Itou Junji: Collection

Junji Ito deserves better than this.

As he is one of the most talented horror creators, I was eagerly anticipating when his work would finally be animated. It pains me to say this, but Studio Deen fucked up this adaptation big time. It was inevitable that at least one of his mangas would be adapted, and they chose to adapt dozens of his best stories. Any fan of his works would be just as hyped as I was… but as we now know, these adaptations aren’t even half as good as the originals. Even with some of his most beloved stories like Long Dreams, Tomie, House ... of the Marionettes, and many more, it still turned out being a pile of garbage.

What’s interesting about the Junji Ito: Collection is how faithful it is to the source mangas, but simultaneously awful. I’m not saying I dislike the mangas, of what I read they’re incredibly frightening and layered with social commentary. So how can a faithful adaptation of a good manga be bad?

I have two words for you, Studio Deen.

Each panel of Junji Ito’s mangas is drawn with expert detail. Nothing is rushed, even the most obscure entries are passionately drawn to deeply disturb his legions of horror fanatics (I’m one of them). This guy seriously lives for his work, it’s no surprise he has risen to become one of the most revered horror creators to this day. It was inevitable that a TV anime adaptation couldn’t live up to his lofty achievements, but there was hope for it to at least do it justice with an equal amount of effort put into it.
Keep in mind, anime adaptations of manga aren’t expected to be 1:1 perfect recreations. They compensate by breathing new life into the panels with animation (not Studio Deen’s strong suit). What we got from the Junji Ito: Collection is nearly a shot for shot recreation of each manga chapter, destined to disappoint fans. This adaptation comes with almost none of the detail lovingly put into the original work. Instead we get choppy animation, bland colors, ugly background art, oversimplified character designs, all with a fraction of the style and detail applied to the mangas.

The biggest problem with this series isn't just that it fails to capture any of the style of the source materials, it’s that it fails to be remotely scary. A horror anime doesn't have to be terrifying at all times. Horror can come in many forms; it can get under your skin, it can disturb, disgust, linger, etc. But here… the art is so oversimplified that Ito’s horrific creations are no longer scary at all. Instead of a giant intimidating spider, we get an animatronic looking one that evokes laughter rather than the intense fear of Ito’s work.

It is the worst form of an adaptation. A cheap imitation living in the shadow of something greater. However, there is one thing I can partially credit this adaptation for; sound effects. The squelching of blood, reverberating of a heartbeat, visceral slicing of flesh. The best noises are rarely used, keeping them from becoming repetitive, but it’s enough to get under your skin. For me, being moderately grossed out (oh god the pimple episode) was the extent of the ‘horror’ I found in this series. But for every good sound effect there were three mediocre ones that are either absurdly fake sounding or have just plain out poor audio quality. This quality issue extends to the subpar voice acting. Voices don’t match what you would expect of the characters on a number of occasions. And even when they do fit, they sound markedly worse than most other anime.

I did actually find the Souichi chapters quite funny as some nice dark humor in between the grim chapters. His obnoxious voice, goofy stupidity, and extreme nihilism made him the most surprisingly funny demon summoners I’ve ever seen (not that the list is very long).
It was quite an odd choice for them to start the first episode with a Souichi comedy chapter even if I enjoyed it. Although I didn’t mind that the show ended with one of his chapters it felt like rather than bringing out the best they can, they end on a low note. This series was marketed as horror so to see comedy like that in place of scares is a recipe for disappointment. Given the high drop rate right away, it’s clear people understood this was going nowhere fast. Anthology series are after all inconsistent by nature, it’d be unreasonable to expect perfectly equal adaptations across the board. But when you’re this blatantly not giving a shit about how the final product comes together, then I don’t feel the need to mince words on how bad the end result is.

Make no mistake, not every one of Junji Ito's mangas that were adapted is great. He has written dozens of them so it's expected that not all of them would be stellar. Typically they have uneven lengths ranging from 18-2 minutes each, but typically they last half an episode. Many of the stories lack endings, fitting for the mysterious atmosphere, but annoying when every story one after the other has no definitive conclusion. Some of the stories fail to establish characters worth caring about then hinge dramatic stakes on them, while others may rely too heavily on a mysterious supernatural element leaving it difficult to connect with. In turn, draining most of the potential for scares.

