Junji Ito Talks New Spooky Anthology, Liminal Zone
You'd be hard-pressed to think of a bigger master of horror in the world of anime than Junji Ito. With two new anime adaptations currently in the works as the mangaka continues to sharpen his skills via new spooky manga stories, the artist recently took the opportunity to chat with Crunchyroll about his upcoming anthology collection, The Liminal Zone. Needless to say, the mangaka had plenty to say when it came to exploring these new worlds of terror that sprung from his mind.
In the new interview with Crunchyroll, Junji Ito detailed how he came up with the title of The Liminal Zone, his next major anthology collection:
"So when I was coming up with a name for this short story collection, for the front of the series, I wanted the title to be something new, something I haven't used. Gen means "unreal", "Imaginary", "magical" and Kai means "ghost". I've never used this combination of words for a title so it sounded good, and chitai is a "zone" or "area"...it sort of implies a place that's away from where people live, from civilization. And those are the stories that I focused on for this collection. So I thought that was a good combo."
Ito then went into detail when it came to whether the four stories that make up this anthology tie together in any way:
"Each story is on its own, and was inspired by different ideas, so in my mind, they're totally unrelated unconnected stories. However, looking back, each story is about a character or characters as sort of separated from people, separated from society. Especially with "Slumber". It talks about hikikomori or the withdrawn people, so in that way, the stories are somehow connected."
Finally, Ito discussed how the new anthology series didn't have a "page limit" and how this might have affected the collection:
"So if there's no page limitation, then I just continue writing and writing and it becomes really long. When I put them in magazines, there is a page limitation, and I have to fit my story within those limitations...so sometimes I would have to cut and delete stuff that I really wouldn't want to. So in that sense, with this series, I could just follow my instincts. I could do the layout just the way I wanted to do it, so in that way, it's very satisfying to be able to draw and write as much as I can.
With that said, if there's no limitation—if I don't have to cut—then it gets too long. Sometimes cutting it and deleting the story makes the tempo of the story better, or improves the readability of the story. So in that way, I did have to be careful not to prolong the story unnecessarily."
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