Junji Ito's Freaky Manga Endings - FUNKe Study 

The crosshatching/watercolor aesthetic here is mostly just for this video. You can expect future videos to look a bit less grungy.

For those curious, the morse code at 0:26 reads "CAT DIARY" and at 0:36 it reads "Pet?" Edit: as THAT ONE GUY points out in the replies, the morse code at 11:54 reads "eat"

Living proof that thoughtful in-depth video essays don’t need to be 45 minutes long

I really love the unique way FUNKe animated his hands. By seperating and connecting his hands and arms he made it look like he had 4 hands. 2 that are inside his sleeves and 2 rayman like floating arms. Then he could pose them diffrently or connect them togeter. It was masterfully done and super creative

Junji Ito is a pretty chill, upbeat guy. You need a really stable mental state to do what he does and make it out unscathed.

5:02 “When the city of Kodoth presents itself, what’s a man to do other than Honk-Shoo-MiMiMi” Actual poetry.

I can't remember the name of it, but my favorite Junji Ito story is probably the least supernatural one. It's the one about the girl who's forced to babysit this little boy, but doesn't want to because she thinks it's uncool. He'd always cry about everything and it got on her nerves, and everyday she's push him down, or accidentally hit him with a ball, hoping he would stop wanting to be around her, but it never worked. One day she kicked a ball into a yard with an aggressive dog and made him go get it, the boy getting mauled in the process. He lived, but the family moved away soon after. Years later, once she's an adult, she meets the boy at a bar who remembers her fondly, seemingly forgetting everything she had done to him, yet he still has the scar from the dog. They end up dating, he knocks her up, and they have a kid together. However, one day, he doesn't come back from work. This was his revenge, leaving her with the kid, the kid that looks exactly like he did all those years back. The final few pages are her lamenting him, hating him for what he did, and how the child reminds her of him, he cries just like he did, how annoying that was. The final panel is her dressed up as she was in the beginning of the story, like a child, her hair done up in pigtails, calling her son by the name of his father, the boy she abused, implying that she'll relive those events with her own son.

Ito once said that the secret to his success is to take ridiculous concepts and treat them seriously. It's something all creatives should take to heart.

I loooove how you use the floating hands and the arms as seperate.. things on your character, so much expression and sooo unique! really damn cool FUNKe also fantastic video! Looove Junji Ito

Really happy to see Craig become a recurring character. A helicopter turtle that speaks in morse code. Absolutely adorable.

One of these days someone is going to do a study on FUNKE’s animation and video style - an unexplainable masterpiece of pure art.

One thing I like about Junji Ito's endings is that typically there is "discovery" by the outside world. It's not just something supernatural that's "invisible" to all except those it's affecting, but it's something physical that others are able to witness ... But then the story ends before the larger implications of that discovery start being pressed.

loving the evolution of your animation style

LOVED the world of horror soundtrack playing throught this. You are easily one of the best channels on youtube rn, your editing style and animation here is sublime.

God the animation in this one blew me away. It's surprising how you can keep such a high production value on these. Also the hands animating separately from the arms was mesmerising.

I want to take a moment to appreciate how impressive the page turning scenes are. That you actually modeled every page turn in Blender for the small detail that you can see the next page as it turns, control the pace of each page turn for suspense, control the camera angles, and that incredible paper texture, is just superb. More than that, it gives the viewer the actual vibe of physically turning each page. Surely a ton of work instead of doing it in after-effects or something; but the result is absolutely worth it I'm sure.

I'm convinced that FUNKe is one of the best RU-vid video makers rn, his style is so distinct and lively. The tone is always perfect, it's paced well, the animation has so much character, and it's edited so well. I started watching back when he made TF2 videos and seeing his videos evolve, it just felt like the natural direction to take things. Easily top 3 RU-vidrs rn for me personally

Your character being proportioned like this is pleasing to the eyes on an artistic yet also extremely uncanny and unsettling. A lot like Junji Ito’s illustrations.