I was never bothered by the fact that Junji Ito’s manga doesn’t always have the most well developed of stories while reading his mangas. After all, the uncertainty of what is really occurring in the story is part of their mysterious charm. This mysterious atmosphere is usually brought on by the understated supernatural elements, which are rarely explained for the sake of simplicity.
You’d think that this embracement of an underdeveloped story would work well for a two chapters per episode adaptation, sadly the pace is botched a bit too badly. The stories we get are rushed, lingering on the underdone horror spectacles much less than the mangas. Instead, this show prays that we’ll latch onto Ito’s stories to make up for the lackluster presentation. Needless to say, they’re forcing a formula onto already established works and it just does not work.

There were a few things from Junji Ito’s mangas that made the transition from paper to screen decently. Junji Ito himself is quite aware of the world he lives in and provides us with thought-provoking social commentary. It never failed to give me an idea to chew on, distracting me from the show’s mediocrity. There are his constant jabs at overbearing family expectations, the pressure we put on ourselves and others, but most importantly his many criticisms of how he believes people can be shallow.

I doubt anyone expected Ito Junji: Collection to be perfect, given the famous horror author Junji Ito has never had his work adapted into an anime until now. Especially given the studio adapting it is the definition of inconsistency, Studio Deen, it was very nearly dead on arrival. It didn’t help that the director of the infamous dumpster fire Diabolik Lovers was at the helm of this ship. Steering it off course and into every pitfall it could.

Score Breakdown:
[Story: 6/10] Mixed bag, supernaturally driven, retains social commentary.
[Character: 3/10] Only goes as far to connect you to the horror, paper thin.
[Art: 2/10] Janky animation, poor quality, ruins Ito’s aesthetic.
[Sound: 3/10] Poor voice work, some scary sound effects, mediocre music.
[Enjoyment: 3/10] Boring, rarely scary, occasionally funny.

[Overall Score: 3.4/10]
You were good Studio Deen! Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju was great! Of all of the animes to put barely any effort into, why this one? A low effort cash grab like this is unfit to bear Junji Ito’s name. Don’t watch this anime, go read his mangas.

Within the horror manga community Junji Ito is a King. The unique and atmosphere way in which he tells stories, paired with his surrealistic, almost confrontational art, has made him a household name regarding both the short story format, and the horror manga genre, some even going as far as saying he is the most influential, and subsequently the best. Admittedly, I am a huge fan and must agree, but the real question lies in whether the transition from panel to animation is as smooth as we all wish. So far, I can at least state that this collection is worthy of being titled after ... the man himself.

Story – 8
As we get into some of Ito’s more famous works, I imagine they will span the length of entire episodes, but so far, they are half to three quarter episode length stories. I was surprisingly unfamiliar with a lot of the stories, and I’ve concluded it actually works to its benefit, rather than its detriment. The decision to choose some of Ito’s lesser known work is an interesting one - likely in order to save his more famous stories until the end, which I’d rather that then the other way around. By presenting the collection in this manner, it also gives viewers time to appreciate the oddness of each individual story and adds an interesting texture in the process.
I like that some of these stories just boil down to “daughter turns into a doll” or “I met a creepy looking model”. While these straight-forward stories don’t work as well as they do in panel form within the manga, they work to a comparable effect, and have proven to be able to draw out tension in a similar way. I can see why some may find issues with this simpler, no-twist method of story telling, but I still think there is a lot of enjoyment to be had here, and more to come! As stated earlier, the fact that most of these works aren’t even well known, make them that much more fun to watch unfold. The more elaborate and well known Ito stories are what I came for and am most looking forward to. Thus far, they've done a great job sprinkling them in here and there.

Art/Animation – 8
I've heard discussions on Studio Deen’s attempt to imitate Ito’s highly detailed and refined line work, and it’s clear they’re still experimenting with how to make it look more natural and fluid in animation - sometimes it can add to the composition, sometimes it takes away from it. Evidently, if it works, it works really well, effectively intensifying certain scenes and making imagery more unsettling in the process. I admire the decision, and the stylistic liberties taken, as they feel like the classic early 2000s Junji Ito art style from the manga, and I think fans and new viewers alike will find a nostalgic quality to the show in that sense. The animators/designers seemingly have trouble retaining this ‘older look’ throughout, and again, there are some awkward frames and angles, but the art direction and animation are continually serviceable and appealing. Some may even argue that this could enhance the ominous aspects of the experience (Fashion model chasing scene comes to mind) and I kind of would agree as Ito’s work is known not to shy away from the unpleasant.

Sound - 10
Sound direction is probably the most important thing within the horror medium as it drives atmosphere and tone. A lot of the darkest, scariest moments of the episodes so far were multiplied by the excellent sound direction and I recall thinking to myself that they did a great job with it.
OP and EN aren't what you'd expect from a dark horror anime, but the subversion of expectations is what makes it interesting and the are serviceable as well. Perhaps a little forgettable, but only time will tell.

