Junji Ito is a Japanese horror manga artist born on July 31, 1963, in Sakashita, Gifu, Japan. He first became interested in horror manga at a young age through the works of Kazuo Umezu, a major influence on his artistic development. He began drawing manga at age four, initially as a hobby. Ito later studied to become a dental technician, a profession he worked in for three years, and the anatomical knowledge gained from this training would later inform the detailed, precise body horror that became a hallmark of his artistic style.

Ito made his professional manga debut in 1987 when he submitted a short story to Monthly Halloween that received an honorable mention in the Kazuo Umezu Prize. This story eventually became Tomie, his first major series, which ran for thirteen years. Tomie chronicles an immortal, beautiful girl who drives her admirers to madness and murder, only to regenerate from any wound or dismemberment. Following Tomie, Ito created Uzumaki, a three-volume series about a town cursed by spirals, and Gyo, a two-volume story in which fish are controlled by sentient bacteria called the death stench. He has also produced numerous short story collections, including The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection and later compilations such as Shiver, Smashed, and Fragments of Horror. Other notable works include The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection, Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu (a self-parody about living with two cats), and his adaptation of No Longer Human.

Ito's manga has been adapted into various anime and live-action projects. In anime, his work was adapted for GYO: Tokyo Fish Attack, an original video anime project. The Junji Ito Collection anthology series, which aired in 2018, adapted stories from his masterwork collections and included Tomie as part of its DVD releases. Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre debuted worldwide on Netflix in January 2023, featuring twenty stories from his body of work animated for the first time. The Uzumaki manga inspired a separate four-episode anime miniseries that premiered in September 2024. A new anime titled Junji Ito Crimson was announced in 2025. In live-action, the Tomie series has been adapted into multiple films, and both Uzumaki and Gyo have received live-action adaptations as well.

Recurring themes in Ito's work include body horror, cosmic horror, obsession, and a capricious, cruel universe where characters suffer malevolent supernatural circumstances without reason or are punished disproportionately for minor transgressions against an incomprehensible natural order. He draws inspiration from his childhood fears, including death, war, and insects, as well as from everyday experiences, such as moving his tongue in a mirror to imagine the story Slug Girl. He has cited Kazuo Umezu, Hideshi Hino, H. P. Lovecraft, H. R. Giger, and Salvador Dali as influences on his work. Ito has stated he pursues something closer to Western horror rather than traditional Japanese ghost stories, which is reflected in his use of body horror and urban legends. His training as a dental technician gave him an interest in anatomy and the human body, which he has described as a symbol of bottomlessness that inspires fear.

Junji Ito is recognized as an iconic figure in horror manga with a substantial international following. He has received multiple Eisner Awards, including Best Adaptation from Another Medium for his manga Frankenstein in 2019, Best Writer/Artist and Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Asia for Remina and Venus in the Blind Spot in 2021, and Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Asia for Lovesickness in 2022. In 2023, he received the Inkpot Award at San Diego Comic-Con. In 2025, Ito was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame. He has sold over ten million books worldwide, and his works frequently appear on The New York Times Best Sellers list. He is married to picture book artist Ayako Ishiguro, and they have two daughters.