Having watched the first episode. It's understandable that people new to Junji Ito's works would be rather underwhelmed and confused by it. As the show's marketing kind of paints a picture that this is going to be a definitive anime collection of truly terror-inspiring horror short stories from one of Japan's kings of the horror manga. To only get an almost comedic first episode about Souichi a demented youth who plays uninspired childish tricks on others using voodoo doll curses. To then find down in the comments a mixture of people either defending and/or trying to sell this series protentional or others questioning the show's worth based solely on a lackluster first episode.

Unfortunately, for the sake of the anime itself. It appears to be suffering from a poor choice of an audience hooking first episode storyline. Basically, the show should have really started out with a bang and hits hard with one of the best of Ito's terror-inducing works from the start. Once we're hooked and the tension starts to ease. At this point bring on some of the stories like Souichi's to give us a breather now and then. Allowing for the initial viewer hook and then the pacing of the overall tension the viewership well experience throughout the show's season. Instead of feeling a bit underwhelmed and questioning this show's worth to even continue on to the next week. Especially, given that the show is in an episodic format of individual short stories. Which are for the most part independent of one another. Yet, affects the show's overall value when they're considered together.

This makes me wonder why did they choose this particular story from Ito's large library. After doing some research, I found that Souichi is kind of a fan favorite in Japan and appears to be used as one of the manga series' mascots of sorts in its marketing. So this fact leads me to believe the first episode was intended to draw in longtime fans of Junji Ito, not so much to acquire new fans, and maybe the shows a victim of some cultural differences in what is perceived as horror. Sadly these possible facts kind of makes me question, whether if the anime creators actually believe in the show's potential on its own merit and are instead just making a love letter collection to longtime fans of the author. Which kind of seems a bit counter-intuitive as most anime is created to draw new readership to the original works and most importantly gain more buyers to sell more merchandise to.

So that leaves the question. Do I recommend if people should watch or even give this show a few more episodes? The short answer at the moment is "yes, but it depends". I mean it depends on what we get with episode 2 and ultimately based on what stories the anime creators decided to use from the author's vast library of works.

I can say with a little research. I've come across some really phenomenal horror stories in his collection that are quickly making me a fan. Having admittedly never read any of his works before. He has truly earned all his accolades with them and his art is excellent. But as with most, if not all long-time authors. His collection of works appear vast and memorable but overall really are hit or miss storywise. With some of his stories only being merely decent horror-wise. With their real selling point actually being the artwork he has portrayed them in. So I can say that the commenters who are singing the series' potential with high prise are very well founded, but there is also some of his more meh stories that might make their way into the show as well.

Overall, I have chosen to give this review 4 stars. As it did not take me very long to find some stellar stories in Junji Ito's catalog. That, if used, would make this show a truly 5-star horror series in my eyes. Yet, as of the time of this writing, I can't give a 5-star rating to this show based solely on potential alone, especially with the rather poor choice of the first episode's short story.

So I've never read anything by Junji Ito and I didn't do any research because I wanted to view it without any sort of opinion going into it. Now it is being touted as a genre defining series, so imo it does not meet that expectation concerning horror. The first ep is more of a slightly suspenseful, comedic act than it is a nightmare haunting episode of horror. That being said, I loved the first episode because of the laughs and am looking forward to seeing more of souichi, who almost reminds me of a real life chuckie or a petulant child with some sort of powers. First time viewers, like myself, will probably enjoy this much more than the hardcore fans more familiar with his work.

Previous Ito adaptions haven't been the best, and often misrepresent the tone the stories initially went for, but thankfully so far this anime series seems to be the first to truly understand the appeal of his works. The Souichi story adapted in the first episode was an odd choice given it's more of a dark comedy than straight horror, but it was enjoyable nonetheless, and the adaption of the Hell o' Dollies one shot that plays right after it perfectly captured the horror of the story. Looking forward to see what else the anthology adapts in future episodes.

I'm a huge Junji Ito, I have a lot of his books, and love his art. This anime is a straight up insult to his art. Things are just animated horribly. The scene where the fashion model is chasing them in the second episode is so poorly animated. It's pathetic how poor the animation is.

Both of the stories in episode 2 are in the book Shiver. They are drawn way better, and are actually scary. This is just a horrible joke.

As an avid Junji Ito fan words cannot express how excited i was for this. Hes one of the most prolific horror creators, of all time, in my opinion.

The anime is pretty good. The stories are told as accurately as possible, short of cutting some scenes for time. The horrific ito imagery doesnt have as much punch as the mangas, however. But i feel that is to he expected when transitioning from still images to moving. And of course it loses a bit of the magic when its not drawn by Ito. But still, so far so good! i look forward to the rest of the episodes and i hope this leads to more of his manga being adapted.