Characters – 8
This section has been included out of necessity as short horror stories don’t tend to be as heavily character driven as other stories (not to say they can’t be, but the nature of a short story is that they don’t have be reliant on the same characters throughout). With that being said, there is a good amount of attention and time that has gone into each character, their thoughts, developments, etc. Attention to detail is important and it is things of this nature that can sometimes make or break whether you actually care about what’s going on. In that sense, Junji Ito’s Collection is doing a lot of things right as I found myself caring, and fully interested in events to transpire.

Enjoyment – 9
Overall – 8 {Mastapeece}
Mysterious, atmospheric, and unpredictable.

Junji Ito continues to set a great example for the horror community within, and outside of manga/anime, that keeps viewers on their toes, and in the moment. Shows currently following a similar format (Black Mirror comes to mind) could learn a thing or two from the execution of these stories (In comparison, I’ve enjoyed these 3 episodes more than 4 season of BM).

I…think you forgot to add a comedy tag, MAL.

Ito Junji: Collection, despite what the MAL score might lead you to believe is actually decent. Based on the collection of manga of the same name, these stories depict various abnormal occurrences and happenings. From what I know, there isn’t a pattern as to which stories were picked.

Ito Junji surprised me in many ways, one of those being the creepy atmosphere. Many of the stories are quite unnerving at times, especially with how crude the artstyle is. The fact that the overall art looks quite bad, as in the character models aren’t anything special and the backgrounds ... are rather cheap-looking only adds to the tone, which is fitting for a show like this.
One good thing I can say about the characters, or rather, character in this case, is that our main protagonist, Souichi, is a nice addition to these stories. His peculiar and bizarre nature makes everything just a little bit creepier, especially with how he behaves around others. Whenever he’s on screen he does something weird or funny, and it wouldn’t be the same without him.

Even though Ito Junji is a horror anime, it has a surprising amount of outright hilarious moments, like the whole circus story. The way everything played out felt like an unintentional comedy of sorts, although it worked in this case since it was genuinely funny and not just ironically funny like some “so bad it’s good” shows which don’t try to be funny but end up actually being funny.

All in all, I quite liked Ito Junji: Collection, and I plan on checking out the manga in the future.

When an anime makes such a drastic turn in quality, enjoyment and fear factor to the point where you're compelled to write a review about it is proof that you should give it at least a shot.

As you can guess from the name, The Ito Junji collection is many of his short stories turned into anime. If you're completely unfamiliar with any of Ito Junjis work, I highly recommend you read "uzumaki". It's not very long however gives you a great starting place for understanding Junjis world.

When placed into anime form, it honestly looks like his imagery and art have come to life, ... the sound direction blends so well and overall it's a perfect mix.

As for episodes there is currently only three. I'll be honest, the first episode was one massive let down for me personally. I was expecting a gruesome horror filled experience but alas it felt more like I was watching a comedy or parody. Regardless, the animation style, voice acting and soundtrack convinced me to give it another go and I was absolutely amazed at both episode 2 and episode 3. Both episodes did his work justice, creating incredibly creepy scenarios as well as even supply some deep philosophical ideas (especially in episode 2)

It has boosted my love for this show, you're getting two short horror stories in one episode which will, at the very least, unnerve you to a certain degree. Even if you're one stone cold B*stard, there's still tons of enjoyment from watching this and hopefully provides you with inspiration to read Ito Junjis other work

9/10, I can't wait for episode 5

I was excited to see Junji Ito's work come to life, but after a few episodes I just couldn't take it anymore.

The animation is SO FAR BELOW standard, it's literally atrocious. I stopped in the middle of the 8th episode. You can take a look at other people's positive reviews, and see when theirs was posted.

Between missing frames and still images with the mouth barely animated, Studio DEEN managed to outdo Berserk 2016 and grace us with the most terrible anime I've seen in years.

Not only is the animation subpar, they also managed to pick some of Junji Ito's not so good stories (to ... not say duds) which bring no fear at all. Rather some lame attempt at humour.

The pacing, the color tone, the writing, everything went from OK to terrible in just a few episodes. Please, stay away from this one.

It does Ito Junji's work no good.

What is man's favorite word? Starts with an M and end with Arriage. A miscarriage. Ayyyyyy, This joke never gets old, and neither does the baby.

This joke is quite accurate way of introducing just about anyone to Itou Junji's anime. It offers similarly tasteless jokes about rather abstract events that are presented as a horror comedy. It's a collection of tales that varie from snail using a human head as a shell to a person drinking so much grease he turns into grease himself. Lovely. This was my favorite story for sure. His palms were sweatier than Eminem ever thought was possible.

