When it comes to horror anthologies, one particular series comes to mind: Tales From The Crypt. As a boy, this show used to scare the piss out of me for two reasons: 1.) the tales themselves were horrifying, usually without any positive resolution, and 2.) the narrator was himself a tongue-in-cheek corpse, elucidating terrifying stories for, presumably, his own amusement. Granted, I wasn’t allowed to watch it, but a few of our friends had HBO. Anyway, the format of the show killed it, yielding a feature film, radio show and—strangely enough—Saturday morning spin-off for kids. Had Tales Of The Crypt started as amanga, its run may not have been so fortuitous.
Junji Ito Maniac, an anthology ofmangaadapted to anime on Netflix, debuted on January 19th 2023, but knowing what I know about this mastermanga-ka, the show leaves a lot to be desired, not only in terms of fear, but as a dispenser of terror-based tales.
Off the bat, I was frankly disappointed at Maniac’s animation. The show sits side-by-side with other big anime names on Netflix like Pierrot studio’s Tokyo Ghoul and MAPPA studio’s DorohedoroandChainsaw Man, so why do the characters look like figures from an early 90s anime? After some digging, it turns out that Studio DEEN, despite their 40+ years tenure, have a reputation for poor animation, but perhaps this was part of the master plan? Chainsaw Man is cutting-edge with animation so sharp you’re able to cut your eye with a mere glance. Maybe bringing to life the works of Junji Ito—an old schooler—with an equally older animation style is like a time capsule of sorts. Whatever the reason, the show leans heavily into the very 90s idea of TV as a main source of entertainment.
TV is a constant presence in Maniac. It’s almost like a fourth-wall-breaking sentiment reminding you that you’re just watching a show. This point is further driven home during the ironically upbeat and pallet-cleansing end credit sequence which is disturbed by constant lines of VCR-tracking static. Moreover, the credits feature one of Ito’s trademark creations, the anemic nail-sucking Sōichi, diving into an abandoned 1980s-style TV set and fast-forwarding through the highlights of the that episode’s stories. Like belovedmanga-kaShigeru Mizumi’sNezumi-otoko, Sōichi is Ito’s ubiquitous creation, but in Maniac, Sōichi’s stories come across as goofy, keeping you in a limbo that’s not quite scary, but also too weird to be funny. It doesn’t help that whimsical jazz music plays throughout his episodes.
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To be completely transparent, I skipped around a bit on the episodes mainly because I was so excited to see how they’d adapt a few of my favorite stories and characters to an anime format. First up was the wild concept of The Hanging Balloons, which basically tells you everything in the title. A local student supposedly hangs herself, subsequently turning into a balloon with a swinging noose that goes around killing other students who then turn into balloons and kill others. You get the idea. It was a good jumping off point due to the fact that the episode was given a full episode’s length to breath and unfold.
Not so with the majority of the tales.
A major flaw in Maniac is that the bulk of the episodes contain two stories crammed into the short span of 20-something minutes, often with the first story cutting into the second tale’s valuable air time. This crunch on time resulted in some episodes barely having a chance to introduce the plot and its twist before abruptly shutting it down. I was especially looking forward to The Thing That Drifted Ashore, as it seemed connected to one of Junji Ito’s most treasured marine-centered works,Gyo. The entire episode is about 6 or 7 minutes (which is probably less time than it takes to read themanga), but it loses a lot of the original story’s emphasis on deep sea monsters - a theme that I connected with. It felt like you zipped in and zipped out without time to set the stage. This was a problem that surfaced even with full-length episodes.
Take the most iconic character in Ito’s oeuvre: Tomie - a mesmerizing succubus who simply cannot be killed, even when you cut her head off. The Tomie’s Photos episode made full use of the 20 or so minutes, but again, fluffed the ending. The last scene is an anti-climactic shot of the surviving protagonist simply stating that she’d better hurry up and “clean up this mess”. True, a jarring hard cut has its advantages in the film/TV medium, but here it seemed like the wrong moment to end things.
It’s the old argument that constantly has pop-culture enthusiasts and fanatics up in arms: which is better, the book or movie/show? In Maniac’s case, I feel compelled to opt for the latter - not in a purist sense, but simply because themangamade sense. Junji Ito’s art style is a specific one—and not for the faint of heart. Admittedly, it took me some courage and stomach fortitude early on to make it through some of his stuff. You just want to…stareat it; howgross,howdisturbing! you’re able to’t even turn the page until you’ve absorbed it all. Maniac feels like an anime with a tight timeline—and maybe budget—and doesn’t give you the luxury of unpacking every grotesque detail that Ito’s taken the time to display.
Since I became the owner of Ito’s seminal work,Uzumaki, I’ve read and re-read it multiple times, albeit with several pauses to process just what in the hell I was looking at. The book itself is made of chapters that ultimately lead to its depraved ending, but even then, the chapters felt more like vignettes within theUzumakiworld. With Maniac though, it was missing something. Unfortunately, when you deal with short stories, the keyword is “short” and therein may lie the biggest weakness in the show.
To me, it also couldn’t hurt to get an intro or outro from this master of horror. I mean, it’s got the man’s name slapped on it! It’d have to be Tales Of The Crypt style though; imagine the camera slowly zooming into Junji Ito’s own house in the Japanese suburbs, making an immediate dip into his basement to reveal his bespeckled rotting corpse rising from a coffin. Netflix gold right there!
Studio DEEN, if you’re reading this, I’d be happy to pitch in for Junji Ito to make a cameo in the next season of Maniac. My only stipulation as an investor is topleasegive the audience time to actually get scared.
NEXT:Okay, But What If Chainsaw Man Was A Video Game?
