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With every new work that Junji Ito releases, it becomes clear that the man has a mastery of his genre. While some of his works are graphic, others are tame in comparison, yet the eerie atmosphere is common to all of his creations. The creator evokes a series of negative emotions that are quite thrilling for the readers. It’s the same feeling that keeps them engaged to the world of Junji Ito.
It’s his hold on his genre that hooks readers to his style of storytelling.Liminal Zoneis one such collection that showcases Ito’s expertise. Moreover, his ideation process behind the collection is even more fascinating. He spoke about his process during an interview.
Junji Ito Speaks on His Ideation Process BehindLiminal Zone
First released in 2022,Liminal Zoneby Junji Ito is a collection of four one-shot stories, namelyWeeping Woman Way, Madonna, The Spirit of Aokigahara, andSlumber. All these stories are standalone and share no connection with one another. Duringan interviewwith Crunchyroll, Ito was asked about the most challenging story out of these four.
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Ito shared that the main challenge behind these stories was leading the idea to fruition. The genesis of these one-shots happened in the form of hazy imagery and titles.
With one-shots like these short stories, it’s all about ideas. You have to have interesting ideas, the kernel of ideas, and that’s where everything starts from. But for these stories, the words and imagery I had were very vague to begin with, especially with “Madonna.”
BothMadonnaandSlumberwere more enjoyable than the other works in the collection. ForMadonna, allJunji Itohad was the title of the story. He created the story from the title. As forSlumber, he had a concept in his mind that he wanted to explore in his story. This concept was basically the momentary bliss a person experiences right after waking up.
It takes a few minutes to reconnect with reality when one wakes up from a long sleep. He wanted to weave a story around that specific moment and feeling. He had these vague concepts in his mind before turning them into the stories that came to be inLiminal Zone.
MadonnaPut Ito’s Skills to Test
Ito calledMadonnathe most challenging in this respect. While the idea behindSlumberwas more defined,Madonnawas simply just a title in his head. With just the title, his resources were limited. He had to come up with a story that could justify the title. He created a story based on the three Kanji that constituteMadonna(Ma-Do-Onna).
All I had was the word—Madonna—and putting the letters that read Madonna in JapaneseNote 3: ma 魔 is “demon”, do 怒 is “angry”, and onna 女 is “woman”.
This explanation draws out the complete process of howMadonnacame to be. The angry woman could be the principal’s wife from the story. It’s safe to say that Ito succeeded in creating a story that lives up to its title. Usually, the title of the story comes last or gets finalized after the completion of the project. However, Junji Ito did it the other way around, and excellently so.
Junji Ito’s Inspiration for Some of the Most Horrific Works of His Collection Would Make a Chill Run Down Anyone’s Spine
While not as scary as his other works,Madonnafeatures creepy visuals. And all of that emerged from the title. So if we think about it, any thought that occurs to the mangaka could turn into a horrid tale.
Most ofJunji Ito’s worksare available to read on the Viz Media website.
Laveena Joshi
Anime Writer
Articles Published :926
Laveena is an anime content writer at FandomWire. Having written more than 800 articles, she’s an expert in mainstream shonen series, ranging from the bizarre world of JoJo’s to the expansive worldbuilding of One Piece.With her formal education in Journalism and Mass Communication, she explores entertainment journalism through the lens of anime and manga, from mainstream and classic titles to niche and obscure ones.