"how tf my house got more rizz than me" had me rolling. To see one of my favorite animators cover my favorite mangaka is a dream come true, incredibly well done as always!

I like the "and then everything was normal and the monster was gone" because it almost implies that its out there somewhere, right? It couldn't have just been imagination. Imagine never being able to think you're safe from the horror ever again since it can show up as suddenly as it disappeared. You can't get rid of it.

Never expected you to cover his work, but I’m super excited you did.

craig being apart of the FUNKe universe makes me so happy :)) (him having Grotle's cry is SUCH a good touch)

I dunno what unnerved me more, the very methodical way you explained and analyzed Junji Ito's work or the disconnected hands and arms having their own seperate animations from one another. It's actually such a really nice touch despite how seemingly minor it is, it correlates nicely with how horrifying Ito's stories are imo, since a lot of them happen in mundane locations. It's also a very good showcase of animation in general, it's kind of fucking nuts.

The sound design in this one is excellent. The distinct page flips are a wonderful detail. Also a big fan of the hands moving independently to the arms, particularly in moments like 7:38. Don't think I've ever seen it before, and it really stands out. Looks like the switch to Blender is paying off!

Craig from the last video turning into the beloved pet of funke is the best thing I could ask for. Please give us more Craig.

Holy shit, I've always wanted to hear more about this author. Ever since I saw the panel with "This hole was made for me!" I was intrigued...

Honestly love how you have the hands detach from the sleeves and have them move separately. Such a cool visual quirk that has you emoting in multiple different ways at once.

3:23 mans really edited weezer in a panel 💀

I may miss the days of TF2, a lot really, but I’m glad that Funke has gone to do this with his content, it’s so nice, and every video is so well made

It’s a good day when FUNKe posts

Dude, his illustrations are to die for. Whenever I need to fuel my darker art styles, I just study junji ito for a while.

Junji Ito’s adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is still one of my favorite books ever.

The animation is so good, the way the hands move separate to the body is so cool and eery. Perfect for the topic of the video. I'm blown away to how great animation had gotten on RU-vid recently

The sleeves and hands acting independently never stopped being creative and expressive. Genuinely genius idea, i love it

1. I really liked the style you used for this video, even if it's only for this one. 2. The use of music from World of Horror was perfect for this. I hadn't actually thought about it until now, but Junji Ito must have been the amin inspiration for that game. It's practically like a playable Ito manga.

The thing I love about Ito’s stories are they almost always feel like a random silly thought he must’ve had but the way he depicts and tells the story really hit home his talent for the macabre. There’s an episode of Manben, Urasawa Naoki’s show about mangaka, in which Ito is the focus of an episode and I roughly remember him joking about how something he was drawing was unrealistic (it was the story of the girl made up of layers) and it really hit home how his stories work, his concepts are silly but they remind me of that child like sense of horror where the logic doesn’t matter at all, a giant floating balloon shaped like your head that can mimic you with the sole goal of hanging you is really sill but the way he presents it is genuinely creepy.

gotta say, how you animated your character this episode is brilliant. very fun

12:10 box (instant gratification if u dont wanna watch the video)

i know everyone's already said this a hundred times over for nearly a week, but i love the subtle cleverness you play around with when it comes to the character design. simple design choices resulting in complex behaviours is one of my favourite things in character design, and your character's lack of neck and wrists leads to so many cool visual tricks and silly gags. and the way it's animated makes sense too! of course a character who has floating hands would rest their hands differently from their arms, or rest one while gesticulating with the other! it leads to so many interesting and fun visuals that i found myself having to sometimes rewind this video because my detail-hungry autistic brain was so enamored by the animation that i only half-processed the actual words being said. and i know you've said that the grungy visuals were mainly just for this one video, but i certainly wouldn't mind more of it in the future! to make sure this comment at least mentions the topic of the video; this has unironically convinced me to get into junji ito oh, n that was an immaculate outro gag, haven't laughed that hard in a few days lmao

You outdid yourself with this video. The pages of Ito's work being diegetic was really clever, and for a second I thought "He wrote on the copies of his book?!" like they were the actual physical copies of the book. Uzumaki would be my choice to bring on vacation, too. One of my favorite pieces of media of all time.

