Junji Ito is the famed horror manga artist behind popular works such as Uzumaki and Tomie, and was a collaborator on the canceled Silent Hills. He is considered to be the master of horror with his wide number of short stories and volumes of work. Junji Ito takes very normal situations and ideas and then exaggerates them. Take Uzumaki for example. The story focuses on a town that is slowly infested with spirals, similar to an invasive species.

RELATED: 10 Best Live-Action Junji Ito Adaptations, Ranked By How Scary They Are

Junji Ito's horror is something readers have never seen before; it's never just a ghost story or a slasher killer on the loose. Instead, his horror is inexplicable, to us and the characters within his stories. While all of his work should certainly be read, here are five must-read short stories to begin your Junji spiral and five to skip (until later).

 

10 Skip - The Back Alley

The Back Alley is, unfortunately, highly disappointing. The story focuses on a young man that moves into a boarding house. However, things start to go sour in his first night when he hears a group of kids playing on the other side of his bedroom wall, in a blocked-off alley. The alleyway has high walls on every side and a barbwire, blocking off sight completely.

The mystery of what's in the alley looms over the boy's mind before he finally decides to climb into it. The reason this story should be skipped is due to its amount of buildup with no reward. The last page of this story feels like it should be the beginning, leaving readers more than curious as to what happens next.

9 Must Read - The Hanging Balloons (Hanging Blimp)

The Hanging Balloons (or Hanging Blimps in the American reprint) is one of Junji Ito's classics. In this story, the world is plagued by giant balloons with nooses tied to the end of them. The balloons, however, somehow seem familiar. People start to realize that everyone in the world has a balloon version of themselves.

RELATED: 15 Terrifying Junji Ito Stories You Shouldn't Read In The Dark

The balloons hunt their living counterparts, trying to get the nooses around their necks. This creates panic all over as people begin an attempt to eliminate them. However, they shortly discover that the attempts are futile. The balloons are directly related to their humans, so whatever is done to the balloon (such as deflation) is also done to their person. What makes this story so terrifying is the mystery as to where the balloons even came from.

8 Skip - Return Of The Hanging Balloons

Return of the Hanging Balloon is a short sequel to Hanging Balloons that informs readers of how the "balloon plague" has changed, but doesn't add much to the original. It tells readers that after the initial pandemic, the balloons slowly faded away. Now a month has passed and people are beginning to see the deflated balloons around their cities. This short story focuses on the discovery that the balloons are made of nylon, like regular balloons. The major twist is that the human counterparts also change to nylon just as all the balloons return for a second wave.

7 Must Read- Mountain Of Gods: Precipice Of The Unknown

Mountain of Gods: Precipe of the Unknown is a slightly lesser-known story from Junji Ito, but amazing and haunting nonetheless. Mountain of Gods is reminiscent of stories told around a campfire, only all the stories relate to one another. The short story focuses on four men at an inn on a mountain trail. Three of the men were hikers and the fourth was the inn's manager. The men shared stories of their experiences and tales they've heard on the mountain. Each story told of the same man with a sinister smile, or rather a sneer, that walks directly toward the hikers. This one-shot is simple, yet thoroughly eerie.

6 Skip - Snow White

Junji Ito's Snow White is a horrific retelling of the fairytale. Like the original, the Evil Queen hears voices coming from a mirror, telling her she is the most beautiful woman in the world. Until, she becomes second best. The queen got so jealous of Snow White's beauty, she condemned her to the dungeons and had her brutally murdered.

RELATED: The 10 Best Horror Anime

The ghost of Snow White haunted the dungeon, leaving her ghost still more beautiful than the queen. In the end the queen decided to burn Snow's White body, but was burned alive instead. Snow White's corpse remained perfect. There isn't much to this story and it doesn't have as much of Junji's typical flair.

5 Must Read - The Licking Woman

The Licking Woman is utterly disgusting and disturbing. A crazed looking woman wanders the streets at night chasing after the locals to lick them. Her tongue is revolting, and soon people start to realize it's equally as dangerous. The main character in this story is named Miku, and after her fiance passes away due to poison from the licking woman's tongue, she begins to hunt the woman. After more deaths in the area, Miku joins the neighborhood watch. This story gets weirder and weirder as it progresses, but feels like the epitome of Junji's work.

4 Skip - Whispering Woman

While Whispering Woman holds a few of Junji Ito's iconic panels, the story itself is a little lackluster. This story revolves around Mayumi, a young girl who has such intense anxiety that she cannot make a single decision for herself. Her father hires a woman, Mitsu, to help the girl. Eventually, the two become codependent on one another and the verbal advice Mitsu gave devolved into only whispers, while also becoming extremely frail. It is later revealed that the woman's boyfriend assaulted and abused the woman, murdering her in the process. Mayumi's father realizes that she still believes and acts as if Mitsu is with her, thankful that if Mitsu is a ghost, she is still guiding and helping his daughter. That is, until the twist ending. This story is visually creepy, but once readers learn more of Mitsu, her spooky appearance loses its touch.

3 Must Read - Enigma Of Amigara Fault

After an earthquake, a large fault was found near Amigara Mountain. Strange things started to occur at the fault and many hikers from everywhere came to investigate to see with their own eyes. All along the walls of the fault were perfectly human-sized holes. These holes seemed to go very deep into the mountain, as no light could be seen from the openings.

RELATED: The 10 Best Horror Anime Of All Time

Eventually, people started being drawn to specific holes, holes that looked familiar. These holes were meant for them. This story gets even darker after this and has become an iconic Junji Ito story.

2 Skip - The Chill (Shiver)

If a reader with trypophobia (the fear of holes) were to read The Chill (or Shiver), it would probably be the hardest few pages to get through and the scariest story. Yet, for everyone else this story is pretty lackluster. The Chill features a few characters who contract this skin disease with holes all over their body. The holes are described to seem as if they are breathing, causing a chill within the person. The story unfolds that this disease is actually a curse based on an artifact of a green jade. Whoever held the jade, would have holes open on their bodies. While the trypophibia is heavy in this story and very disturbing, there were just too many plot holes and unfulfilling explanations.

1 Must Read - Layers Of Fear

Layers of Fear Cropped

Layers of Fear centers on a cursed skull that was found during an archeologic dig. The father of the main characters is the one who discovered the artifact, and due to this, both his daughters were cursed. This caused the younger sister, Reimi, to gain a new layer of skin for each year she lived. Due to a scar on Reimi's face and her mother's obsession with her, the mother decided to peel the top layer of skin off to reveal new skin. If that wasn't wild enough, the mother then hears the voice of a two-year-old Reimi, and decides she must peel away until she reaches the two-year-old again. The amount of body horror in this story is certainly cringe-worthy in the best ways.

NEXT: 1o Classic Horror Comics You Have To Read