Junji Ito is a terrible writer

Question

Junji Ito is a terrible writer

So i have a big problem with Junji Ito, so called the "king of horror." I'll admit, as an artist myself, I admit that he's a badass illustrator and painter his work with ink is impressive. But when it comes to his storytelling? It's honestly fucking ass diarrhea. His stories feel like they're just a random series of events with no real connection. It's like one thing happens, then another, then another none of it builds off what came before. It's like reading a story that starts with concept A, then moves to F, then C, then Z, C, L and so on, with no clear progression or logic. Like fucking Family Guy with cutaway gags.

In an interview, he even admitted that he likes to think about a single idea and explore where it can go. But to me, it just feels like he's spinning in circles. It’s like a child playing with random thoughts.

—"Yo what if there's a guy... suicidal guy and then a snail bites him during his marathon, and then he turns into ugh.... half-human, half-pine tree ugly ass creature, and then his pregnant girlfriend finds him, and then she dies from like an asteroid, and then there's an alien fish comes out of it and it likes to breed with dogs..." It’s all over the place, and it just doesn’t make sense.

I just don’t get why people praise him so much. Sure, his illustrations are ok, but the stories themselves seem unbearable. It's hard to take them seriously.
AND WHATS UP WITH THE HOOKERS AND SLUTS PRAISING HIS WORKS ????

knew one slut from work who would sleep with older guys and she had that two face girl on profile picture and she loved this retard so much

He's a fucking hack who ends his stories too late when we could have imagined what happens next in his stories instead

as an artist myself

pyw

I really do hope that guy gives Fuan no Tane a try, I think he'd really like it.

yawn
you don't like him because he's popular

you copypasted this from reddit too, just like the last thread you made

so people post how they hate him on reddit too.
No this isn't copypasted i was hating this guy like from 2021 when that chick introduced him to me with that story about group of people who wanted to kill themselves

Do any of his stories have an actual point?
I'm not talking about making a statement or teaching a lesson, I mean is there ever a point to anything anybody in the story does?
I'll admit, I'm not super familiar with his stuff, I just know about Uzumaki and the one with the holes people go in. And in both of those, there really isn't a point to anything, at least not that I could think of. And I'm the kind of guy who can overthink things and find meanings that don't even actually exist, so I can think of quite a bit.

im bad at that, not gonna

a lot of them are based on nightmares he had as a kid. others just came to him through his imagination like "sharks stop being scary the minute you get out of the water to the safety of the shore. what if the shark could chase you on dry land would that be fucked up or what?"

all of his fans told me that there's hidden meaning about lust, pride, fears etc. etc.
But i just think, no I'm CERTAIN people WANT to see that hidden messages so they wouldn't feel stupid by reading this horse shit

pyw

Pretty much my exact feelings, but I'm not big into horror so I've always figured it's probably my problem.

Okay, but do they have actual plots and characters who matter, or are they all just "I have this idea, now it's happening" stuff where any story present is just there to meet the bare minimum of what counts as a story?

meaning is created when the story enters your brain. a writer might not think about what meanings they are putting into their stories but is impossible to make a story that doesn't mean anything, even on purpose

you could have read like 50 of his stories in the time since you made your first post

Again, that's not what I meant by meaning. I meant "is there any reason for the reader to care about what's happening?" and/or "do the characters have any sort of agency, or are they just screwed because they can't leave the town or they saw their hole or whatever?"
That sort of meaning, not THEMATIC meaning.

Well, originally I said "point" and not "meaning" but whatever. I don't care about if somebody can find meaning in it, I just want to know if there's any reason to care or think that the characters aren't just there and having things happen to them that they can't do anything about.

is there ever a point to anything anybody in the story does?

What was the point of the oil story maybe there is no point maybe it's just supposed to be weird. A lot of junji ito stories sound like oneyplays hypotheticals
"What would you do if you went to the kitchen and saw your brother drinking oil and then he snuck into your room and started squeezing his face and oil started leaking out? What would you do if a megalodon walked out of the ocean on mechanical spider legs?"

