Junji Ito

Junji Ito (born July 31, 1963) is a Japanese horror mangaka. Some of his most notable works include Tomie, a series chronicling an immortal girl who drives her stricken admirers to madness; Uzumaki, a three-volume series about a town obsessed with spirals; and Gyo, a two-volume story where fish are controlled by a strain of sentient bacteria called "the death stench." His other works include Itou Junji Kyoufu Manga Collection, a collection of different short stories including a series of stories named Souichi's Journal of Delights, and Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu, a self-parody about him and his wife living in a house with two cats. Ito's work has developed a substantial cult following, with some deeming him a significant figure in recent horror iconography. Junji Itō was born on 31 July 1963 in Sakashita, now a part of Nakatsugawa, Gifu. He began his experience in the horror world at a very young age; his two older sisters would read Kazuo Umezu and Shinichi Koga in magazines, and consequently, he began reading them too. He grew up in the countryside, in a small city next to Nagano. In the house where he lived, the bathroom was at the end of an underground tunnel, where there were spider crickets. Such experiences were later reflected in his works. Itō first began writing and drawing manga as a hobby while working as a dental technician around 1984. In 1987, he submitted a short story to Gekkan Halloween (月刊ハロウィン, lit. Monthly 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. Ito teamed up with Takashi Nagasaki and former diplomat Masaru Sato to create Yūkoku no Rasputin (2010–2012), based on Sato's personal experiences in Russia, for Big Comic. Film director Guillermo del Toro cited on his official Twitter account that Ito was originally a collaborator for the video game Silent Hills, of which both Del Toro and game designer Hideo Kojima were the main directors. However, a year after its announcement, the project was canceled by Konami, the IP's owner. Itō and Del Toro would later lend their likenesses to Kojima's next project, Death Stranding.