Parents' Guide to Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre

TV Netflix Anime 2023
Junji Ito Maniac: poster, a headless family poses for a portrait

Common Sense Media Review

Marty Brown By Marty Brown , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 16+

Anime horror anthology has violence, nudity.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 16+?

Any Positive Content?

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 14+

Based on 2 parent reviews

age 12+

Based on 7 kid reviews

What's the Story?

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre adapts 20 stories from Ito's manga into anime shorts. The series brings to life Ito's unique takes on haunted houses, strange families, mystical creatures, and cursed immortality.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say ( 2 ):
Kids say ( 7 ):

The opening credits seem to promise an overwhelming pageantry of psychedelic horror, but this series doesn't fully deliver. Junji Ito Maniac takes the work of a uniquely talented manga artist and turns it into something pretty unremarkable. Anthology series, especially horror anthologies, are by nature inconsistent, and often only a few individual stories stand out. But Junji Ito's major flaw is that it's unable to translate Ito's printed work to the screen in a way that allows new viewers to experience precisely what makes it special.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about horror. Why do you think horror stories are so popular? What do they provide audiences that other genres cannot?

  • What is unique about the way Junji Ito Maniac approaches horror? How effective are these stories? Are they scary, or do they try to achieve effects other than scariness?

  • What themes to the stories contain? Do these stories have morals? Do you get a sense of Ito's point of view from these stories?

TV Details

  • Premiere date : January 19, 2023
  • Network : Netflix
  • Genre : Anime
  • TV rating : TV-MA
  • Last updated : August 2, 2023

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Junji Ito Maniac: poster, a headless family poses for a portrait

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