Approaching this ... series with open mind and owning a sick sense of humor will definitely help oneself to enjoy this DEEN's newest animated masterpiece. The series comes with a lot of quality differences and won't appeal to most of its viewers. Pretty much no one thinks anything special about it. This because it really isn't anything special. It's different for sure and worth of giving a try for that reason no doubt.

The characters are pretty memorable. Especially the guy who eats nails. I don't mean his own nails, but literally iron nails. He was pretty cool. Would definitely befriend if I met a guy like that. Other characters aren't really worth of noting, but DEEN did pretty good job when designing them for this anime. The voice acting is what you would expect. No nyaaas or ara ara's are given. These people are weird, but sound realistic.

I recommend watching this series solely for the scene where giant woman comes out of the swamp and be like "ain't no Shrek gonna take over what is mine." I died of laughter, then came back alive just to finish this show.

I was really looking forward to this anime... and I was quite disappointed after watching 7 episodes.

Story: 2/10
Each short horror story in this anime never fulfills my expectations. This is mainly because every ending to a story is anticlimatic and makes no sense; it's not satisfactory. Most stories are not understandable and each story gets more and more ridiculous. However, the best story i've seen in this anime was Long Dreams; it had a really interesting plot and idea, therefore I really enjoyed it... until I watched the story "Slug Girl." Not only did this story have a ridiculous plot, but also had a ... ridiculous ending. Not to mention that this story was only 4 minutes long.

Art: 5/10
It's alright

Character: 3/10
I'm not sure if anyone agrees with me but don't all the male protagonists in each story look the same? Like, they're totally different people but they look like literal dopplegangers. They should at least show some variation in the characters.

Overall: 4/10
I guess although some stories were ridiculous, they were still quite entertaining. But most stories had terrible endings.

So far (Episode 6 ) I'm pretty disappointed with "Ito Junji Collection" for two reasons:

Firstly, the pacing is not very good, I think it has a lot to do with their decision to force two stories into every 22mins episode, therefor a lot of minor points got cut out, which hurt the atmosphere building drastically.

Then the art varies form passable to just bad, I don't know how much budged they had making this show but it doesn't seem to be much. And the overall color palette is too bright, not moody enough.

Needless to say this doesn't do justice to Ito's work.

LA always has been fine with the supernatural "cosmic horror" at times like ghosts and curses, however LA has a morbid fear of zombies because they are human yet not, LA KNOWS they can't exist but there is that future logical extreme where humanity kills itself off...with humanity itself and this is where there is a lingering sense of horror from both the mundanity taken to the logical extremes and the unknown...Junji Ito KNOWS this and absolutely runs with it.

Junji Ito: Collection right off the bat for LA is by the title itself a collection of Junji Ito's horror works in 22 minute episodes and ... because of this format LA really can't talk about the plot as there are multiple plots that really doesn't connect (one does but semantics), so the best way to talk about Junji Ito is by his signature horror genre he's famous for...but tied to lackluster animation and the problem itself of making an adaptation of majority of his works into a 12 episode anime.

Like LA said above, Junji Ito dives into the horror aspect of the mundanity of the normal or the unknown fates of many of his protagonists fate up to chance if they even survive from the "monsters" or the "horror phenomenon".

The mundanity of everyday normal things causing the horror strikes a chord with LA like LA's analogy with zombies but take that and make it even to the simplest things like...blood, oil, beauty, curiosity, unrequited love, dreams and even the moderation of privacy. Jump scares and gore are instant scares that are one timer moments that easily get boring or predictable but the mundanity of the normal brings in the our usual day lives and makes the horror stick from something we do in our repetitive usual day lives and by far Junji Ito knows how the mundanity works to the horror's advantage. Yeah through LA even saying this, Glyceride has shown LA to never see something as simple as GREASE as disgustingly vomit inducing or how Tomie's beauty goes into intense obsession.

On the other side, the unknown is really a simple as many of the protagonists fate are left up in the air, be it if the horror of the story is killed or not, their fates are left in the air and because of this unknown the majority of the time, they get consumed by the horror or it's the worst result at times. The unknown is scary as we DON'T KNOW IT ITSELF, thus facing the fear of the unknown can be scary as hell as there will be no way of knowing the end result and Junji Ito eats the carrot he's been dangling at you for the last 10 minutes or so giving us a cosmic horror of the unknown.

