Much has been written about Hideo Kojima’s infamously-shelved horror project, Silent Hills. As talk of a franchise reboot continues to circulate, some fans are beginning to wonder whether they are trapped in an endless cycle of rumors and hype, much like the repeating hallways of P.T., the playable teaser for the cancelled game.
However, it wasn’t just the involvement of legendary auteur Kojima that once had fans salivating about his Silent Hills game. Kojima had assembled a huge array of talent, many of whom went on to feature in his first post-Konami release, Death Stranding. However, one star who was not involved in Death Stranding, but was certain to have made a powerful contribution to the Silent Hills project, was revered horror manga writer and artist Junji Ito.
Junji Ito’s Terrifying Artwork
Junji Ito was born in 1963, and became engrossed in horror at a young age when his older sisters introduced him to the work of writers like Kazuo Umezu. He began writing and drawing manga in 1984 while working as a dental technician, and submitted a short story to “Gekkan Halloween” magazine in 1987. It won an honorable mention in a competition for which Umezu himself was one of the judges.
This story was later serialized as Tomie, one of Ito’s most famous creations, about a girl who drives men to fall in love with her but then find themselves consumed by a jealous, murderous rage. This often causes them to kill Tomie in brutal and violent ways, scattering her body parts and spraying her blood — all of which has the power to regenerate, creating more clones of Tomie to spread her bizarre curse.
This sort of weird, highly original, and grotesque storytelling has become Ito’s trademark. His other critically acclaimed and beloved horror works include Gyo, a story about undead fish powered by metallic legs that invade the shore to slaughter the living. Uzumaki, his most famous work, received a video game adaptation as well as a live-action movie version.
First serialized in 1998, Uzumaki, which translates to “Spiral,” tells the story of fictional city Kurouzo-cho, which is gripped by a bizarre paranormal curse. Whenever spiral shapes manifest in the town, whether these are impossibly long rows of terraced houses, snail shells, or jack-in-the-box springs, disturbing and gore-drenched developments are not far away. The harrowing and unique images created for this work have already served as inspirations for other video games, with some of Bloodborne’s creature designs allegedly owing a debt to Ito’s sinister creations.
Ito has also adapted other literary works, using his storytelling and artistic talents to transform them into the manga form and populate them with his nightmarish visions. Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein have both been given the Junji Ito treatment in recent years, with horrifyingly effective results.
Thanks to his huge back catalogue of chilling imagery, Junji Ito was eventually contacted by Hideo Kojima, who asked him to join his Silent Hills dream team. Sadly, fans were never able to see his work on the game take shape, as the project was cancelled soon after by a publisher seemingly more interested in Metal Gear Solid sequels and pachinko machines.
What Junji Ito Could Have Brought to Silent Hills
Ironically, the Silent Hill franchise is already well known for the work of another Ito, namely Masahiro Ito, the creature designer famous for creating the iconic Pyramid Head. With the artwork of the games already one of their most celebrated components, whoever was leading the art design on Silent Hills would have had big shoes to fill — shoes that Junji Ito would have been more than capable of slipping into.
The monsters in Silent Hill are renowned for mixing disgusting and sexual elements, with enemies such as the Bubble Head Nurse being great examples of this unsettling juxtaposition. Such combinations are right up Ito’s alley, with Tomie being a great showcase of his ability to mix the terrifying with the alluring. The manga’s titular character is stunningly beautiful, but often appears in horrifying and repulsive scenes as her regenerative powers are put to ever more inventive use.
As well as its psychosexual aspects, Silent Hill has also featured some truly nauseating and disturbing imagery over the years. In the franchise’s best titles, these visuals are employed not to overwhelm the player with constant B-movie schlock and gore, but to catch them off guard when they are at their most vulnerable. A memorable boss fight in Silent Hill 2 takes place in the hospital, when protagonist James Sunderland is locked in a room with the “Flesh Lips.” These two creatures resemble lumps of malformed meat suspended in rusted cages, with human limbs and wriggling lips protruding from their central bulk.
Ito is no stranger to such grotesque imagery. His style is to slowly build up to a shocking reveal, utilizing a patient writing approach to build dread and anticipation, before assailing the player with a huge full-page image of something truly dreadful. There are few working artists in the world with a better track record in delivering the shocking spectacles that a successful modern horror title requires.
Ito is also a true innovator, another aspect in which the Silent Hill series has always excelled. Rather than relying on horror tropes and cliches, Ito has proved with titles like Uzumaki that he is capable of conjuring entirely original ways in which to terrify and unnerve his audience. This creativity would have been a perfect fit for Silent Hill, with a successful reimagining of the series requiring innovative world and creature design.
The cancellation of Silent Hills means we are unlikely to ever see Junji Ito’s work on an original video game. However, Ito is still active, not only creating new manga but also working with other creatives to adapt his work, such as in the upcoming Uzumaki anime adaptation. If the Silent Hills project is ever resurrected, as some rumors continue to suggest it will be, then fans remain hopeful that the unholy marriage of Silent Hill and Junji Ito can yet come to fruition.