#junji ito hanging blimp

[spiraphobia]

Junji Ito Maniac | Episode 3 - Hanging Blimp

[zeherili-ankhein]

When you're a Junji Ito fan and you see floating balloons in the sky

[ogradyfilm]

The Satirical Horror of Junji Ito’s “Hanging Blimp”

[The following review contains SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]

Junji Ito’s “Hanging Blimp” features a brilliant moment of dark comedy. Quite near the end of the short story, the protagonist’s family huddles around their television set, watching an emergency broadcast about the apocalyptic invasion of the eponymous monsters—gargantuan sentient balloons shaped like disembodied human heads, which strangle their prey with steel cable nooses. Literally seconds after the reporter warns citizens to remain indoors, the father stands up and casually announces that he really should be getting back to the office; he has a lot of work to finish before the weekend. When his wife and children understandably object to his cavalier attitude, he arrogantly dismisses their concerns, insisting that he’s formulated a foolproof survival plan. Abandoning both rationality and the safety of his home, he sprints towards his car, raising his arms to protect his neck—and is immediately lassoed around the waist and hoisted aloft to his grisly demise.

Later, our heroine’s younger brother likewise ventures outside, albeit for a more justifiable reason: he realizes that they will eventually run out of food should they continue to shelter in place—and as the newly appointed “man of the house,” it is his responsibility to provide for the weak, helpless, vulnerable womenfolk. His overconfidence proves to be equally fatal: when he next appears, he’s been unceremoniously slain between panels—impaled by the umbrella that he wielded as an improvised weapon.

Although this social commentary is too brief and incidental to the plot to qualify as a proper theme, it is nevertheless pointed and purposeful. Indeed, the presence of such mundane horrors as machismo, patriarchy, and toxic masculinity enriches the narrative, grounding the (potentially absurd) premise by juxtaposing its supernatural elements with comparatively ordinary, recognizable, relatable conflicts and characterization. Additionally, these relatively humorous (but still macabre) scenes prevent the tone from becoming excessively monotonous, alleviating the relentless tension by lending the otherwise oppressively bleak scenario some much-needed levity—which, in turn, lowers the reader’s guard, thus making the tale’s tragic conclusion significantly more impactful.

While fans tend to reductively emphasize “Hanging Blimp’s” grotesque, nightmarish imagery—particularly the iconic visual of a schoolgirl’s skull melting into a misshapen blob that resembles a deflated soccer ball—its satirical subtext is what truly elevates it. As insightful, subversive, and culturally relevant as it is disturbing, the manga transcends such superficial genre trappings as gore, jump scares, and a creepy atmosphere. These surface-level pleasures are, of course, perfectly enjoyable, but they do not exist in a vacuum; their function is to support the work’s underlying meaning.

And any critical analysis that omits this deeper context is inherently incomplete.

[Click here for more posts on this topic. Happy Halloween!]

[walkonpooh]

Shiver - Junji Ito Review

Shiver is a short story collection by Japanese horror manga artist Junji Ito. I first stumbled onto Junji Ito through the viral "Th-This is my hole. It was made for me!" meme that was popular around the internet a few years back.

I was fascinated by that image and it led me to reading the story it was based on "The Enigma of Amigara Fault" which is one of my all-time favorite horror stories, long or short. Shiver is now the third complete manga I've read by Junji Ito and to date is probably my favorite. It doesn't reach the highs of Amigara Fault, but I think it's really solid. According to the notes, it seems like Ito gets a spark of an idea and builds off the initial idea, sometimes putting several ideas together over the course of a span of time. The initial hooks are always interesting and pretty original though, even if the results of the story don't always quite land. With some quick pitches; my favorite stories in this collection are Used Record - What if there was a song of the dead and someone alive heard the song? What would that do to the person who is alive? Fashion Model - No comment. Just this image.

Hanging Blimp - People all around Japan are bizarrely committing suicide, hanging themselves, fashioning things into a noose. Shortly after their deaths, bizarre blimp like floating heads with what look like balloon strings show up around the country and begin chasing people. Marionette Mansion - Haruhiko's family travels around Japan putting on puppet shows. One of the puppets frightens Haruhiko's friend Kinuko, the puppets name is "Jean-Pierre" and it seems like there may be more to Jean-Pierre. Is Haruhiko's family controlling Jean-Pierre, or is Jean-Pierre controlling them? The Long Dream - Probably my favorite story in the collection. What if when we slept, an infinite amount of time could pass in our dreams? We could live hours, days, months, years or even several lifetimes worth? What would that do to our bodies? What would it mean for us as a species?

