Junji Ito (伊藤潤二) was born in Gifu Prefecture, Japan on July 31, 1963. Junji Ito was inspired at a young age by a drawing by his older sister. Kazuo Umezu, the “grandmaster” of Japanese horror manga, is also an inspiration of Ito’s, which led to him taking interest in drawing horror comics. Another influence of his is H.P. Lovecraft. When Ito graduated he trained as a dental technician. He worked as a dental technician until the early 1990’s while also working on his increasingly successful hobby. He was selected for the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.

Ito’s universe is cruel and his characters are usually victims of violent and cruel unnatural circumstances. They tend to be punished out of proportion for small reasons. His characters are faced against insurmountable odds.

His longest work, “Uzumaki,” which is a three volume series, is about a town's obsession with spirals; people become fascinated with them. The townspeople are scared of, and somehow obsessed by the countless happenings of the spiral in nature. Apart from the horrifyingly drawn deaths, the book has a strong mood and tone of creeping fear as the town's citizens become more inhuman, and tons of bizarre things begin to happen.

Before “Uzumaki” he was best known for his work “Tomie,” which is a series about a beautiful and forever youthful high school girl who “convinces” her admirers to murder each other out of jealous rage. Eventually, unable to deal with her flirting and their desire to have Tomie completely and utterly to themselves, they are compelled to kill her. Just to discover that regardless of the method they choose to attempt to dispose of her, her body will always regenerate.

In 1998, during the horror culture boom, “Tomie” was made into a movie. Since “Tomie,” many of his other works have been adapted into movies and shows. Junji Ito is still widely popular and his books are sold in many stores today.