Junji Ito Confirms Second Season of Genkai Chitai Manga

Junji Ito's digital manga series Genkai Chitai will continue for another season of weekly digital releases.

The Eisner Award-winning manga creator released the first chapter of the second season of Genkai Chitai to the AERA dot online manga service, and the author confirmed on his official Twitter account that the series would continue with new chapters every Tuesday. The first season of the manga series, which focuses on the horrors that are born from the everyday aspects of life, was originally distributed through the LINE manga app before being released in a collected print volume. An official English release for either season of Genkai Chitai has been announced at this time.

While an international release for Genkai Chitai doesn't appear to be on the horizon, Ito fans outside of Japan still have plenty to look forward to: the author's most recent work to be translated into English, Sensor, was released earlier this year to critical acclaim, and Adult Swim and Ghost in the Shell animation studio Production IG are currently working together to create an anime adaptation of Ito's most famous work, Uzumaki. Uzumaki tells the story of a high school couple who struggle to escape their rural, seaside town, which has been afflicted with a curse that causes unnatural spirals to appear everywhere. The series was originally announced in 2019 and is now scheduled to premiere on Adult Swim this October. A trailer was released for the series in June.

While Ito is now one of the manga industry's most celebrated creators, he actually began his career as a dental assistant. The young Ito drew manga as a hobby, and submitted one of his short stories to a magazine, which caught the attention of Kazuo Umezu, the creator of the classic horror manga Drifting Classroom. Ito has cited Umezu as one of his primary influences, and was encouraged to pursue manga as a career. Since then, he has produced several genre defining manga, including Tomie, Gyo, and the before mentioned Uzumaki, as well as several famous short stories, including The Enigma at Amigara Fault. His works have been adapted into live-action movies and anime, the latest of which was The Junji Ito Collection, which was produced by Fruits Basket (2001) and KonoSuba's Studio Deen. While Ito's stories were still praised, The Junji Ito Collection was widely panned for the quality of its animation and its failure to capture the look and feel of Ito's detailed art style.

Source: AERA dot, Twitter