Junji Ito's Manga 'Tomie' Gets Western Live-Action Adaptation

by Sakana-san
Jul 29, 2019 3:12 PM | 43 Comments

A live-action series based on Junji Ito's horror manga Tomie was announced on Monday. The show will be exclusively available on the new streaming platform called Quibi that will launch on April 6, 2020 in North America. The episodes will have a duration of under ten minutes.

Synopsis
This is the story of what happens when a beautiful high school girl goes missing and pieces of her body are discovered scattered across a small town. But what starts out as a murder mystery turns into something even more horrific. (Source: Quibi)

Director Alexandre Aja (The 9th Life of Louis Drax) is helming the series that will be written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (The Walking Dead). Both will also serve as executive producers, with Hiroki Shirota (The Outsider) as co-producer.

Ito serialized Tomie in Asahi Sonorama's monthly Halloween magazine in 1987, before moving to Nemuki where it ended in 2000 with three compiled volumes. VIZ Media shipped the manga in North America in December 2016 as a hardcover omnibus.

Tomie was previously adapted into a series of Japanese live-action films that has eight instalments. A three-episode TV series was also broadcast in 1999.

In Winter 2018, the manga was animated by Studio Deen as part of a collection of Ito's past works. Two special episodes of Tomie were bundled with the second and third Blu-ray and DVD volumes of the collection.

Source: Comic Natalie

Live Action

20 of 43 Comments Recent Comments

Any word on this or..?

Jul 30, 2020 5:34 AM by Weebookey

YggdraSEED said:
@H1GHLANDER360

I get that it's a plot driven story but it's 100% plot driven, nothing matters, it'll just ignore any character development and as for plot progression, heck there's no plot, if you disagree then I dare you to explain the plot lmao

Sorry for this late response lol. I do disagree, Uzumaki isn't really hard to follow as it's mostly about a small village being cursed by an entity called The Spiral and how the villagers alongside our protagonists deal with it's curses. It kept me invested because I was intrigued by it's originality.

Each story has an arc to it which usually involves The Spiral's curse. i.e. the snail people and the hair one. Later on in the story Kirie and her boyfriend go and try to find more about this mysterious entity with conflicts along the way. Followed by a not so happy ending.

Tomie also follows in similar structure to Uzumaki as it deals with a mysterious girl who's irresistibly beautiful to the point it drives men insane. The point is both Tomie and Uzumaki have a plot overall with story arcs and are not hard to follow. I don't get how Uzumaki is convoluted to you is what I am saying but hey each to it's own I guess.

lol.

Nov 21, 2019 9:36 PM by H1GHLANDER360

@H1GHLANDER360

I get that it's a plot driven story but it's 100% plot driven, nothing matters, it'll just ignore any character development and as for plot progression, heck there's no plot, if you disagree then I dare you to explain the plot lmao

Nov 21, 2019 6:34 PM by Haunt88

YggdraSEED said:

H1GHLANDER360 said:

I have and it's really great. I like Uzumaki better.

@EGOIST

Nah dude, Uzumaki IS repetitive and extremely overrated, it's the epitome of pointless for the sake of being pointless and weird for the sake of being weird

While Tomie actually have character development and plot progression https://youtu.be/04Ly9Uc59S4

Say what you will of Uzumaki but I really loved it. It had a sense of world-building and conflicts that had me engaged. I was really into the idea of spirals and curses that inflict upon the small village.

I enjoyed Tomie too and all the misfortunes she gives towards her victims.

I just prefer it better even if the ending is disappointing. Also care to elaborate how "pointless" it is? From what I read neither of it seem pointless and the curses play a huge part of the story.

Nov 21, 2019 8:35 AM by H1GHLANDER360

H1GHLANDER360 said:

QuattroVaginas said:
Have people read Tomie? It's a collection of short stories, 10 min episodes are about right.

I have and it's really great. I like Uzumaki better.

Nov 21, 2019 5:20 AM by Haunt88

I just hope they don't ruin it. This manga has a very special place in my heart.

Aug 2, 2019 3:10 AM by Kichou_Shihaisha

JottaPokka said:
I guess it’s good news, I wish we could get some anime adaptations of junji ito’s works. I feel like it won’t fit well into this format.