So about the lackluster animation, well the animation done by Studio DEEN for LA was ok enough but the animation tries to get Junji Ito's horror down into a verbatim animation with somewhat intentionally dull, dreary atmosphere with some interesting sketchbook-like character designs and backgrounding. The cosmic horror is pretty good but LA attributes that to Junji Ito's vision just now taken into animation format. LA "gets" Studio DEEN's animation though LA just felt some of the animation became lackluster as Studio DEEN just went verbatim of Junji Ito's collection of stories without much change when the atmosphere and more detailed animation was needed to inflict the horror of the animation more strikely, though at times LA kinda was ok with that as the horror seen in 1080p in greater detail isn't something LA DO NOT WANNA SEE...if you know where LA is getting at, as much as LA has gripes with the lackluster animation and though it definitely felt like it, the animation was "ok", but that's not much as praise.

Well the biggest problem LA sees with Junji Ito: Collection is of how the anime adapted his works to animation and by this is that because of ALOT of his works crammed into 12 episode 22 minutes has the implication of being short, there are some benefits like LA said about the unknown fates of many of the protagonists giving us no ending in the process and the effectiveness of it but LA will just say the pacing of many of the episodes are either too quick or too slow and it's fluctuates depending on the story working with you or not and LA felt it many times while watching Junji Ito: Collection, giving a very confused "THAT'S IT?" or "well that happened". LA won't say that the pacing is a huge problem as LA will defend it depending on the episode but it still detriments the horror at times as "meh" and the prime suspect of the pacing problems for LA at least is the weirdest choice of adapting some of his work is of Souichi and his stories as that is primarily seen as a COMEDY with some supernatural horror but it's nothing but a prankster who has actual voodoo powers and him failing time and again...like what?, the obvious implication for this is the anime has brought in even LESS screentime for his more intense horror stories for a straight up slapstick comedy. Though the only defense LA gets here is the fact of Souichi giving us a breather to more of Junji Ito's more intense horror stories but LA just found Souichi's inclusion and his placement of stories in terms of episodes baffling.

LA's taste in horror might be weird to some people let alone LA's fear and as much as LA harped on the faults and benefits of adapting Junji Ito's work, you know what, LA got Junji Ito's brand of cosmic mundane horror with many of his stories sticking for the better or worse and even though there is lackluster animation and let alone Studio DEEN even trying to adapt a plethora of Junji Ito's work and squishing it in a 12 episode format has some huge detriments to it but oddly enough Junji Ito: Collection has been a mundane yet horrifying, crazy as hell, cosmic horror fest. Junji Ito: Collection anime adaptation just might be LA's weirdest case of "disappointing yet satisfying" in terms of horror.

As a first time contact with junji ito this is magnificent! I'm now reading the mangas since I became utterly obsessed with souichi thanks to this anime, so I hope this helps:)
Now I can see why some reviews of old readers are low. Meanwhile the anime can give you chills, or moments that you think "wow gross, that's scary" etc. you are not really scared but more interested. When you read Junji Ito's original art it gives you more creeps, a purest feeling of terror, in my opinion a kind of art that can't be animated to be as scary.

Don't worry!! you don't get as ... much as terror, but double of fun. The job they did animating Souichi's curses was really amazing, his character essence was at his highest version. The laughs, voice, animation... everything fitted perfectly, making shine the funny side of him that you can read on the manga but can't really feel... the same emotions I tried to explain before with the terror speech but viceversa.

You can see 2 different stories every chapter, so it's easier to watch and enjoy, the best overshadowing the less interesting ones. If you like creepy things you will absolutely love it!!

Yeah, it's bad.

To talk about why Ito Junji Collection is a terrible mess is to talk about what makes a horrible anime adaptation. I'd like to first establish what was expected of it, and explain why it failed (even if most of it is obvious at first glance).

The bottom line for a decent anime adaptation is to provide an alternative way to experience the original work. More often than not that means a panel to panel adaptation with worse pacing and art, but now in color, fully voiced, scored and animated. Might sound fine on paper but it usually doesn't make the manga obsolete ... as anime rarely manage to adapt entirety of the story, and for many people the lack of detailed and stylish art can be a massive downside.

At best it can become something like Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. An anime that takes the original work, captures what people loved about it, and then goes an extra mile to use every strength anime medium has to offer to enhance it. Making the world come to live with vibrant colors, and turning action scenes into real spectacles by utilizing many talented animators. All while fatefully telling you the original story.

The possibility like that is what made the prospect of good Junji Ito anime so appealing. And then everyone saw that DEEN is behind it, snuffing any spark of hope that existed before. Then it actually came out and somehow managed to be even worse than I expected.

