Junji Ito Collection

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 backgroundsare 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.

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 thisseries 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.

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 asmuch 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 obsoleteas 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.