There IS an anime adaptation but it wasn't very good to be honest. Most episodes were a flop

Jul 31, 2019 9:51 AM by Kitty-Kate

Ah man, not again! the West isn't very good at adapting manga and anime and they are certainly not very good at adapting Japanese horror!

Jul 31, 2019 9:50 AM by Kitty-Kate

I guess it’s good news, I wish we could get some anime adaptations of junji ito’s works. I feel like it won’t fit well into this format.

Jul 31, 2019 9:25 AM by JottaPokka

1) Tomie is kind of weird and disjointed so the short format will probably work well.
2) Tomie is kind of weird and disjointed so I didn't really like the manga, and don't feel compelled to watch a western adaptation
3) Oh boy, another new streaming service. Just what I wanted for my birthday.

Jul 31, 2019 8:09 AM by MrLegitimacy

R.I.P. Tomie... I really have no hope for this. I'll probably watch it anyway though.

Jul 31, 2019 6:08 AM by removed-user

Well... I don't want to instantly write this off as horrible, but looking back at past western live-action remakes of other anime, and even animated adaptations of Junji Ito's work, I'm kinda skeptical. I'll just hope it turns out good.

Jul 31, 2019 6:04 AM by Mori_void

Hmmm, this sounds intriguing, so far nothing shows this will definitely be a failure of an adaptation. Of course, something like Uzumaki is pretty difficult to bring to a live action form, Tomie seems to be easier in this regard. Ito's extremely unique atmosphere will probably suffer to some extent in the process, but I'm still willing to check it out.

Jul 31, 2019 1:15 AM by me_here_me_there

kwokinator said:
Actually, if anything Tomie is more suited to a live action adaptation than anything else in his portfolio, especially for a western audience.

The theme of the manga is just a girl that's so incredibly hot that all men instantly fall in love with her and are then slowly driven insane by her unnatural beauty. Everything else can be up to reinterpretation and still be considered faithful IMO.

Not exactly a hard topic to adopt, sexy femme fatale movies have existed for decades.

I am honestly surprise by how much negativity is going on in this thread. Base on what I've read for this adaptation, everything seems fine.

-The director is familiar with the genre.
- It's not a movie.
- The length of the episodes are appropriate.
- Tomie can translate well into live-action because outside of certain supernatural elements, it's pretty much grounded in reality.

Jul 31, 2019 1:01 AM by removed-user

QuattroVaginas said:
Have people read Tomie? It's a collection of short stories, 10 min episodes are about right.

I have and it's really great. I like Uzumaki better.

Jul 30, 2019 10:04 PM by H1GHLANDER360

Actually, if anything Tomie is more suited to a live action adaptation than anything else in his portfolio, especially for a western audience.

The theme of the manga is just a girl that's so incredibly hot that all men instantly fall in love with her and are then slowly driven insane by her unnatural beauty. Everything else can be up to reinterpretation and still be considered faithful IMO.

Not exactly a hard topic to adopt, sexy femme fatale movies have existed for decades.

Jul 30, 2019 5:58 PM by kwokinator

I mean this is just elementary acquisition at work here. Invest in a pre-existing, little known, foreign franchise for a very low cost and "remake" it for Western audience, American film tropes and all, with little to no originality put behind it so it yields a minor profit and then use that profit to create the actual content they want that will yield higher returns. They do it all the time.

Jul 30, 2019 5:24 PM by MoonStar9

Have people read Tomie? It's a collection of short stories, 10 min episodes are about right.

Jul 30, 2019 2:58 PM by QuattroVaginas

Junji Ito work does not translate well in other medias.

And most american adaptations of jap media end being cringe or clowish.

Also, 10 min, episodes? Can't be very good, this is barely time for some worthy jumpscares.

Jul 30, 2019 2:49 PM by Fabris

This is strange indeed. Maybe it'll be something structurally similar to an anthology film compilation. But it's obvious that the horror is not going to carry from detailed drawings to what is easily going to be crappy cgi and editing.

Jul 30, 2019 1:09 PM by raisin-kun

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