Junji Ito Collection doesn't just fail to meet the bottom line, It starts below it and then actively digs itself further down, as if looking for remains of Berserk's 2016 adaptation.
To start with, the directing is nearly non-existent. Shinobu Tagashira mindlessly follows manga chapters panel by panel without adding anything to them. More often than not he's actively making it worse since he doesn't translate the dramatic framing and progression of said panels, leaving you with a picture that always feels lifeless, flat, boring. Junji Ito is a master at capturing the reader's attention with his acute understanding of manga. He puts in a lot of effort to build the tension and increasing it all the way to the climax when the horror starts to spiral out of control. All of this is lost.

In part this is due to inadequacy of art in IJC. It would be one thing if they just failed to capture the complexity of Ito's haunting art, brimming with attention to detail that pushed it from creepy to genuinely unsettling. No, they once again dip below the lowest standard. While I'll commend Shinobu Tagashira for managing to adapt the manga designs for animation, none of it matters when they're badly drawn with depressing consistency. From derpy eyes that float all over the face, to stiff poses, to things that barely look human. Already souless anime becomes even harder to get invested in when it looks like that.

Animation blends perfectly with the rest of the adaptation in its ability to undermine the source material. There are multiple times throughout the show where IJC just gives up on even trying and shows you a still cutout moving around on the screen without anything to try and hide it. If it was any worse it would be a camcorder footage of someone waving a stick with a drawing glued on top. It's not always that terrible but it never adds anything of value. When Kagewani and Yami Shibai exist and manage to tell imaginative horror stories with minimal animation there's no excuse. It doesn't make for a great adaptation but it would still be an improvement compared to this.

Ito Junji Collection is not thoroughly bad, but most of the positive things I have to say about it are elements of original work left unbutchered in the process of adaptation, oversight on DEEN's part no doubt. While the impact is ruined the stories are still recognisably that of Junji Ito and his wild imagination. The selection is not weak either, it adapts some of the more memorable stories, some of which are consistently brought up when talking about Junji Ito's writing talent and/or art. Other than that the voice acting is pretty standard and the only real standout are the excellent OP and ED that capture the tone and bizarre nature of Ito and sound amazing.

In the end, Junji Ito Collection is just a bastardization of original work. It keeps the stories intact but it removes all the things that made them work. Please, don't watch it.

if I could give this anime lower than the score of 1, I would.
it's honestly the worst anime I've ever watched, a huge waste of time and an abomination for the manga

it was just awkward to watch
please do yourself a favour and DONT watch this anime.

Story - the story (in the manga) is decent, but the story telling in this anime is atrocious
Art - one of the worst and most generic and boring art styles I've seen.
Sound - nothing much to say about it, though the voice acting and screams were awfully awkward to listen to
Characters - none memorable characters, the only somewhat ... decently animated arc was "Nagai Yume"
Enjoyment - it was a nice joke, but thats all there is to it
Overall - dont bother, staring at the wall sounds like a better experience.

Junji ito deserves more recognition, he's undoubtedly one of the best horror anime writers !
The first episode was funny but later in the anime it gets dark to the point where i couldn't even sleep but he did a good job because that's one of the main objectives of a horror anime.
Would definitely recommend !
But should read the manga first cuz it has more details and looks scarier than the anime .
It contains traumatizing tales of different stories like a snail growing out of a girl's mouth , an attractive women making men fawn over her , making them crazy over her then awaits ... something horrifying or an attractive spirit at the misty crossroads that grants cursed advice !

JUNJI ITOU COLLECTION (24/3/18)

This anime is to Junji Itou’s work is what Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender was to Nickelodeon’s Avatar series. It’s an adaptation so crude in its execution that the original’s fandom will deny it ever happened.

ART (0/10)

The Junji Itou Collection has what is easily the worst “animation” I have seen in anime, that is to say there is barely any. Most of the shots are static and the illusion of movement is created by camera pans or sudden shaking. What little animation feels obligatory, like adding a couple extra frames to make a character’s mouth look like it’s moving, and often looks convulsive ... and unnatural. Characters will either shake violently to make it feel ~scary~ or if the animators are feeling especially lazy then some characters may slide across the floor instead of walking.

The art style is vaguely like Junji Itou’s, but it’s so watered-down that it’s offensive. While Itou’s manga is characterised by the intricate details that make the experience truly captivating and beautifully grotesque, this anime aimed for the bare minimum and missed it by a few miles. The otherworldly creatures that Itou is famous for come to life as something out of a children’s bad horror book and... what looks like CGI? I don’t know, not even CGI in anime has looked so unintentionally comical. The only time when the anime looks good is when it directly copy & pastes a panel from the manga and adds colour to it, but even when it redraws scenes it makes them absolutely devoid of the atmosphere and horror that the original is so rich with.

