Tag: horror manga

Essay about Junji Ito’s Manga “Town of No Roads” on Shelfdust

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I recently had an opportunity to write a short essay for the comics website Shelfdust about Junji Ito’s short story “Town of No Roads” (道のない街), a stand-alone manga from 1992 included in the 2002 collection Alley (路地裏), which was published in English translation by Viz Media in 2024.

“Town of No Roads” is an oddly structured story that begins with a teenage girl’s experience of having her privacy violated. After she decides to leave home, the manga follows her journey into a weird labyrinthine suburb that’s been rebuilt into one giant wooden house. I’ve always been intrigued by the imagery of “Town of No Roads,” and I thought it might be fun to explore its take on the theme of postwar nostalgia as expressed through its uncanny architecture.

Part of my conclusion is a paragraph that goes…

The pleasure of a labyrinth is that you can enjoy the sensation of getting lost while always knowing that you can simply leave. Perhaps the same can be said of nostalgia as well, and so much the better. The reactionary mode of thought that insists society used to be better when protections for individual rights and dignity were more limited has unpleasant implications, after all. Perhaps it’s best not to linger in this space for too long.

This conclusion makes sense in relation to the story, but what I also mean is that a mode of thought that holds that “things were better before Second Wave Feminism” (which definitely existed in Japan) steps into the territory of horror. I don’t say that part out loud in my essay, but a careful reader will probably understand what’s going on. In all fairness, I’m not entirely sure that Junji Ito intended for a political message to be read into this manga; but, if nothing else, it feels validating to know that he finds certain aspects of the postwar period as creepy as I do.

You can read the full essay on Shelfdust here:
https://shelfdust.com/2026/10/28/how-to-escape-junji-itos-town-of-no-roads/

Best Horror Comics on How to Love Comics

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

I had the immense honor of being able to contribute to a list of “The 45 Best Horror Comics You Should Read” on the website How To Love Comics. Here’s how I pitched the eight titles I recommended…

Betwixt: A Manga Horror Anthology, edited by Fawn Lau and Mayuko Hirao
A diverse collection of big-name creators showcasing manga-style stories that focus on urban legends and folk horror.

Bloodborne: The Healing Thirst, by Ales Kot and Piotr Kowalski
A stand-alone story that captures the oppressive gothic atmosphere of Bloodborne while being accessible to readers with no knowledge of the game.

The Crossroads at Midnight, by Abby Howard
A single-artist collection of queer short stories with distinctive monochromatic art and intensely disturbing imagery. 

The Hills of Estrella Roja, by Ashley Robin Franklin
A lushly illustrated graphic novel about a college student on the hunt for cryptids in the beautiful but eerie Texas desert.

Loving, Ohio, by Matthew Erman and Sam Beck
A suburban gothic horror story about a small town quietly controlled by an all-too-realistic cult. 

Not Drunk Enough, by Tess Stone
A colorful and stylish horror comedy about being trapped in a mad science corporation after dark.

PTSD Radio, by Masaaki Nakayama
A quiet but intensely creepy collection of Japanese urban legends loosely connected by an overarching narrative.

The Shadow over Innsmouth, by Gou Tanabe
A painstakingly faithful Lovecraft adaptation with meticulously drafted art and a well-researched translation. 

You can check out the fully annotated list (here). There are a lot of famous heavy hitters on this list, and it was a pleasure to be able to include a few lesser-known manga and indie graphic novels.

NextDoor

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

NextDoor
https://broelbrak.itch.io/nextdoor

NextDoor is a spooky 2D interactive story game based on one of Junji Itō’s short horror manga. It’s free to download or play in your browser, and it takes about ten to fifteen minutes to read.

You play as a college student living in a rundown apartment building. The student is unable to concentrate because of the loud music blaring in the apartment above hers, so she finally snaps and goes to complain. The upstairs tenant is an asshole who refuses to turn down his stereo because his next-door neighbor has never said a word to him about the noise. If you can convince his neighbor to complain, the manchild gripes, perhaps he might listen to what you have to say.

The problem is that the next-door neighbors are decidedly unfriendly. Another tenant in the building says that there’s actually a group of women in that apartment, but they’re very quiet, and no one has ever spoken with them. Perhaps it’s not the best idea to attract their attention…

Despite its limited scope, the environment design of NextDoor is nicely done and more than sufficiently creepy. Ironically, the music is quite good, and the sound design is better. The character animations are a pleasure to watch, especially when the player gets to see more of the mysterious next-door neighbor.

“The Lady Next Door” is from Junji Itō’s collection Mimi’s Tales of Terror, and it’s a fun play on a category of Japanese urban legends that take the form of “here’s some weird shit I saw in a Shōwa-era (built before the 1990s) apartment building.” Itō transforms the tropes of these non sequitur “weird shit I saw” stories into a cautionary tale, and it’s delightfully cathartic to witness the unnecessarily harsh punishment of the transgressor. Because seriously, fuck that guy.

NextDoor’s adaptation of this manga is interesting in that it configures the college student as the transgressor. By association, you the player are the transgressor as well, and it’s fun to push the college student forward into increasingly bad decisions. She doesn’t die, but she most definitely sees some weird shit.

There’s one (very mild) jumpscare in the game, and it’s a cameo from my favorite Junji Itō manga, Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu. Yon & Mu is exactly what you would expect from a cute autobio pet manga drawn by Junji Itō, and it’s marvelous. It’s always a pleasure to have an unexpected encounter with one of these adorable hellbeasts.

Japanese Ghost Stories

~ Kathryn ~ Leave a comment

This fall, I’m teaching a new class called “Japanese Ghost Stories.” Here’s the course description…

This course offers a survey of the numinous and supernatural through Japanese fiction, drama, comics, animation, and video games from the Heian period to the present day. Students will assemble a foundational knowledge of Japanese religion and folklore while studying popular narrative traditions representative of their historical eras.

By peering into the liminal spaces connecting the living with the dead, students will develop critical thinking and media literacy through careful investigation into the matters that people of different times and places have perceived as monstrous, alien, and unspeakable. Issues of gender, sexuality, and ethnic minority status will receive special attention as we navigate theories relating to the cultural role and social relevance of ghosts. By the end of the semester, students will possess a broad perspective on Japanese narrative traditions and popular culture, as well as an understanding of how fantastic stories of the dead reflect the tangible experiences of the living.  

You can download a copy of the syllabus (here).
I’ve collected PDF files of the course readings on Dropbox (here).
If you’re interested, a copy of the course assignments handout is (here).
You can check out the work of artist who drew the banner image (here).

I’d like to acknowledge that this course was inspired by Professor Naomi Fukumori’s class “The Monstrous in Japanese Literature and Culture,” and I encourage anyone who is interested to check out the course syllabus (here).