I’m so happy FUNKe used the World of Horror OST, it is made up entirely of underrated gems that go so well with Ito’s work

i can’t believe that your style just keeps getting better with each video. you have a knack for creating visuals that make my brain go “beep boop serotonin”

I love how Funke moves. Body language emphasized with the movement of the arms, separate of the hands.

On a side note, I love the style of the arm/hand animation. Kinda gives the illusion of having 4 arms while letting them still be connected

"Not as scary as dolphins they do drugs" this line is 10/10 Edit: Btw great book animation

love how you did the hands and sleeves. I like to imagine you couldn't decide which motion to choose so you just did both.

It's absurd how creative and fresh your style of animation feels for some reason. I can't think of anyone else that does it quite like this.

11:06 That transition of the pages was so smooth, I nearly didn't notice that it was staring at me too. Very nice.

God i loved how you used World of Horror's music in this video, it was used perfectly to fit the theme of the video. The creepy, anxiety vibes.

*(**8:25**)* "Not as scary as dolphins. They do drugs." They get caught doing LSD that ONE time... Jeez.

I genuinely dont know how he does it. every single video is more entertaining and more visually enthralling than the last. the decision to consider the sleeves and the hands as two fully separate, unrelated appendages simply for some visual gags is absolutely genius.

You actually kept Craig the edited helicopter scrapped enemy turtle. Incredible.

the change in art style is always beautiful and i am obsessed with the textures this time 😍

The animation is insane, people don't actually how much effort such videos like this takes! Like for example how the hell did he achieve the page animations, the work behind this video must be insane

Not usually the type to feel this way about a creator's content but FUNKe's videos are something I look forward to and watch immediately whenever I see they've dropped

1:57 "how tf my house got more rizz than me" Hilarious

Everything about the video is perfect. The World of Horror soundtrack, amazing hand animations, and the killer ending song. I've come to expect nothing less from you Funke.

new FUNKe VID, funny to notice some sort of chemical reaction in my brain making me really happy when seeing his bomb head releasing a video

God you're videos are a 5 star, 5 course, MEAL every time they come with all the surface level fun all then looking at the entire iceberg of your jokes and visuals man and how you always have these multilevel jokes of the videos having to do with the topic and/or BEING the topic and then having a say on the topic by just having the visuals play with it. Also they're good

I immediately felt like something about the animation was off, but I couldn't pinpoint it for several minutes. I love how the hands and arms act like separate limbs in this one!

I love macabre endings. Literature wise, it’s a breath of fresh air. Lesson wise, it gives the consistent message that not all stories end happily. Not all end horribly. Some just end as relief for everyone. Say a character slowly descends into madness due to a set of events, yeah the ending isn’t good, but the worst is over.

fucking. this is an outstanding work of art. i'm gonna retturn to this video for a while. the way the model's animated, the goofy setting, the sound effects, are SO fucking good. i love this

You really went above and beyond with this video's visuals, including the gags! Really incredible stuff :)

i like how his character art style changes almost every video

It's a good thing no one pauses to read these pages. Also, the grotle cry being used for the jetpack turtle is mad nostalgic, thanks Justyn.

Separating the hands from the arms was an incredibly interesting artistic choice and you executed it perfectly, the compound gestures amd body language were cool as fuck

Sometimes I don’t watch a FUNKe video for awhile and come back and then I’m surprised about how awesome his video style is

The endings are always what makes me remember ito’s work It just leaves your mind racing with different outcomes and horrific possibilities that it keeps you hooked on something that isn’t there

I haven’t seen any of these comments yet but I know someone is gonna say it, don’t let anyone tell you to only make videos about games. Just keep doing what you want to do cause we are all here for it and support you!

