariest thing that ever happened to you in your life?”

Junji Ito: When I was a kid I was walking with my aunt. There was a dirty old guy walking nearby. My aunt said to me “run” and it scared me a lot. We ran away. He didn’t chase after us or anything.

“Is your wife as scary as you draw her in Cat Diary?”

Ito: At first she was mad at me. She doesn’t really look like that.

You’re drawing today with a pen and nib, but is true that you work more digitally now?

Junji Ito: “I’m fully digital these days. Drawing on paper is still much more fun for me.” He transitioned to digital because the process is so much easier than dealing with screentone.

In your work, cats never seem to come to any harm. Why is that?

Junji Ito: “I’ve never actually thought about that. It’s a coincidence. Maybe it is because I don’t want any harm to come to my own cats.”

Junji Ito was asked about which of his own stories are his favorites. He answered Amigara Fault to loud applause. Hanging Blimp and Long Dream are also favorites.

Junji Ito’s favorite horror films are The Exorcist, Suspiria, and classic Hammer Horror productions. He first saw The Exorcist on TV in sixth grade.

live draw progress

Junji Ito adapted Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human because he was to be published in a magazine for middle aged men. He needed a source material different than what flies in the shojo magazines he is usually hired to work in and knew Dazai appealed to an older male demographic.

What kind of pen are you using?

“A G-pen. When you buy it, it’s straight like this. But when it’s straight like it’s hard for me to use, so I modify it slightly using dental pliers like this.”

Does Junji Ito read much manga?

“Not these days, but as a kid I loved Kazuo Umezu and Hideshi Hino. In high school I started reading Katsuhiro Otomo.” Otomo convinced Junji Ito that manga could be art.

Got a chance to ask Junji Ito if he admires any modern horror creators.

Junji Ito loves and admires the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Takashi Shimizu. He recently saw and enjoyed the film Hereditary.

Junji Ito doesn’t consider his work scary. “It’s more like, ‘ugh, these strange stories’.”

Junji Ito is self taught, but he purchased a lot of books on anatomy to study.

What kind of ink does Junji Ito use?

Lettering Sol. “It’s really water resistant. It’s good for putting color on afterwards. A lot of water resistant inks get stuck to your pen, but this kind wipes off easily.”

Junji Ito was asked about Canada.

He went to Niagra Falls and bought a bottle of Ice Wine to drink while working.

Which manga do Junji Ito’s daughters enjoy?

“My older daughter doesn’t like my work much at all. She actually likes Daijiro Morihoshi and Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura.”

Would Junji Ito want to meet Tomie in real life?

“Nah.”

Hanging Blimp was inspired by a dream Junji Ito had as a child, but his ideas rarely come from dreams.

Junji Ito did a quick draw of the Hanging Balloons as they originally appeared in his dreams when he was 5 years old. “The lines are the balloon coming after you.”

Does Junji Ito actually run @junjiitofficial himself?

“Yeah, I do.” He sees everything.

The last question was about Junji Ito’s cats.

“Yon passed away. Mu is doing fine. Mu lives with his wife’s family. When they moved to a new condo, Mu got sick. That’s how Yon died. They took Mu to his wife’s families house and he instantly got better, so he loves there now.”

Junji Ito’s new cats are named Tenmaru and Tonichi/Tomichi(?). Yon was an especially peculiar cat. His new cats aren’t as interesting and probably won’t star in their own manga.

This is the “half finished drawing”, Ito will post the rest on Twitter later. That’s it for the scheduled Junji Ito events at TCAF 2019. Thanks everyone!

The protector of rare Junji Ito treasures, @Comics212