Born in 1963 in Gifu Prefecture, Junji Ito is the face of Japanese horror. While others came before him, providing well received and recognized inspiration such as Kazuo Umezzu and Hideshi Hino, it was not until Ito broke into the scene that the world truly took notice of the visual and comedic terror that is J-Horror. As he was working to become a dentist Ito won the Kazuo Umezzu Award and was asked by the legendary Umezzu himself to pursue a career in cartooning. This motivation would eventually result in Ito's opus Tomie, which was later adapted into a series of live action horror films, in the early days of the J-Horror film movement (which includes RING, Dark Water and JuOn). Most of Ito's works feature grotesque imagery of human fetishes and obsessions. His series Uzumaki in particular has become iconic for its usage of spirals in many shapes and forms destroying communities. And his follow up Gyo features comical fish people taking over the land. Since his debut, Ito has penned more than 20 properties, most of them being short story anthologies commonly read within Japan's horror fandom.