Summary
With short stories likeThe Enigma of Amigara Fault, and longer works likeUzumakiandHellstar Remina,Junji Itohas become synonymous with horror manga. Anyone who’s gotten into the genre in the past decade or more likely did so via Ito’s work, or inevitably came across it online.
However, Ito didn’t create horror manga, and he isn’t the only one in the field. As great as he is, there are other artists whose work rivals his in invoking terror and might even exceed it for some. But fear lies in the beholder. If anyone wants to test their nerves, here are somegreat horror mangaka who aren’t Junji Ito.
Updated July 11, 2025 by David Heath:Junji Ito hasn’t had much luck with adaptations of his work. The recent Uzumaki anime came close to being the first, truly decent Ito-based animation. That is, until its production woes came to light, which explained why it ended up being fantastic for some scenes, and a fiasco that makes the Junji Ito Collection series look like Redline for the rest. Still, that first episode is still gold compared to spottier examples like the Gyo and Tomie movies.
Still, he isn’t the only horror mangaka out there. Others have also made a splash in the genre, from old school pioneers who inspired Ito himself, to contemporaries who tell spooky stories in their own, unique ways. If anyone’s already checked out this list’s original entries, it’s now been updated with a few more top mangaka who’ll keep them busy with their works.
1Kazuo “Umezz” Umezu
The Godfather Of Horror Manga
Perhaps one of the more obvious alternatives to Ito is the man who inspired him in the first place.Kazuo “Umezz” Umezupractically invented the genre when he began adding paranormal horror elements to his shojo stories. It resulted in his monster talesReptiliaandNekome no Shojo. His most iconic horror story,The Drifting Classroom, saw a school sent through time to the post-apocalypse, where the students fight to surviveLord of the Flies-style.
Nearly every horror manga today can trace its stark, dark artwork to Umezu’s style, including Ito. He got his start reading Umezu’sMummy Teachercomics, which eventually led him to submit his debut work,Tomie, forMonthly Halloweenmagazine’s Kazuo Umezu prize for horror manga. Umezu himself, alongside other judges, deemed it worthy of an honorable mention and ran the story in full in the magazine.
2Shigeru Mizuki
Yuks with Youkai
ShigeruMizukisticks out a bit from the crowd compared to Ito, Umezz, Hino, etc, as his work is unlikely to tingle spines or churn stomachs like Umezu and Hino. Not unless they were checking out his starker historical stories likeOnward Towards Our Noble Deaths. However, if any manga reader enjoyed stories about the youkai, ghouls and ghosts from Japanese folklore, they have Mizuki to thank for popularizing them.
His most famous work,GeGeGe no Kitaro, followed Kitaro’s quest to bring peace between humanity and youkai is more likeTheAddams Familythan the Manson Family, but it brought Japan’s classical creatures back into style in an age when sci-fi and robots were all the rage. As (relatively) lighthearted as it gets, it would inspire later creators to use his youkai for darker works, withBerserk’s Kentaro Miura and Ito himself referencing them for their own tales.
3Hideshi Hino
Master Of Monstrosities
Umezz’s work could get bloody and terrifying, butHideshi Hinomade his name illustrating deformed monsters and out-and-out gore. Whether it’s armed creatures murdering and kidnapping villagers inThe Town of Pigs,or an evil demonic twin with a taste for claret inHell Baby, Hino isn’t one for the squeamish.
His seminal work,Panorama of Hell, even featured an artist painting pictures with his blood in between relating his brutal life story (one loosely based on Hino’s own experiences). Hino made his name with hisHino Horrorshort stories in the alt-manga magazineGaro. But he’s also dabbled in live-action horror, writing & directing two entries in the infamousGuinea Pigseries of torture flicks.
4Suehiro Maruo
The Ero-Guro Maestro Behind Shojo Tsubaki
Rivaling Hino is his fellowGaro-published artistSuehiro Maruo. While Hino reveled in blood, Maruo combined it with more adult content to become one of the first artists behind the revival of the “ero-guro” (erotic-grotesque) movement. His work, from his stories to his novel and album cover commissions, combined gore with suggestive figures to put it mildly.
The most notorious of which wasShojo Tsubaki, akaMr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show, a story about a young girl who’s taken in by the circus when she’s left orphaned. It managed to get an anime adaptation calledMidori, which was banned worldwide (bar a DVD release in France) for its depictions of physical and psychological abuse. However, he did take a break from gore to adapt the suspense mysteryThe Strange Tale of Panorama Island, showing how his art could be pretty while still being terrifying.
5Ochazukenori
Murder And Death For The Josei Crowd
If Hino and Umezz made horror for shojo magazine readers, what would horror for their older josei counterparts look like?It depends on the artist, but one of the most famous examples isOchazukenori(an alias taken from a rice dish). His explicitly gory stories rival Hino’s, withZangekikancontaining a range of short stories covering parasitic infections and water demons, toAnkoku Jiten’s killer bees and cursed books.
