Trivia / Junji Ito

• Adaptation Expansion:
  • The 2000 TV drama adaptation of "Long Dream" adds on a whole new second half to the story, which continues where the ending of the original left off. To mix the new material into the existing story, new characters are also added, specifically Kana Sakurai.
  • His adaptation of No Longer Human doesn't end at the point the book does, but rather goes on for twelve years past the point. Yōzō ages decades after being trapped with a wife who is all but stated to hate him and a son that's implied to be a reincarnation of the boy who saw through his facade in elementary school that's haunted him all his life. Between the time where he leaves the mental hospital and is seen again, he's aged 50 years and would likely be better off if he died.
• No Export for You: Ito's works have been slow in receiving official English translations, to the point where most of his fans have already read all of his stories through online fan translations long before they were adapted for an overseas audience officially, and still, many of his short stories and his shorter series have yet to be released for international audiences. Ever since acquiring the rights to his big three works, Viz Media may end the problem, as they seem set on translating everything of his that hadn't been licensed, releasing on a steady schedule.
• What Could Have Been: The Shiver collection features author commentary and development notes that show some early ideas in the stories.
  • In "Shiver", the doctor would have been invisible to anybody not afflicted by the jade curse, and it seems the protagonist would have been more aggressive.
  • In "Fashion Model", Fuchi would have been more verbal and eloquent, her manager would appear and be just as strange, and Fuchi would have been killed after being run over by the protagonists' car.
  • In "Hanging Blimp", the image of a balloon with a hanging body attached was originally going to be a surreal opener, some harbinger of an event, before Ito realized he didn't know where to go from there and that perhaps it could be the focus instead. The bodies were also animate and violent despite being dead, and the people wouldn't have realized they were dead bodies until a blimp crashed to the ground. The blimps would have been aggressive only at night, too, and it seems a design with multiple strings/cables (more like a hot air balloon) was considered.
  • "The Long Dream" would have been more philosophical in regard to souls, death, and medical ethics, and the patient would have committed suicide, whereupon the crystals would be found in an autopsy. Afterward, the doctor would have taken the crystals and have long dreams (an idea used in the film adaptation) and a new patient would recieve the substance under the doctor's recommendation (which did make it to the final story, but is condensed significantly to serve as the conclusion).
  • "Honored Ancestors" was going to feature a doctor and operation for adding to the family chain, and the son would either be cut off from the chain by a door slamming or torn apart by a car from chasing Risa outside.
  • "Greased" would have been about a whole town or society affected by oil, rather than just a restaurant (though this features in Yui's nightmares).

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