So he's an ideas guy?

ive read spiral, sofa chair, mountain holes, that suicide group, fish out of the oucean and stuff , the popular ones

Yeah, I don't feel like doing that.
You're not me.

dude wtf, name one single story that is as incoherent as your strawman
also, Ito is not hard to understand or follow, his stories are basically like narration of nightmares, the characters arent super developed because the focus is on the weird phenomena occurring around them (I guess thats also why he doesnt even bother to give different faces to characters and all look almost the same)
If you can't understand what his stories are about, then you are a brainlet because even a middle-schooler would follow
If anything, you could complain that his storytelling is very simple and straightforward, which for the stories he does, it works, but you seems rather lost when reading him, so maybe the problem lies in you

TLDR: his stories are simple concepts that revolve around some weird phenomena, the rest is just accessory

as for the hookers, I guess they just read Tomie and felt identified somehow because they all have BPD

I’m not a fan but I respect his craft. I don’t think it much as horror but as surrealism with creepy tones. His work is intentionally made to be crazy and absurd being so crazy it borders funny. It is the kind of thing too crazy to be believable but then the characters find themselves in those situations. What would you do if your mother turned herself inside out when only you are around? You can’t just tell that to others and not expect you to be the one seen as the the sick one.

i fucking understand stories, like i would understand Family guy and remember what gag went after another one
im just mad people treat this thing like high literature . Admit it he's horrible at stories but good at illustrations

Sounds like you've never read any horror at all
In any case, I'd say Ito takes a lot from Lovecraft, there's no deeper meaning or reason to the shit happening, the world is weird and there are things beyond our comprehension since we are just dust compared to the eldritch monsters that lurk in the dark, that's all

The problem is that you think he's a horror mangaka.
Think of him more as a comedy mangaka with horror motifs.

That thing you all like.... IS LE BAD!!!!

stopped reading there

why are the faggy zoomer boards spilling into Anon Babble?

you can explore people psychology way better than he is doing it here, people dont show emotions or fear
all they do is like '' woah that scary yuch'' and then the story changes

I dunno if this is a reddit post or AI but it's true.

Big fan of Lovecraft. He's not Dostoevsky either but at least his stories revolve around one thing not like here with then this then that then this then that

Ito stories are about a simple thing too, wtf are you talking about?
You could even name his stories like Friends episodes

the one with the spirals appearing everywhere

the one with the space monster

the one with the girl that just doesnt fucking stay dead

and so on

kinda makes sense like that

what story did you read that confused you this much? seriously

So he's an ideas guy?

Kinda? I wouldn't call him an idea guy, he at least executes the idea to varying results. Hanging balloons is a good example it's a stupid hypothetical turned into a somewhat interesting story

The point of stories is to keep your mind occupied and entertain you to an extent. Ito gets enjoyment from writing and drawing his stories and the readers get enjoyment from reading them. It's that simple.

It's a modern tendency to blame authors for "wasting" their time or failing to provide a satisfying story with a satisfying end. This is likely due to us having so much content plastered at us, we set some arbitrary quality requirements to them. Thorough history one of the main emotions people had was boredom, but thanks to the internet it's almost impossible to be bored.

I'm pretty sure at least some of the characters in horror stories have some amount of agency and sense of self-preservation. And if they don't, than that doesn't sound like an interesting story to me.
I won't say that it doesn't qualify at all as a story, but unless I read it and think there actually is more than the bare minimum, I won't think of it as much of a story. I know I'm not being objective about things, but I just don't get anything from stories where things are pointless and futile and everyone is screwed without any chance of success. If it at least had interesting characters, there could be moments I'd enjoy, but if the characters are just there for things to happen to them, and they don't have much "character" then there's nothing for me except maybe ironic enjoyment from making fun of how ridiculous/stupid something is, like "THIS IS MY HOLE!"

Oh geez, is this going to spread outside the daily?

"Idea guy" is an insult for people who think they can contribute to a team project by just "having ideas", it isn't remotely relevant to the context of a mangaka who writes and draws his own stories.

Well, from what I can tell, his stories are at least better at being "stories" than Cnadyland is at being a "game" so I'll give him that at least.

Are you a writer, anon?
It's one thing to read a story and not like it becuase you're not entertained, another to call a writer "terrible" without actually understanding what it takes to write fiction, particularly horror, and be fucking good at it, on top of illustrating the entire thing yourself. It's a whole different mental process that requires separate types of engagement. Speaking as an artist and writer, myself.

"Yo what if there's a guy...

This sounds like you've never read any Ito at all, actually.

Yes. Not all is horrible the story of sunken monster full of people and the amigahara fall are fine.
I read for the art, concepts of madness and decay are too prevalent in his works and gets repetitive.