Venus in the Blind Spot: Every Story in Junji Ito's Collection

What Stories Are in Venus in the Blind Spot?

Venus in the Blind Spot is a single-volume anthology — meaning it’s a collection of separate, unconnected short stories gathered in one book — with 10 stories by Junji Ito. It was published by VIZ Media (the largest English-language manga publisher) on August 18, 2020, and comes as a 272-page hardcover.

This is a standalone book — it’s not part of a numbered series, and you don’t need to have read anything else by Ito beforehand. You can pick it up cold and have a great time.

What makes this collection stand out from Ito’s other anthologies is its mix of original stories and literary adaptations. Three stories in the book are based on classic horror fiction — two from Edogawa Ranpo and one from Robert Hichens. That gives the collection a slightly different flavor compared to, say, Shiver or Smashed, which are entirely Ito originals.

Here’s the full story list before we dig into each one:

Billions Alone
The Human Chair
An Unearthly Love
Venus in the Blind Spot
The Licking Woman
Master Umezz and Me
How Love Came to Professor Kirida
The Enigma of Amigara Fault
The Sad Tale of the Principal Post
Keepsake

Now let’s go through every single one.

Complete Story List with Summaries

Below are spoiler-light summaries for each story, presented in the order they appear in the book. No major plot twists are revealed — just enough to give you a sense of what you’re walking into.

A quick note on intensity: Ito’s artwork is extremely detailed and often depicts body horror — a style of horror focused on the human body being distorted, transformed, or violated in disturbing ways. If graphic, grotesque imagery isn’t your thing, some of these stories will push your limits. That said, not every story here goes to the same extremes, and the summaries below will give you a sense of which ones lean harder into that territory.

Billions Alone

The world’s population seems to be vanishing — not in some dramatic catastrophe, but quietly, one person at a time. The story explores isolation and paranoia as the protagonist realizes that the people around them are simply… gone.

This one taps into a very specific kind of modern anxiety. The horror isn’t in monsters or gore but in the slow, creeping awareness that you might be completely alone.

The Human Chair

This is an adaptation of Edogawa Ranpo’s 1925 short story of the same name. A skilled craftsman builds a luxurious armchair — then hides himself inside it so he can feel the warmth and closeness of whoever sits down. The psychological unease of Ranpo’s original gets amplified by Ito’s detailed, grotesque artwork.

If you’ve never read Ranpo, this is a fantastic introduction to his style through Ito’s lens. The original prose story is creepy enough on its own, but Ito’s visual interpretation pushes it into full-blown horror territory.

An Unearthly Love

This is the collection’s second Edogawa Ranpo adaptation, based on his 1926 story A Brute’s Love. A young woman marries a gentle, considerate man through an arranged match — until she notices he slips away to the storehouse before dawn. One morning she overhears him talking softly to a lover. But there’s no one there, and no matter how she tries, she can never catch the woman. What he’s really been visiting turns out to be stranger, and sadder, than any affair.

Like The Human Chair, this one trades gore for quiet dread. The discomfort comes from love aimed at the wrong thing — and from how gently Ito plays it.

Venus in the Blind Spot (Title Story)

A man becomes utterly obsessed with a beautiful woman — but something is deeply wrong. She seems to exist only in people’s visual blind spots, flickering in and out of perception in ways that shouldn’t be possible. The deeper he chases the mystery, the more reality starts to warp around her.

This is classic Ito: he takes the concept of obsessive love and fuses it with body horror in a way that makes beauty itself feel threatening. It’s easy to see why the collection takes its name from this one.

The Licking Woman

A mysterious woman appears at night and licks people. That’s the premise, and yes, it’s exactly as weird as it sounds.

This story leans more into dark comedy than outright terror. It’s lighter in tone compared to the rest of the collection — a breather between heavier entries. The horror is still there, but there’s an absurdist quality that makes it fun rather than dread-inducing.

Master Umezz and Me

This is the collection’s most unique entry. It’s an autobiographical story where Ito recounts his relationship with Kazuo Umezz (also spelled Umezu) — the legendary manga creator widely regarded as the godfather of horror manga.

There’s no body horror here. Instead, you get a genuinely touching and occasionally funny look at Ito’s creative roots and the mentor figure who shaped his artistic path. If you’re interested in Ito as a person and not just a horror machine, this story is essential. It adds a human dimension to the collection that no other entry provides.

How Love Came to Professor Kirida

This is the collection’s Robert Hichens adaptation, based on his 1900 ghost story How Love Came to Professor Guildea (Ito renames the professor Kirida). It follows a reclusive professor who is visited by an invisible presence. The presence doesn’t threaten him — it claims to love him. And that, somehow, is far worse.

