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Junji Ito Maniac - Netflix

Looks like another cheapo cash in.

And what happened to the adult swim adaptation of usumaki?
A major part of Junji Ito's appeal is his sketchy, sick and twisted black and white drawing style, the moment you move away from that you start to lose what makes him special. The Adult Swim adaptation seems to be the only Ito anime project that understands that. But yeah too bad it's gone radio silent, I watched the teaser again and it's suppose to come last month but here we are.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
Looks like another cheapo cash in.


A major part of Junji Ito's appeal is his sketchy, sick and twisted black and white drawing style, the moment you move away from that you start to lose what makes him special. The Adult Swim adaptation seems to be the only Ito anime project that understands that. But yeah too bad it's gone radio silent, I watched the teaser again and it's suppose to come last month but here we are.
I agree. It doesn’t really transition that well with animation. It takes away at the suspense of each panel. The times that Junji Ito is at its best is when you stay on a page and let the moment absorb. His adaptation of No Longer Human is a great read, but I wouldn’t say it would make a good feature film. Animation moves ahead too quickly. Tomie has that same feeling. I’ve never watched the movies they made, but the manga is excellent. Reading it page by page is what I prefer. Devil Man Crybaby was the exact same feeling. The manga felt better.
 
I agree. It doesn’t really transition that well with animation. It takes away at the suspense of each panel. The times that Junji Ito is at its best is when you stay on a page and let the moment absorb. His adaptation of No Longer Human is a great read, but I wouldn’t say it would make a good feature film. Animation moves ahead too quickly. Tomie has that same feeling. I’ve never watched the movies they made, but the manga is excellent. Reading it page by page is what I prefer. Devil Man Crybaby was the exact same feeling. The manga felt better.
I like your thoughtful response, even if we don't agree completely. I will concede that there is inherent magic unique to each medium, and the medium of manga (comics, books as well) is that you can absorb the story at your own speed. It's more intimate, more personal, and potentially more scary (since horror is so personal). There's also a greater degree of imagination required, where your mind must fill in the temporal and motion gaps far more than in animation (or film). And as you know your personal imagination if powerful can be more effective to you than anything completely visualized for you from moment to moment. However! That is not to say it will not translate well to film and animation. Cinema can be contemplative, lingering, and dread inducing. Long takes and careful story beats can create tension effectively. The Innocents, Cure, The VVitch etc are classic horror films carried by very still moments and prolonged psychological tension. What film and animation can do that the page can't is movement when such is advantageous and potentially unsettling, or forcing the viewer onward when they are afraid to. Look to Belladonna of Sadness, and Golgo 13, to a time when anime was more experimental, and see the kind of artistic freedom in pace and style you can have in that medium.

The real problem is that with some exceptions, most modern, commercial anime is more product than art, and therefore "moves too quickly". As such it will likely cater to as broad an audience as possible, which means that it won't utilize overly artistic visuals or too slow burn pacing of losing its viewer when ironically, that's what can pull a viewer in. Just look at the trailer for the Netflix one. Why all the camera drifts? Why the flat lighting? Generic drawings? None of that is scary. Anime production pipelines, that's why.
 

vpance

Member


12 episodes

  • The Strange Hikizuri Siblings: The Seance: A story from Ito’s collection The Circus is Here
  • The Story of the Mysterious Tunnel: From the series of the same name in Horror World of Junji Ito volume 14
  • Ice Cream Truck: Story from House of the Marionettes
  • The Hanging Balloons: Story from The Face Burglar
  • The Room of Four Heavy Walls: Story from Souichi’s Diary of Curses
  • Where the Sandman Lives: Story from House of the Marionettes
  • Intruder: Story from Hallucinations
  • The Long Hair in the Attic: Story from Flesh-Colored Horror
  • Mold: Story from the Slug Girl collection
  • Library Vision: Story from the Smashed collection
  • Tomb Town: Tombs collection
  • Layers of Fear: One-shot short story
  • The Thing that Drifted Ashore: From the Slug Girl collection
  • Tomie: Photo: Story from the Tomie series
  • Unendurable Labyrinth: Part of the Deserter collection
  • Bullied: From The Bully collection
  • The Back Alley: From The Bully collection
  • Headless Statue: Short story
  • Whispering Woman: From Ma no Kakera
  • Soichi’s Beloved Pet: From New Voices in the Dark
 
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