CHARACTERS (2/12)

As the stories are short one-shots that usually span 10 minutes there is obviously not much time to flesh out any characters. However the anime never makes even an effort to go beyond what the source material gives it. Although the characters in Itou’s work are only secondary to the horrors that each story recounts, each character still has some sort of motive. Sometimes it’s to become independent, other times to satiate their curiosity, but most times to survive.

But again, the Junji Itou Collection fails on this front where the characters don’t seem to be passionate about anything and most of their decisions seem to come out of nowhere. This is because the anime decides to leave out some parts that may be unimportant to the main storyline but give us insight into the characters’ heads, leaving the audience with an abridged version of the original, and not even a good one.

The only thing I can give this aspect of the show is that it doesn’t add unnecessary characters to the show, which is something that always bothers me. But it’s not like they had the initiative to.

SOUND (2/6)

The theme songs are good to listen to and suit Itou’s style. The opening gets you excited and the ending lulls you to an almost suspicious rest. Unfortunately none of your anticipation is met.

The OST is basically nonexistent and I cannot remember a single piece that I heard watching this show. Even some stories that require a good sound design to make any sense at all were neglected in this part, such as an episode where characters lose their mind over an unbelievably good music CD, but, AGAIN, the show fails to make an effort where it counts to make the CD sound at least good. The voice-acting is subpar and when combined with the badly drawn facial expressions it makes a lot of the characters’ reactions unrealistic and therefore impossible to relate to.

STORY (0/12)

Another defining feature of Itou’s manga is its bizarre premises and how, with careful pacing trepid developments, what may be an unrealistic reaction becomes understandable. However this adaptation rushes the stories and completely misses their point and what makes them effective.

The biggest offender is the much-anticipated story Painter, featuring Itou’s most famous character Tomie. The story requires previous knowledge of the main character, which isn’t a problem in the manga because the chapter is published after the chapters that introduce us to Tomie. Seems obvious that you need the start to get to a side story, right? Not to this anime’s staff.

Another issue is that in the manga chapter the titular painter loses his sanity over Tomie slowly and steadily, whereas in the anime because the staff felt obliged to cram in two stories for every episode without exception, the painter’s descent to madness feels more like a leap.

OVERALL

The anime takes Itou’s ideas and throws them with as much power over a rock-hard road, then runs them over with a lorry and pours paint over them. It’s the very definition of doing the bare minimum. Don’t watch unless you want to pretend Itou isn’t a great author.

Final score: 1/10

So...what the verdict for the justification of the King of horror Itou Junji: Collection? Nothing...nothing at all.

If you've thought that a mere 12 episodes can cover the VAST majority of works of Itou Junji throughout the years, don't expect too much: it's up to the studio helming the project (that is Studio low-budget Deen) to pick the stories and feedback from the creator himself to see which stories are worth watching onto the main screen.

The first nitpick that (not only) I (but others too) see is that the stories are picked at random, and the reason for that is actually the idea of Itou Junji ... himself to give us jump-scare surprises when we watch the episodic story episodes every week. Props for the well intent of the creator, but that may also be the reason why it backfired because of our certain requirements as to which story SHOULD be animated. If that was the case, with everyone having their own requested story, it's not gonna be enough to fill in the 12 episode void, so good job on cleaning the shit there.

Again, for people like myself who typically don't like the horror genre (movies included), this is definitely NOT a great representation of justice to the man who's works expand years that frighten people off (of reading the manga source) with the sense of foreboding. Granted, there are numerous problems with the anime adaptation but I'll give my 2 cents and let you decide whether if this is worth your time.

The art...isn't horrible by any means, AS IN the ways of illustrating the story of choice, the manga was terrifying enough to make you pee your pants, but the anime adaptation (for some reason) had to be dumbed down (in case of violence and gore). The move is understandable, but the creative content by itself STILL shouldn't sell off what started off as gore and when translated, almost the entire substance feels off. Moreover, the hand-drawn art indeed gave me chills, but mildly. Overall, it's Studio Deen, what do you expect???

The sound could use some refining too, especially the VAs working on the different characters each week, they get the job done...but mildly as well. I will give an honorable mention to the OST, especially the rock-based OP that's supposed to reel you in the horror, and the calm but sometimes nauseous ED that if honestly there's something good about this show, it's the music that sells.

Overall, Itou Junji: Collection is not a bad show per se, but the redeeming qualities are outweighed by the factors that hint this as a sub-par, mediocre show. Combined with low ratings, and what you have is a recipe of nothingness that only excels in letting people be more disappointed than the horror it should have promised from the start.