Greased - Haha this one got me to groan in disgust audibly, so I have to give it a nod. Yui and her family run a barbeque shop and live in an apartment above the shop. From poor ventilation in both the shop and apartment, there is a thick, heavy, filmy layer of grease covering everything. The grease gets heavier as time goes on and begins to effect Yui's family, specifically her brother Goro and ugh at what happens lol. Overall, a really solid collection of stories. Really enjoyed it!

4/5

[galaxynajma]

Just finished ‘shiver: junji ito selected stories’ and it was so good

Really liked how after each story there would be a comment from junji Ito talking about the inspiration for the story

If I had to rank them it would be

Hanging Blimp( balloons)

Painter

The Long Dream

Greased

Honored Ancestors

Marionette Mansion

Fashion Model: Cursed Frame

Shiver

Fashion Model

Used Record

[timefospookies]

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre episodes ranked from best to worst (in my opinion) with small to no explanation 😋

Kept as vague as possible to avoid spoilers :3

[Btw I LOVE ITO’S WORK but I feel like it’s very hard to translate into animation because it takes away from the magic the drawn medium provides for the story’s pacing, tone and overall look. This isn’t a criticism to Ito or the people who made the anime, it’s just things I liked and disliked in general!!]

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1. Tomb Town

Beautiful environments and engaging story!! Kept me at the edge of my seat! I loved the sister character (the protag’s sister not the dead one 💀). Such an interesting concept!!

2. Layers of Terror

The horror lay in the relationship between the mother and her two daughters- her desire to be adored pulled to an extreme by her selfishness

3. The Bully

Horrifying example of different abuses and its victims. How the woman fell back on old habits that she never truly regretted or grew out of. Poor Nao who remained blind to his abuser and his poor son who will suffer a terrible fate. All because the woman couldn’t move on from her childhood

4. Whispering Woman

Predictable but I honestly loved the character of the whispering woman and her story. She was so eerie but beautiful. I really wanna say she had a genuine desire to help the girl at least at some point, but it also feels somewhat manipulative

5. Long Hair in the Attic

I wanted her to better herself to badly :(((

I love the protagonist and her sister pls make them happy :(

6. The Story of the Mysterious Tunnel

A little dull at times but the concept is so terrifying and the horror was so well drawn!! I loved the protag and the little sister

7. Tomie’s Photos

Beautiful and horrifying at once!! The storyline was engaging and personally I loved the protagonist. Surprised me how chill she was after witnessing the brutality that Tomie’s henchmen did tho💀💀💀💀 like “oh well better clean up ig”

8. Headless Statues

Gave me the same vibes as Tomie’s Photos in the sense of the setting but it was a fun episode! Was rooting for the protag the whole way and the statues are so interesting

9. Intruder

The opening was never really explained but the concept is really interesting and I loved the characters!!! Kinda like the Scooby gang!!

10. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings

HITOSHI DESERVES BETTER I LOVE HIM‼️‼️‼️ that’s it

11. Hanging Blimp

It’s a little strange but I enjoyed it overall :]

THE PROTAG FRUSTRATED ME AT THE END THOUGH LITERALLY EITHER JUST OPEN THE BLINDS OR CLOSE THE WINDOW ITS THAT SIMPLE

12. Library Vision

Interesting!! I was surprised at the wife’s patience and understanding but I found that the story was unclear. I had to look it up on the Fandom Wiki to understand what was going on :(

13. Mold

Nice visuals, texture and quality! I appreciate the choice to make it black and white :]

14. The Back Alley

I love how you can go from disliking the antagonist to feeling bad for her!!

15. Ice Cream Truck

The ice cream guy was pretty<3

But also I loved how you already KNOW something is off. The ending was….chilling :)

16. Thing that Drifted Ashore

The pink hair guy was so pretty 💖💖💖💖💖

that’s it!

16. Soichi’s Beloved Pet

I feel like this family could make a pretty fun horror-comedy series!! Its tone was more upbeat than other episodes but it still maintained its sort of sadistic visuals. I HATE SOICHI‼️‼️‼️‼️ (I love hating him)

17. The Room with Four Walls

I HATE SOICHI I HATE HIM I HATE HIM (he infuriated me it was not enjoyable) also what was up with that carpenter guy???? Anyway overall not very engaging

18. Where the Sandman Lives

Very sweet relationship between Mari and her friend and how she’s willing to enter the Dream world to not abandon her friend. However it was mostly dull and the ending was just meh

19. Unendurable Laberynth

Maybe I just didn’t understand this one but it was kind of a bore :/

I LOVED AYA THOUGH<3

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Anyway to conclude: I hated the 3D animation but I LOVE HOW ALL THE STORIES HAVE ELEMENTS THAT CONNECT THEM (news, books, names, ect)

That is all, thank you!!!!

