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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

This collection was one of my most anticipated anime projects at the time and when it released it was the biggest pile of shit ever junji Ito has always been the greatest mangaka there was at writing bone chilling stuff with some of the greatest art I've seen and this is just a stain that carries none of the impact.
Furthermore the art just feels flat it's a massive nothing burger with no soul behind the art just a cheap imitation of something superior. The voice acting is also lackluster and doesn't fit well it's like watching the Schneider cut of Batman Vs superman in German.

(huge reminder that I'm not that good at writing review so I apologize if it's messy and few bad grammar)
(also another reminder that I may edit this review)

This is actually the first time I got to read the manga that I buy before the anime adaptations (I didn't get to read all collection however but I do get some of them). When I found out that junji ito's manga will become an anime I was about to get interested as 11 - 12 year old me was a huge fan of horror and creepy stuff (yeah I don't know why I was like that ... either but I still like watching creepy stuff ofc).

I still remember when I read the manga and got a creepy vibe after read it. I remember felt itchy when I read this one part where a main character's dad in this one chapter got holes all over his body, probs because that was first trypophobia image I ever seen at that time.

However, when I watch the anime, it just.. not as good as I hope. Not really sure if I can say it's kinda disappointing. I can't really say much since I only watch like 3 episodes that I found on YouTube. I just didn't get any creepy vibe or scary feeling to it.

I'm not really sure if it's because the manga is in black and white, or it might because the style just didn't get as appeal as the manga. Or probably because they cut some part in the manga? I know that might sounds dumb but it could be the reason I didn't get interest in it? There this one chapter about leech in the manga and its only like 4 minutes in the anime.

I don't really know much what to say about the story since this anime is mostly a whole collection (probably not all) of junji ito's horror manga. Each chapter shows different stories and different characters (besides that weird nail kid thing). Not to mention, the animation is sometimes okay sometimes horrible. Sound was okay or nice? The voice isn't that bad though I'm not really sure about the ost. Well that's Studio Deen for you I guess.

Overall, I give this anime 3/10 but I might giving this 4 as well? I'm not sure if people who didn't read the manga or not a fan of junji ito at least think this is a decent anime, but what I know is it's a huge downgrade compare to the manga.

TL;DR dissapointment for everyone acquainted with Junji's art, mediocre show for everyone else and certainly no proper deciption original material.

I must admit, I was exited when I first heard of this series. Excited, but sceptic at the same time. Putting my reservations aside I finally decided to start watching it.
And well... It's a 5/10 show. Boring at every step with no standout moment nor quality. Why 3 then?
The answer is simple - the source material.
The last thing that should've been said about adaptation of one of most disturbing mangas ever created is that it is forgettable. But to the shows defence - maybe there ... just is no better medium than manga for Junji's art? But on the other hand, there are some disturbing shows out there like Texhnolyze... I dunno. What I can say tho is that il just looks like the creators bit off more that they could chew.

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.

Status: Finished

Ito Junji Collection - You know, of ALL the production team in ALL animated studios in ALL the world, and you just HAD to choose Studio Deen!

I know people, which include even me, like to joke about how Toei animation isn’t that top notch when it comes to producing animated shows. But unlike Toei that could create quality content every once in awhile, Studio Deen seems to have a problem on creating an adaptation that is on par nowadays. For those who wants to defend Studio Deen, this anime is not the hill you want to die on.

Ito Junji Collection is a collection of ... Ito Junjis work that works as an anthology series. This means that we will see a collection of separate horror stories. Now as this anime might seem to have no problem regarding having continuous story with just show different scenarios. Yet! They find a way to even mess those things up. I’ll explain that one in just a moment.

As you might know, sometimes some scenes or some moments needs to be compromised. The artwork of the creators can be very unique when someone going to copy it, especially when you are going to animate it. But when you do compromised things, you need to remember that it should still show the quality in of the artwork in another ways. With that said and done, do you think they did a good job? Because I don't think they did a good job.