His art leaned closer to Hino’s crude ghastliness than Ito and Maruo’s more refined figures, which were enough to make him a cult favorite among horror fans in Japan. Much like Ito, his stories could take unusual premises and make them horrifying.For example,Zangekikan’s ‘The Mystery of the Vanishing Heads’ is akin to Ito’s ‘The Hanging Balloons,’ in that both tales involve inexplicable forces going after the innocent via their heads.
6Hitoshi Iwaaki
Invasions, Infections, And Intrigue
Since his 1985 debut,Hitoshi Iwaakihas switched between horror and historical tales. Fans of the latter may be familiar withHistorie, about Eumenes' life with Alexander the Great, and his female samurai dramaReiri. Yet his most famous work is the sci-fi body horror taleParasyte, where the titular aliens take over human brains and turn them into body-distorting monsters, a laThe Thing. Shinichi got lucky when a Parasite got trapped in his right hand. Together, they defend themselves and others while figuring out who has the right to exist.
Sound of Bonescompiled his one-shot stories that continued many ofParasyte’s themes, likeSea of Garbage’s look into the value of life,andDreams That Kill’s twist on the Freddy Krueger murder-within-dreams concept.Look Me in the Eyes When You Talkis about a man who can’t look people in the eyes, who then gets knocked out and wakes up unable to see people’s eyes at all. It’s like a neatTwilight Zone-style strip, complete with an ambiguous twist. If all readers know of Iwaaki isParasyte, then they should check out his other works too.
7Kaori Yuki
Gothic Shojo Style
Some fans might be surprised that iconic horror mangaka like Umezz and Hino either started in shojo comics or made a name for themselves in the genre. It just shows that women have liked horror of different varieties for decades. But if their more blatant monstrosities seem like a rather blunt take on horror for readers, they might find the skin-crawling work ofKaori Yukimore their speed.
Her specialty is gothic horror, making readers dread her story’s outcome rather than focusing on the page turn like Ito. For example, herCainSagasees its titular character deal with family drama on top of zombies, spiders, and torture. Her most notorious work isAngel Sanctuary, where its lead is caught at the heart of a battlebetween angels and demons, alongside handling a doomed romance.
8Kanako Inuki
The Queen of Horror Manga
If shojo producing ‘the godfather of horror manga’ in Umezu wasn’t enough, it also introduced the world to the genre’s queen inKanako Inuki. Inspired by Umezu, alongside Osamu Tezuka and Moto Hagio, she got her big break when Umezu himself included her debut work,Orusuban, in a special edition ofShojo Friend. Since then, her mix of folklorish horror and wry humor has seen her work pop up in standalone releases, and in compilations with Ito, Hino, and other top names in the genre.
Many of Inuki’s stories focus on how women and girls can be just as capable of vicious depravity, if not more so. Which she can show with just her artistic flourishes, like giving her characters big eyes, but keeping the irises small so they look more demented than cute. That’s without getting into their actions, like the sadistic bullies inBig Sis SasoriandThe Birthday Present. As tricky as her work can be to track down, it’s worth tracking down. Particularly for fans who fancy urbane wit to go with the skin crawling.
9Matsuri Akino
Urbane Modern Horror
Speaking of urbane wit,Matsuri Akinois known for her debonair dialogue to go with her alluring, expressive artwork. Her mix of dark humor and horror helped her catch on with the older josei crowd than the younger shojo readers Yuki and Umezu wrote for. Her breakout work,Reiken Shōhō Kabushikigaisha(“Psychic Business Corporation”), saw a substitute science teacher deal with the spirit world and whatever they’d inhabit.
It combined horror and mystery very well, though it was arguably perfected in her most famous work,Pet Shop of Horrors. Where the store’s owner, Count D, sells rare pets to people, provided they stick to their contract. They each come with three conditions, and if they’re broken, the consequences can be dire. Also ironic, as they’re often tailored around their personal foibles, which they often can’t overcome.
10Shintaro Kago
Brutal Body Horror With A Satirical Edge
The ero-guro field is a busier one than people would think, as while Maruo is one of its more notorious artists, the most famous isShintaro Kago. His use of extreme brutality, sexuality, and body modification express his satirical takes on Japanese politics and society on top of getting shocks out of people.
For example,Fractionsees a serial killer called “The Slicing Devil” deal with a copycat killer, where Kago appears as himself to inform the reader about how manga are made.Dementia 21pushes care worker Yukie to the brink with bizarre tests as everything at her workplace is automated. ThenA Lot of Sweets Jammed in the Head of a Girlis an art book featuring gut-quivering sights of depravity like someone’s head being literally stuffed with candy.
