Many of Junji Ito's works, while at first glance seeming to be weird for weirdness' sake, actually contain detailed commentary and criticism on the conservative norms of Japanese society. Because so many of his works feature these sort of themes, a partial list of them will be made here.
- Gyo: The virus responsible for the Death Stench is stated to have been created by the Japanese military during World War II, and moreover is implied to be controlled by the angry spirits of people killed by Japan during the war. When the Death Stench plague is unleashed upon modern-day Japan, it can easily be interpreted as the victims of Japan's wartime
atrocities getting their posthumous revenge on a country that has yet to apologize for, let alone fully educate its populace about, many of its war crimes. - Remina: Remina's entire story arc— how she is first built up as a beloved celebrity for a trivial reason, but then just as quickly becomes despised— is a clear allegory for Japan's Idol Singer industry. Japanese pop idols have notoriously strict Contractual Purity. To elaborate, it can result in a great outcry whenever an idol gets caught doing anything that breaks that ideal, from smoking to drinking to even just dating. More than one J-pop idol has had their career ruined for such reasons, and the same thing happens to Remina when it is discovered that the planet she shares her name with is a world-devouring monster.
- Uzumaki: While less obvious than the above two examples, Uzumaki can still be interpreted as a commentary on Japan's group-oriented work culture, and the seeming lack of individuality that results from it. As the Spiral Curse takes over Korozu-Cho, more and more people become "one with the Spiral", and lose all individuality. At the end, Kirie and Shuichi are the only people left with individual personalities— everyone else has been consumed by the Spiral.
- This theme of emphasis on the group over the individual as something dehumanizing and frightening is a recurring one in Ito's work, as it also appears in The Enigma of Amigara Fault, Remina, and Billions Alone.
- Ito's one-shot The Sad Tale of the Principal Post is possibly his most straightforwardly allegorical work. In traditional Japanese architecture, the "principal post" is the central load-bearing pillar of a building; it is also an idiom used to refer to the breadwinner of a family, usually the father. Due to the long working hours at many Japanese companies, many Japanese men feel as though they are being metaphorically crushed by their role as "principal post"— which is exactly what happens to the father in this story. Thus, the father's insistence that he be allowed to pass so the house need not collapse serves as a rather poignant reference to how many people would rather suffer from overwork than risk breaking free and having their actions impact their families.
- Black Paradox is also a rather obvious allegory, but not for Japanese society. Instead it is a Climate Change Allegory. The Paradonite is a seemingly miraculous new fuel source that has the potential to transform civilization, but it has a hidden down-side that nobody is aware of at first. Just as burning fossil fuels causes the Earth to warm and the icecaps to melt, using Paradonite destroys people's souls. The protagonists eventually decide that Paradonite is not a sustainable source of energy, and the only way to stop humanity from wiping itself out entirely from overusing it is to warn the world of how dangerous it is.