You have choppy character movements, goofy execution, gray visuals instead of good contrasts, scenes that has less impactful cinematography one chopped still image. They even photoshopped an image of a spider in one scene. I’m not even joking, the spider looks so fake that I noticed the second it appeared on screen.

They even compromise still shots! Wow! This isn’t something that moves that much or in the background, it’s in the center of the screen and it’s a still shot! You couldn't even bother giving this horrendous women some time.

And that's what the anime fails to do, to make the character look intentional horrendous. The details and the contrast from the Black and white from manga are gone. The charm of the surreal illustrations are tooned down and how they are delivered in the story is watered down. This is a shame for any horror story, especially for this anime.

But Taff, you have just talked about the animation and how it reflects the story elements. You haven’t actually talked about the story ITSELF.
Well here is the thing, despite Ito junji being a good artist, he isn’t always a good story teller. He usually make stories where people does illogical choices regarding how they feel and know about the situation. Some are excusable, others are not.

With that I mean that character does some stupid shit that makes you think if they just wanted to die. Now now, I do understand when something that motivates them to do something else with affection or with the information they have at hand, this can easily be understanded in stories like Tomie and Lovesick Dead. When someone is madly in love or distracted, they do stuff they would normally wouldn’t do.

What I’m saying is that not all stories does focus on these topics. It’s the mentality of the characters. How should I put? If a character saw a train coming towards them and they yell that they needed to move away, they would still be in the rails and not even attempt to move from their position.

Sometimes we have stories like the circus where we are to believe that none of the audience objected when each and everyone of the performer suddenly died infront of them. I mean, characters are yelling that the circus is cursed and then get murdered in front of the audience. Is really nobody in this massive audience going to do anything? In fact, when the host speaks to the audience that he needs their help to recruit replacement for the now dead performer, they all seemed to be willing to join in because of the girl. Wha-what!? This would make sense of the audience was cheering for these murders, but they aren't doing that. They show a clear disgust of what has happened. See this is why episode 8 is the worst episode.


And sadly, this anime has more of his lesser work than his best work. And the team didn’t even looked over these things. Hell, you could argue that they even made some stories worse.

Isn’t the productions team job to evaluate someone's story to another medium and sloppy copying pasting it?

For those who wonders, yes there are good parts in this anime. Like I said, the collection does include good stories. In Fact most of them are in the Opening.

For example: it has the Slug Girl, Long Dream, Tomie, Lovesick Dead, My Dear Ancestors, hell they even have stories of our favorite pathetic and pale boi! Yes Souichi is finally in animation!

However, if you expect these character to appear frequently, then you are not in luck. Yeah, Lovesick Dead that supposedly have a continuing story spanning 5 chapters, only has one. This is coming from me who liked that story allot.

Even best pale and pathetic boi doesn't get that many episode where he is featured. If this series was just about him, then this anime might have been much higher on this list.

Can we also talk about the OP? I get an impression that they fought that getting into the mood for scary imagery was by having a rock music and present their monsters like they are a crime fighting team. In other words, I think it doesn’t fit the show. Now the ED, is more fitting.

I mean this anime is just a waste of time.

If you want to read Ito Junji collection, that is fine, you got many chapters which will are a feast to the eye. But this anime, ohohoho, you can just skip this one.

Story 10/10

Of course the stories are good, they're written by Junji Ito for goodness sake! He's the best horror manga writer of all time and this anime practically made him into a comedy. If anything I'll use this space to just repeat again: Junji Ito is a fantastic writer and a lot of his works actually make my skin crawl they're so creepy and vivid- but this anime was a far cry from that. Saying the art is pathetic is an understatement. I was wondering eagerly how they would transfer Junji Ito's creepy style into animation like "Are they going to make it all black ... and white? Is it going to be really sketchy, pencil-line style? Is it-" No. Just no. They barely tried. It looks as generic as some random high-school anime (no offense to people who like generic high school anime but it just doesn't suit horror at all). I think the series would've benefited so much from just being in black and white. It also felt like they modernized some of it? I liked the manga because it sort of played to the same western slasher aesthetic (even though the manga probably came first) but that whole energy was just gone? They really missed the mark on this.

