Junji Ito is no stranger to the world of live-action adaptations. Uzumaki, long before the creepy anime arrived on Toonami, received a live-action movie in Japan, with Ito’s Tomie receiving several feature-length films. Later this year, a new live-action series that will adapt quite a few of Ito’s creepy campfire tales is coming to Netflix, with one in particular sure to send shivers down viewers’ spines. The Hanging Balloons are some of the scariest creatures that spawned from Ito’s mind, and in 2026, they’ll be arriving on the streaming service. If you want to see the live-action abominations before their Netflix debut, we have a first look at one of them in action.
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Earlier this month, it was announced that Netflix would air a new series from Taiwan titled “Bloody Smart.” Having been in development for three years, the live-action anime adaptation had a Kickstarter campaign to help with its computer-generated graphics, and considering how horrific the Hanging Balloons look in the upcoming series, this makes sense. Rather than being a straight up adaptation of the original story, Bloody Smart appears to be taking a mish-mash of different characters and tales from Ito’s resume and fusing them together into one series. You can check out a first look at one of the spooky Hanging Balloons in action below.
The Hanging Balloons’ Junji Ito History
The Hanging Balloons first appeared in Junji Ito’s manga compilation, Horror World of Junji Ito Collection. The story saw creepy balloons of citizens’ faces rolling their way into town, wanting nothing more than to hang the regular people cowering at the sight of them. Ironically, this was one of the few stories from Ito that would receive a sequel, as Return of the Hanging Balloons, was a short tale that saw the monstrosities making a comeback. While they were originally just quarantined to the manga medium, they would eventually get their chance to “shine” in the anime world.
During Junji Ito’s Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre on Netflix, the anime anthology brought the Hanging Balloons to the screen for the first time in 2023. Studio DEEN handled the animation for this series, devoting one episode to the floating abominations, though the manga’s sequel has yet to receive the animation treatment. As for the upcoming Bloody Smart, expect the Hanging Balloons to appear as a part of a different story than they were accustomed to.
Bloody Smart, from its description, will take characters and elements from Junji Ito’s works and smash them together in one cohesive story. Netflix released a breakdown of the live-action anime adaptation which reads, “In a tightly regulated school town obsessed with elite ideals, a Bloodfruit Tree quietly takes root, bearing crimson fruit. By legend, the fruit is delivered by a boy in black, only to those who truly ‘need’ it. As the fruit awakens long-suppressed desires, sealed emotions begin to slip free, setting the town on a slow path toward an irreversible unraveling.” A release date has yet to be revealed for the series as of the writing of this article.
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