[engagekiss]

Waitwaitwait… Does the goddess like any of Junji itos manga !? Her heavenly blood personally reminds the puppeteer of tomie in a sense ~~! { A pospospos sense that is !!! }

cher loving embrace is indeedee ( indeed ) tomie ! the cutest temptress you shall ever see ~ che is a big fan of junji ito ! cher favorites of his are long dream , the enigma of amigara fault , tomie , hanging blimp , greased , ribs woman , whispering woman … che holds all his work dearly though !

[rosas-is-blooming]

Junji-Tober

So I can FINALLY show what will be going on during October for me. We have all heard of InkTober, we've heard of GoreTober and all that not, so I decided to make my own prompt for October called Junji-Tober! Junji-Tober is where you can draw panels in your style or draw your oc/persona as if they were a part of the horror mangaka Junji Ito's terrifying stories. For all the artists here, you can join along for this month and post it what ever site in any medium!

For those who can't read the font Day 1: Uzumaki Day 2: Tomie Day 3: Hanging Blimps Day 4: Slug Girl Day 5: Marionette Mansion Day 6: Headless Sculptures Day 7: Souichi's Convenient Curse Day 8: Scarecrows Day 9: Ice Cream Bus Day 10: Blood Bubble Bushes Day 11: The Hell of the Doll Funeral Day 12: Gyo Day 13: I Don't Want To Be A Ghost Day 14: Whispering Woman Day 15: Layers of Fear Day 16: Free Draw

[bookswithsyd]

Getting into the Spooky Spirit with Junji Ito's Shiver

In the spirit of October, I am trying to read as many horror or horror-adjacent stories as possible, and what better place to start than with a collection of Junji Ito stories?

I borrowed the Shiver collection from my roommate, so I decided to knock this one out first. It is a collection of nine already published stories, along with a shorter bonus story that is new to the public in this collection.

This is my first time diving into the works of Junji Ito. I knew of him, the famous horror mangaka whose works will haunt your nightmares. In the past, I was always too scared to read any of his pieces because images like to stick in my brain so I did worry that these terrifying images would find me in my dreams.

Out of all 10 stories, my favorites were Used Records and Hanging Blimp. Neither of these are the scariest tales, but I liked how each of them was so unique. Used Record felt like a great starter to this collection. It was a slower-paced story, not too gory or scary. It does a good job of pulling you in. Hanging Blimp was such a unique plotline. I would never have thought to use human heads as blimps that hunt down their human counterparts. The whole story was so well developed in such a short amount of time.

The ones that I hated (because they made me feel icky and like I needed to take a shower) were “Shiver” and “Honored Ancestors.” The use of disfiguring bodies in “Shiver” freaked me out, the idea that someone can have holes appear all over their body and bugs can crawl inside your body! Yeah, this one was a big NO for me. “Honored Ancestors” was so unsettling to me. The premise is that we know nothing because the girl we follow has lost her memory, we go in just as blind as the girl. The boy was a bit too close, it seemed weird the way he stuck around. Once we entered the house everything went to hell. The multiple heads keeping the family knowledge, the forced marriage, and the fact that this story ends knowing that the girl is helpless to this terrible fate, this one just made a cold shiver run down my body.

This whole collection was an excellent start to getting into Junji Ito’s works. I have more stories that I want to get into during the month so I will be getting very familiar with this style of horror.

[spiraphobia]

Hanging Blimp Visuals | Junji Ito

[zeherili-ankhein]

ah omg you read junji ito? which mangas have you read/fav one?

(i love his ver of no longer human and ofc tomie)

Ommggg you do too?!?

I've read Uzumaki ofc ofc, Tomie I was reading it's in halt currently I'll start again from the Painter chapter...

and then Hanging Blimp, Soichi, Slug Girl, Shivers, The Enigma of Amigara Fault, Long Dream, Greased, Fashion Model, Honoured Ancestors, Lovesickness and some more I am forgetting

I was thinking of starting Dissolving Classroom, and then I guess I'll check out No Longer Human

And I watched that Maniac Tales of the Macabre too... Tho that was not as good as the Manga but ehh it was ok...

I LOVE LOVE LOVE UZUMAKI THAT WHOLE SERIES IS JUST 🤌🤌🤌 AHAHSHDH KIRIE AND SHUICHI ARE MY BABIES

[yagodichjagodic]

I’m super proud to finally present these layered acrylic earrings inspired by Junji Ito’s story, ‘Hanging Blimp’. They are tied with ‘Sky Dancer, Jean Jacket’ as my favorite designs so far!  I have a handful available in my shop for anyone interested <3 xoxo Danielle

[vixvaporub]

Hanging Blimp by Junji Ito

[mangaart]

首吊り気球 “Hanging Blimp”

Horror World of Junji Ito collection: The Face Burglar (1998)

Written and illustrated by Junji Ito

[kuzuyami]