First of i'm a huge Junji Ito fan, but this is utter garbage!

If you like horror and/or trash even then i woudn't recommend this to you.
All the love you feel in the Mangapages is non existing in this lazy adaptation.
This Anime recreates the panels of the manga almost perfectly, but with a poor artstyle and lazy CGI. At no times i felt the same horror when reading the manga, only the horror of wishing it would end already.
This is just a huge waste of time and i hope the works of Junji Ito get one day the adaptation it deserves.

an absolute failure of the source material in every aspect. Junji Ito Collection tries to copy Ito's panels beat for beat but loses so much tension and character in it's poor execution. I feel bad for anyone exposed to this show before having read the manga. Ito's mastery deserves a more fair amount of gravitas and care in order to translate to animation. This extremely sloppy rush-job of a production is obviously meant to cater to Ito fans, but the staff who has handled this project seems to have little to no passion for what they're putting out there. Ito's stories are carried by his ... stark artistic style; shadows are black as can be, blood spatter looks like it came from a real crime scene, he always pushes the uncanny valley with his monsters so that when they are revealed in the manga you will be frozen in surprise in the presence of the image. While I can say that the color palette used is relatively accurate to his own color choices, the "style" used by studio DEEN is rather understated and cheap. It's obvious the animators did not want to stay true to Ito's style, as characters will frequently snap in and out of states of generic seinen style and ito style, often being in the same scene, in adjacent frames; that is when anything is being animated at all. Get used to long dragged out scenes aimed at being atmospheric, ultimately coming off as a thinly veiled excuse to pad out time so they don't have to put in any effort. Every moment of this show feels like they're cutting corners just to make the deadline. The features of the characters change drastically as you can plainly see the animators becoming bored with a project that's way over their heads. I hate this anime so much because the source material is really important in the scope of Japanese art, and people who are new to the guro genre would see what could've been a classic and instantly dismiss it for being conveyed so poorly. 1/10 do not watch. It's even worse than Gyo. Just read the manga.

If you're looking for a comedic, bad art style collection of things not to do in any horror situations then congratulations, you've got a 10/10 anime right here, go ahead.

If you're looking for an anime creation of some of Junji Itou's sickest works then you'd probably have better luck creating it yourself.

Now, a lot of fellow Junji Itou fans warned me off watching this. Being a relatively new fan, I took their warnings into consideration but I still chose to watch this with a friend as something for us to do in the evenings. Part of me really wishes I'd listened to other fans ... of Itou, but part of me is also now glad - at least I know now that when I read the mangas I have yet to read, I'm going to enjoy them ten times more.

Although the storylines in this are spectacular and follow Itou's work perfectly, the art style in this let it down. The only word I can use to describe it is just. Lazy. Terrible pan shots, notable repeated uses of the same frames, and just some generically bad drawing where some characters didn't even have their full noses drawn on. Each episode seemed to drag on longer and longer and the only reason I continued watching this was to avoid dropping an anime and having my first red mark on my MyAnimeList statistics. It was simply shocking. Although the sound work and seiyuu's brought this to life, the artwork fully ruined it. As many other's have said - this is somewhat of an insult to the beautifully constructed art frames that Itou spends so much time and energy to create.
Maybe they were rushed and that's why it just seemed limp and pale, but there was no excuse for this to be rushed. They should have tried to hire Itou on board as the art creator and director, frankly. This was just an abomination and I wish Splatter would work on sections of the brain so I could forget I ever forced myself to sit through this.

I think truly the thing that most disappointed me in this was just that I ended up laughing through a lot of the scenes. I ended up sitting and laughing through scenes that were meant to be sad or disturbing because the artwork was so bad and - if I'm honest - that actually hurt a little bit. I shouldn't be laughing through the work of one of my favourite authors for his disturbing and intriguing work. It's just not right.

Miss this, if you're an Itou fan, truly miss it. Learn from my mistake and run for the hills like every other Itou fan in this review section is warning you to do.

