These days, Junji Ito is pretty much a household name thanks to popular, creepy manga titles such as Uzumaki, Tomie, Gyo, Mimi’s Tales of Terror, and many others.
With their shocking imagery and eerie stories, Ito’s manga has provided a gateway to a different kind of horror for countless Western readers. But even Ito himself would be the first to admit that he is far from the only creator churning out haunting, horrifying manga in Japan.
Indeed, Junji Ito is the proud product of a long line of celebrated artists and writers of horror manga, dating back to the earliest days of the form.
From pioneers like Shigeru Mizuki and Kazuo Umezu to boundary-pushing outsiders like Hideshi Hino to modern masters like Gou Tanabe, the history of horror manga is rich and varied—and filled with absolutely terrifying tales that will thrill fans of Junji Ito.
Luckily for us anglophone readers, the current popularity of manga in the West means that more and more publishers are bringing over manga of all stripes—including horror manga—tackling both classic and more obscure titles and providing a cornucopia of creepy chillers for those who can’t get enough.
UFO Mushroom Invasion
The title that inspired this list, UFO Mushroom Invasion is a (frankly) one-of-a-kind manga experience, curated as the second installment of the Smudge manga translation series from Living the Line books and translator/editor Ryan Holmberg.
Aimed at championing some of the more seldom-seen horror manga from the heyday of the form, these new translations bring to anglophone audiences (usually for the first time) new translations of some of the wildest horror manga out there—including this amazing story of UFOs, fungi, zombies, and apocalyptic stakes that must be read to be believed.
Her Frankenstein
The first title imported as part of the Smudge manga line was this 1986 tale which Kawakatsu Tokushige hails as “one of the underappreciated masterworks of Japanese horror comics” and Junji Ito himself called a “frightening but moving story about an unfortunate individual who, lost in search of his true self, finds his own annihilation instead.”
When young Tetsuo meets the domineering yet frail Kimiko, the two feed off each other in ways that are ultimately detrimental to both.
He becomes her “Frankenstein,” and the two enter into a self-destructive orbit that makes for gripping psycho-horror reading in this riveting book that kicked off a new line of exciting horror manga translations.
H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth (Manga)
Modern master Gou Tanabe has been nominated for an Eisner for his epic, cinematic adaptations of the works of the legendary cosmic horror author H. P. Lovecraft.
One of the most recent is a stunning, detailed invocation of Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” one of the only stories published as a book in Lovecraft’s own lifetime.
The familiar tale of a man who visits the small, decaying fishing town of the title only to find there horrors that may link back to his own genealogy is given a new immediacy with Tanabe’s incredible linework and commanding scene-setting, even while, like all of Tanabe’s Lovecraft adaptations, the contents hew surprisingly close to the original story.
Panorama of Hell
Arguably one of the most notorious of all manga artists, Hideshi Hino’s legend threatens to overwhelm his own art.
Besides writing and drawing manga, Hino has directed films, including creating the infamous “Guinea Pig” series, one of which was reported to the FBI as an actual snuff film (though it wasn’t).
Unsurprisingly, Hino’s manga masterpieces combine grisly and upsetting subject matter, personal autobiographical details, and a particularly childish, cartoony style that makes for a weirdly effective combo—and there are few places where that is more apparent than in his iconic Panorama of Hell, the story of a nameless artist whose own life provides a tapestry as grisly as anything he could ever paint.
For a long time, Hino’s manga were out of print in the States and collectors paid hundreds of dollars to get a copy.
Now, Star Fruit Books has begun reissuing many of Hino’s best works, including this iconic and horrific volume.
The Drifting Classroom: Perfect Edition, Vol. 1
When asked about his own influences, Junji Ito is always quick to point to Kazuo Umezu, who may be the most respected creator in the field, sometimes called the “god of horror manga.”
Beginning in the 1960s, he revolutionized the form by combining the aesthetics of popular “shojo” manga with gruesome images drawn from folklore, an approach that would also be utilized by successors such as Hideshi Hino and Junji Ito.
Umezu was responsible for numerous classic works, but his magnum opus just might be The Drifting Classroom, an epic of cosmic horror about an elementary school that is pulled into a danger-filled alternate dimension, first published between 1972 and 1974.
Adapted to screen more than once, the entirety of The Drifting Classroom has recently been released in three handsome hardcover editions by Viz.
Yokai: The Art of Shigeru Mizuki
If Kazuo Umezu is one of the most famous creators of horror manga, then Shigeru Mizuki may be one of the most famous creators in all of Japan—of pretty much anything.
Mizuki’s most famous creation is probably his yokai manga, especially GeGeGe no Kitaro, sometimes called “Kitaro of the Graveyard,” which features characters so popular that they even have their own park in Japan.
While Mizuki’s manga was often more likely to be silly than scary, his depictions of yokai—Japanese folkloric monsters and spirits—helped to cement them in the public imagination.
This new art book isn’t technically a manga; rather, it showcases some of Mizuki’s fine art renderings of the yokai that he helped popularize, with new notes by translator and Mizuki scholar Zack Davisson.