Awful adaptation of a bunch of Junji Ito's stories. Most of them have been cut short and have no conclusion whatsoever. The artwork is incredibly poor compared to Ito's originals (sans a few), which heavily minimizes the shock factor. Most of the stories involving monsters are awful because if this. Needless to say, the best of the bunch are the ones which center around a concept rather than on shocking imagery (mostly due to Ito's storywriting).

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this. Only to Ito fans, but only because there are no other animated adaptations of his works (Gyo was even worse than this).


Notable stories (both ... good and bad):

- Fashion Model: Destroyed because of the mediocre animation.
- The Long Dream: The definite best of the stories. The concept is great and the execution was handled decently.
- Boy at the Crossroads: Left incomplete. Only 1/4 of the whole story was adapted.
- Slug Girl: Heavily butchered and badly adapted. The absolute worst of the series.
- Cloth Teacher: The best of the Souichi stories. Has a great sense of black humor and it's very enjoyable to watch.
- Painter: One of the most interesting of the Tomie stories. It's also the only story in this series involving shock factor that actually looked decent.
- Greased: Great atmosphere, but was left inconclusive.

(this is my very first review)
In the words of the YouTuber Super Eyepatch Wolf, The Junji Ito Collection is disappointing garbage.
I've recently become a fan of Ito's work, and I was excited for this anime. But...I have been very disappointed. The anime is lazy, lifeless and has no real impact, full of washed out colors, bad cuts and technical errors.
The Collection is boring, and so painfully mediocre - but the work it is based on is not. It doesn't fully harness the terror and detail that Ito puts into his work, his heart and soul and every painstaking detail that is put into ... the panels. I feel like this.. "adaptation" is an insult to his work, ignoring the symbolism and depth in his works and turning them into flat scenes with horrible animation and terrible story boarding.
The Collection also doesn't harness the use of Ito's horror, tension and anticipation, either. It falls flat on the scares and gore and Ito's use of the page turn, something unique to manga and books, as a way to show horror that could have been so amazingly adapted into something that could only be used in animation. The horror genre has so much potential in animation and unfortunately, this work has failed to harness it.

Am a bit confused with this one, Because the episodes are short a bit too short almost all stories have no real ending.
it's a plot that start with something creepy and than on the climax it quits and goes to the next story, and this happen 24x.
Every episode has 2 stories. i was recommend this anime by different websites because i like horror, but beside some creepy/gory things there is not really any horror to find here.

in my opinion it could be better, less childish and more adult like less humor and more drama would work.
i give it a 7 because i liked the art ... and it's isn't terrible just not really horror as was promised.

I wanted to write a small review explaining why I gave this anime a 7/10. There are very few decent horror anime, and while it is definitely true that all these stories work much better as manga, it was still enjoyable and scary to watch compared to other horror anime. It is all credited to the creativeness of Junji Ito's mind. If this anime used this same format with less compelling stories, I would have rated it MUCH lower. Fortunately for the producers, they were using Ito's stories and character designs. Ito's genius is the only thing keeping this anime from being trash.

Story: 10/10, Of course, the stories are amazing, Ito is a genius when it comes to suspense and shocking themes. I could never get enough of his creative ways of twisting the reader's minds. But I do not like how forced this anime was. It gave the manga no justice. It was almost as if this anime wasn't even based on Junji's mangas at all. I really really tried to enjoy it but they did Ito Junji so wrong with this rushed mess.

Art: 2/10 The characters were lifeless and draw very poorly. Look at how eloquently Junji draws his manga and spends so much ... time on shading to make everything come to life and look believable on the pages and then compare it to the lifeless soulless mess they completely rushed out of the studio.

Sound: 1/10 The characters were voiced right some of the time but my biggest issue is with the ear-grating music that they chose. I seriously don't know what they were thinking when they rushed this out to the public.

Character: 6/10 they stuck to the manga's portrayal of the characters so there are no complaints there. Just some of the interactions were rushed or ignored completely to fit the time frame for each episode.

Enjoyment: 6/10 I am so very desperate for a GOOD horror anime that I'd watch just about anything at this point.

Overall: They did the Junji so wrong with this adaption. I normally don't like to read manga unless it truly interests me but I'd rather read Junji's works than watch this. Reading his manga is actually enjoyable and I feel as if I am there with the characters which is rare for me when reading manga. I am so disappointed by how they did this series.

Now don't get me wrong, I am open to watching anime based on Junji's works again but I just hope that they don't rush it and bunch all of the episodes together in such a small timeframe.