This anime degraded everything that was good in the manga... it is nice that studio makes almost identical frame to frame transition but it lacks consistency, it lacks any feelings, backgrounds suck, animation was horrid over half of the time, characters suck (lot of crucial horror characters lack over 50% of details that make them actually scary).

I was so hyped about this anime. I was looking forward to see some of Ito Junji's work in animated form. I tried to be scared or suprised or whatever. But more episodes I finished more this piece of rubbish became like B rated comedy with "horror" aspects.

... On the plus side I have read only 3 books from Junji Ito and after this disappointing anime I picked up more books and I am thrilled so this anime had one good effect on me. It made me read manga more to actually enjoy those short stories that were butchered here in the anime.

Anime had some good moments, do not get me wrong. But it was like 3 episodes from 12 that left any impression on me.

They absolutely missed what is essencial about work of Junji Ito... I guess they also did not have enough budget because some "effects" and skin "details" are manageable in Photoshop by total amateur to look better than here in actual anime.

pros:
- story (they faithfully followed panels in manga, so it is only because of the original that I can rate story highly in the anime)
-sound (some sci-fi horror sound effects were neat, opening is not bad).
-Souichi is bae

cons:
- everything else, get me out

If this anime was produced by Madhouse a.k.a. studio that actually has competent staff, everybody would be orgasming or dead from the pure horror quality.

REVIEW WITH NO SPOILERS

Weel, I never read anything from Ito Junji, so I guess i can analyze this anime with no expectations.

The anime itself is basicaly a lot of stories from the recognized talented from the horror gender Ito Junji. The stories have no relation... at least, the most of them. But something in common in the stories is that all of them have suspense, horror and all of them are strange, bizarre and supernatural. Some stories are REALLY great (like the Model) and there are some really short and forgetable stories.

The worst thing here it's the animation: it seems that kids did the animation. ... This anime deserved something better than that.

The opening and the ending are great, really fits the premise of the Collection.

So, if you are looking for a horror anime with no long story (actually, a lot of stories) this is the one for you! But you'll have to tolerate the bad animation. That's it!

I had high expectations for this anime, as I am a fan of Junji Ito's work. Perhaps I should not have, especially since I have seen the terrible movie adaptation of Uzumaki, just because it is an adaptation of Junji Ito's work, it is not necessarily good. And here is why this one fails at adapting it's source:

First of all, while it is a faithful adaptation of Junji Ito's short stories, that is simply not enough. The essence of Ito's manga is not exactly in the stories themselves, it is in the presentation. While they are good stories reminiscent of urban legends, they do not ... feel as anything more than that. Urban legends told by children at a playground. Without Ito Junji's way of telling these stories, they lose all the things that make them exceptional. This brings me to my next point: the art.

Oh the animation. It is absolutely dreadful. The lines are strange, thick, uneven and heavy; the colours are dull and utterly uninteresting; and the movement is lacking. Honestly, sometimes it looks like paper cutouts being dragged around in front of a still background. It is lazy, uninspired and ugly. The way the characters are drawn especially. While, I believe, the beauty of certain characters in Ito's manga serves an important purpose: to enhance the presentation of the horrors shown in the stories. On one hand, their beauty strengthens the contrast between the main characters and the monsters they encounter. In other cases, the beauty of an evil character can appear otherworldly and creepy. But whichever case we are talking about does not matter when it comes to this anime, as the characters just don't look all that beautiful at all. They look awkward, their faces seem off - and not in a creepy Junji Ito way -, and the lazy linework combined with dull colours does not do them any good either. Luckily, the dreadful art is the worst part of this anime, all other aspects are decent at the least. And after the worst aspect follows the best.

Here's a thing I actually loved about this show: the sound. For the most part. What got me to watch this anime aside from the fact that it is a Junji Ito adaptation was the OP. It is energetic, memorable and very cool. Though I am not sure if it is a great match for the mood of Junji Ito's manga, and definitely nothing like the actual anime. The ending surprised me by being even better. It is just the right amount of calming after an episode that was (supposed to be) stirring, while it keeps a sense of strangeness to fit the source material. It is quite a lovely song, I never actually once skipped the ED. As for the general soundtrack, it was nothing special. Just your average creepy ambient music. When there even was any music. This I honestly didn't really mind. While it could've been done a lot better in order to enhance the creepiness of the stories told, this at least was not absolutely terrible.