3 episodes in, so 6 stories, and so far only one has been able to create even a moderate sense of unease, and had some potential. But even the stories with potential wind up falling short at the end, as if Junji Ito has problems with creating decent endings. Far too often it just goes from "weird" or creepy to completely outrageous. But not even enough to become comical, it's just like a joke with a great buildup but the punch line is so bad the entire joke stinks. Much of his stories seem to be just about people doing unbelievably stupid things (and i say this even knowing the 'tide pod challenge' exists-and i still find the characters to be doing things dumber than that.) I even went and looked up some of his other works online from the manga, and it seems to be the natural case of his works-either the entire story is bad, or the build-up is decent but the ending is pathetic. I gave it 3 episodes, and now it gets the boot :-\

At the time of this review I have watched 3 episodes. I will revise once again after 1 season and take an objective look at the whole

Plot: Since this anime is a recreation of some Junji Ito's manga I will simply compare the anime to the manga directly in terms of how closely it follows the original source material. In terms of story this anime does a fairly good job at copying the source material. Some liberties were made in order to condense and lengthen some stories but overall they are 95% similar to the originals. As a massive fan of Junji I'm excited to watch every new episode that comes out as it pays good homage to the original source material. So far by the 3rd episode some of Junji's semi popular works have been animated in these 3 episodes. The weakest episode by far is the pilot so if you don't know about Junji's work and are interested it is best to forget about the first episode as the source material itself is pretty weak and as such the animation draws disservice to how dark and twisted Junji's stories can be. It gets better!! I promise. The stories themselves in episode 2 and 3 are interesting and thought provoking perfect material to watch before you go to bed and begin to realize some of the rammifications of the horrors some of the characters go through. Each episode is around 2 stories with maybe a short ending story to tie up the piece, the first episode in terms of structure is pretty bad the first story sets the mood for a slightly comedic anime followed by a short story that to new viewers seems out of place. The following episodes nail the tone better but the biggest problem would be animation.

Animation: The quality of the animation is not bad but not great. I think the biggest problem when someone transitions art style is that tone and mood may be lost if the the new art direction is not established well. Part of the horror of Junji Ito's manga comes from the detail of his drawings. Junji wants the viewer to know how gross a slug girl is and this attention to detail is seen in his stories illustrations. The anime's animation is not bad at all, standard stuff with a little bit of dark shading and some detail to the horrific situation. But the mood of the manga is on a different scale. Junji is simply too good and drawing horror, the black and white macabre ink used in the manga is perfectly bleak, the reader can sense the dread in characters faces and Junji is not shy to detail intensely frighting images. You see every pore and every slimy bit and every scary sharp teeth in the manga. Even in his stories that feature less body horror the bleakness of the black and white and the constant worry on characters faces translates to an almost intense feeling of dread as you read through, suspense is built very carefully and gradually as you flip the pages and discover more and more about the plot and how it'll shape the frighting demise of the characters. This feeling I feel is lost in the transition. The color vs black and white in the anime decreases the severity of the illustrations; in the manga you don't know whether a horrifying creature is oozing blood/puss/or just slime and this unknown is lost once you see the colors in the anime. It's kind of ironic in that by adding more detail in terms of color and movement you take away the scary detail of Junji It's original work. You flip the page in the manga apprehensively because you want to see what's next but are afraid to look, the anime lessens this effect by guiding you itself to see and some of the suspense and the buildup you get wondering what'll happen next is just shown to you instead of the viewer feeling it. This is simply because Junji Ito's work is too perfect in the art style of a manga and the switch to animation lessens that perfection.

Overall: If you are a fan of horror and want the best experience into a new collection of works I suggest reading the stories depicted first. If you're a Casual Weeb like me and want a short scary story to watch then any of the new episodes would be a great bite, if tasting the food makes you want more I suggest you read some of Junji's work so you can get that full meal. In the end I feel like the anime could have taken a more experimental art style akin to what Junji is famous to make the animation stand out and reverberate the classical horror undertones and mood that makes Junji's works so great.

Semi-Weekly Review Updates!

2 Episodes Down
Animations are sufficiently creepy, and I can see real potential if episodes continue to get even more creepy. Nothing really to complain about, other than I want it to be even more scary! I think there is plenty of time for this to emerge! Definitely worth a watch form this point in show!

6 Episodes Down
Still a solid 4 stars. The show has some inconsistency problems with the content. Sometimes one of the stories is good, other times its a bit boring, and sometimes they don't really mesh well together. Its worth watching, because some of the stories will definately stick with you for awhile!

12 Episodes Down
Show so far is entertaining, and some of the stories are top notch, however the inconsistency is still problematic. As a horror anime fan, definitely worth a watch, but it doesn't really break any new ground, and ultimately fell short of my expectations