Four additional actors were featured for “Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of Death”. The new members have previous credits ranging from popular senen series such as Bleach to well-known horror series such as Attack of the Titans, and much more.
It is almost impossible to visit an anime store without seeing several “selected” volumes of Junji Ito manga, and “Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of Death” will be the second attempt to adapt some of these works into anime. Announced last month by Junji Ito himself, the series will feature 20 stories from his horror story collections, including stories from “Suchi,” “Hanging Balloons,” and his debut volume, “Tomiyo.”
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On the previous Monday, the official website of Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre announced that four new voice actors had joined the cast. Risa Shimizu, Ayaka Asai, Hajime Iijima and Tomoko Kaneda will join the cast as part of the anime adaptation of “Hikizuri’s Strange Brothers and Sisters: The Session.” They will join Romi Park and Takahiro Sakurai, two previously announced actors voicing Kiko and Kazuya Hikizuri respectively. This story will be one of 20 Junji Ito stories that will be animated and released on Netflix for the first time in 2023.
While the previous adaptation of Junji Ito’s work, the Junji Ito Collection, did not impress the audience, a year after its release, the number of Junji Ito’s products increased: from the shelves of manga stores to the exclusive collection of goods presented at Crunchyroll Expo 2019. And much more. Junji Ito products are available now than when the previous series was released, it’s easy to imagine that Junji will have more fans at this time. We hope that in the coming months more details will be revealed about other stories of the upcoming series, including Tomi.
Tomie is Junji Ito’s second volume with the highest rating on Myanimelist, which bodes well for the upcoming adaptation. Junji Ito’s works perfectly convey a sense of fear and eeriness, usually in a familiar but slightly strange world. If everything is done well, it will be a great addition to the horror anime genre.
Viewers can recognize Romy Park as the actor who voiced Hanji Zoey from Attack of the Titans. The new actors also have a long list of previous roles in popular TV series, but their big roles are few and rare. Also, because of how poorly the “Junji Ito Collection” was received, “Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of Death” can easily disappoint, but only time will tell.