The voice acting, while criticized by many was quite good in my opinion. The voices were fitting to the characters (I especially enjoy the fashion model's voice), and while they did sound strange at points, mostly they seemed natural and fit the rather dull and mundane design of the show well. It's important to mention that the voice actors did not have much to work with, as there was not too much personality to most characters depicted (except for the few whose personality was an important factor). Which normally would be fine, Junji Ito is not beloved for his character development. The characters are supposed to be there to be a witness of the terrible, inexplicable happenings around them. Shells whose shoes we could place ourselves and our friends into. As I said, normally this would not be an issue in a Junji Ito story. But in the case of this adaptation the boring and lifeless characters just add to the dull and gray feeling the show emits.

Despite everything, I enjoyed this anime enough to keep watching all 12 episodes. Though I don't believe I would've kept watching if it was any longer. Perhaps I enjoyed being reminded of all the good reads I had before. Maybe the anime did a good job at enhancing the more humorous side of Junji Ito's manga that sometimes appears. I honestly can't say if I would have enjoyed this anime more or less if I hadn't read a portion of the source material. I would argue that without any pre-established connection to the stories, you'll find nothing enjoyable in this anime. On the other hand, it's faults might bother you less if you don't get your expectations high after the manga. I do not know whether you will enjoy it, but I say if it doesn't seem worth watching after two or three episodes just drop it. It is not going to increase in quality the least bit.

Overall, I gave this anime a rating of 4 (Decent). I considered giving it the 'Poor' rating, but I decided this might not be as bad. It was not laughably terrible, nor was it unwatchable. It just felt unmotivated and seemingly made on a very low budget. Therefore I came to the conclusion it was decent.

Now to summarize my points: My biggest issue was with the lazy animation, awkward artwork and dreadful colour design. Otherwise I found the show painfully average and uninteresting, not in any way reaching the greatness of the source material. The OP and ED are definitely worth listening to though, as they are great songs, completely unfitting to a dull anime such as this one. I am not saying you should avoid this anime at all costs, but if you feel like dropping it after a few episodes, do so, there is nothing worth staying for.

Being a massive fan of Junji Ito's manga, i'm terribly sad to be giving this adaptation such a low score. The same as for the more recent Netflix Maniac.

Horror is quite a peculiar genre, requiring a lot more suspension of disbelief than others and is usually much more effective the more it leaves to the imagination. Which is why it tends to work much better in prose, or graphic novels, where your mind has to fill in a lot more between each sentence or panel with your own personal terrors. This is true for all the greatest horror writers like Poe, Lovecraft, or Stephen King, ... with very rare exceptional adaptations actually doing justice to the original work. In the case of Lovecraft, i'm still waiting for a good one, despite all the attempts.

When the suspension of disbelief is stretched too far, horror quickly turns into into its opposite - comedy. And the line between these two genres is surprisingly thin. Often fused to great effect in many movies - Peter Jackson's early filmography being a prime example in my mind.

Junji Ito in particular doesn't really know how to end a story most of the time and he tends to lobotomize his characters of most of their common-sense... This is fine in manga format, where the ambience and pacing superbly make up for it. But on screen they just become exacerbated. I refuse to believe it's impossible to adapt and i rather think the story-boarding work for this anime was rather lazy - basically adding frames to Junji Ito's panels, beat by beat.

This is the third peculiarity of horror adaptations: different media require different approaches and the more faithful you try to be to the written word the less effective you will generally be in a visual format. This becomes a huge problem where you are much more likely make a good horror movie, the more you stray from the original work (and the more you risk alienating fans) - a fact that is masterfully evident in The Shinning. But you wouldn't need to go to that far to make a better adaptation, had the story-telling not been absolutely flat and linear, had there been more creative applications of rhythm to the scenes, paired with better sound design, better animation, better camera work, better almost everything...... This could've easily been double the score.