I love the jokes on all the stupid little doodles FUNKe left on the books also Craig is back and that makes me happy

Your ability to weave the theme of the topic into the metaplot of the video is... well impressive is an understatement

Great video as always Funke. The way you disconnected the hands and sleeves to make it seem as if Bomby had two different sets of hands to emphasize and express different things was cool. Glad Craig's made a comeback voiced by none other than Grotle. The ending had me in stitches, it was just stupid funny. Hope you're doin' well, love to see your continued evolution in animation and video creation, and can't wait for whatever's next!

The Morse Code flashed by Craig is as follows: 0:32 - Cat Diary (-.-. .- -/-.. .. .- .-. -.--) 0:40 - Pet? (.--. . - ..--..) 11:56 - EAT (. .- -) glad to know that Craig has good taste

the way the hands move independently of the arm position is probably the most creative idea i ever seen in a animated character

isent it crazy what ai can do these days? i almost thought that justyn was still with us today :( fly high man

Man your animation will never not blow me away, I love getting to see it evolve with every video

Love the World of Horror music, obviously inspired my Ito's work, and it fits so well with the visuals too

Going from tftuber to sfm animator for tf2 content, to then an animator in general that has long form content about video games and stuff is a great transition tbh, I’ve been watching funke since forever really, and it’s so interesting to see it all

Your animation plus story telling puts you in the masterclass of youtubers. Impressive video as always. Never thought youd cover itos work but im so glad you did since hes my favorite Mangaka

Dude I'm blown away by your output. You have such an expressive style that you do amazingly. Every. Single. Time. It's so high quality too, the sound design like the clothes ruffling and the pages moving, the music, even your voice. The animation, so stylized, smaller framerate giving it more of its own identity. The models that you make and the shading on them. Your script and editing too! Its all so entertaining, I'm definitely excited to see more of your work in the future :)))

2:25 I can't believe the actual title for Shit To Remember is real shit

Great insights. I think Ito’s flaws are a consequence of his greatest strength: he understands that the scariest thing is the unknown. His works always maintain a sense of mystery. I’ve read Amigara fault so many times. Who? Why? How? I’ll never know. There’s barely anything to speculate on. And that makes it endlessly terrifying and unsettling.

the level of quality writing and animation in your videos is progressively getting insanely good!

Got halfway through the video and paused, made me wanna actually go read some of his stories. thank you funke

I can confidently say there is no other creator currently out there that is producing content that is of this level of quality. How do these videos keep getting better???

Superbly well written and animated, you've really outdone yourself with this one

The level of detail you put into your vids is crazy, i love it man youre great at what you do

9:24 GET OUT OF MY HEAD

Maybe the true horrors beyond our comprehension were the friends we made a long the way (Craig)

Well now I feel silly for thinking it was Chekhov's gun. 12:16

I spat out my morning drink laughing at the signature cry of a ghost being "UwU".

your animations are so satisfying to me. they scratch an itch in my brain that i didn't know i had until Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse came out. now with Puss n Boots 2 and other new animations coming out that scratch this same itch, i feel so excited for the future of animation.

Its amazing to see how much your artstyle/animation has changed over the years.

I love how the hands move independently from the arms

I could literally watch FUNKe talk about anything, and it would be the best youtube video I watched that week. Great stuff man!

3:58 A M O N G U S

1:34 Shoulda just let the silence hang after "for example:".

Your videos are incredibly beautiful. So much creativity in the movements and the use of angles and imagery. I'm very impressed!

BRAAAAVOOO I am always so impressed by your videos and the content you release to the world, it’s more art than anything. Your commentary is creative, witty, and full of character. Absolutely stunning

Funke videos are really just completely unpredictable huh