The horror here is quieter and more psychological than many of Ito’s other works. The dread comes from the violation of personal space and autonomy, made tangible through Ito’s ability to draw the unseen.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault

After a massive earthquake, a cliff face splits open to reveal dozens of human-shaped holes carved into the rock. Each hole is a perfect silhouette of a specific person — and the people it matches feel an overwhelming, irrational compulsion to climb inside.

This is one of Junji Ito’s most famous stories, period. If you’ve spent any time in online horror communities, you’ve probably seen panels from this one. The concept is deceptively simple, and the final image is genuinely unforgettable.

Worth noting: The Enigma of Amigara Fault was originally published as a bonus chapter in Gyo Vol. 2 (Ito’s two-volume series about fish fused with mechanical legs — yes, really). It’s reprinted here as a standalone, which is great news if you want to read it without buying Gyo.

The Sad Tale of the Principal Post

A family discovers that the main structural pillar of their house is cursed, attracting horrors that refuse to leave. The post isn’t just holding up the building — it’s holding something else in place, too.

The concept of a haunted architectural element is distinctly Ito. He has a gift for finding horror in mundane, structural things — spirals, holes, and now load-bearing pillars.

Keepsake

Set in feudal Japan, this is the story that closes the book. A household is shaken when a child is born long after its mother has died — an impossible birth no one can explain. The baby is taken in and raised, but how it came to exist, and the way the household treats it, only gets more unsettling as the years pass.

It ends the collection on a slower, sadder note. The disturbing part isn’t a ghost or a monster — it’s how casually the household treats women as a means to an heir, and what that does to the children born this way.

Which Stories Stand Out? A Beginner’s Guide to the Highlights

If you’re new to Junji Ito and wondering where to focus your attention, here are the stories that tend to leave the biggest impression:

The Enigma of Amigara Fault — This is the universally recommended starting point for Ito newcomers, and for good reason. The concept is immediately gripping, the pacing is tight, and the ending has genuine staying power. It’s also one of the most widely shared horror manga stories on the internet — once you’ve read it, you’ll start recognizing references everywhere.

Venus in the Blind Spot (title story) — This showcases what Ito does best: taking something beautiful or ordinary and making it deeply, fundamentally wrong. The way he visualizes the concept of a “blind spot” is incredibly creative.

The Human Chair — A perfect example of how Ito elevates source material. Edogawa Ranpo’s original story is already disturbing, but Ito’s artwork — dense, hyper-detailed linework that renders every crease of skin and fold of fabric with obsessive precision — makes the physical reality of the scenario viscerally horrifying in a way prose alone can’t achieve.

Master Umezz and Me — This won’t scare you, but it’s essential for understanding who Ito is as an artist. Seeing his genuine admiration for Kazuo Umezz adds depth to everything else in the collection. It’s warm, funny, and surprisingly moving.

Any of these four would make a strong first impression if you’re sampling the book.

Literary Adaptations — What Makes This Collection Unique

One of the most distinctive things about Venus in the Blind Spot is that three stories are adapted from classic horror literature:

Story	Original Author	Original Work	Year
The Human Chair	Edogawa Ranpo	“The Human Chair”	1925
An Unearthly Love	Edogawa Ranpo	“A Brute’s Love”	1926
How Love Came to Professor Kirida	Robert Hichens	“How Love Came to Professor Guildea”	1900

Edogawa Ranpo (a pen name derived from “Edgar Allan Poe”) is considered the father of Japanese mystery fiction. His work blends psychological suspense with the macabre, and he’s a foundational figure in Japanese horror and mystery writing. If you enjoy The Human Chair in manga form, tracking down Ranpo’s original stories is absolutely worth your time.

Robert Hichens was a British author whose ghost stories were popular in the early 20th century. “How Love Came to Professor Guildea” is one of the most celebrated supernatural tales in English literature.

What makes these adaptations special is how Ito’s visual style transforms the horror. When you read a horror story in prose, your imagination fills in the blanks — you picture the scenes however your mind interprets them. Ito’s manga removes that ambiguity and replaces it with hyper-detailed, nightmarish imagery laid out on the page in front of you, impossible to look away from. The result is something that honors the source material while becoming entirely its own thing.

If you’re someone who enjoys classic horror fiction, this collection serves as a fascinating bridge between literary horror and manga horror.

Where Does Venus in the Blind Spot Fit in Junji Ito’s Library?

Junji Ito has a large body of work, and it can be confusing to know what’s what. Here’s a quick orientation:

Long-form series (not short story collections):

Uzumaki — a three-volume series about a town consumed by spirals
Tomie — a recurring character across multiple stories, collected in volumes
Gyo — a two-volume series about mechanical fish

Uzumaki (3-in-1 Deluxe Edition)

Check on Amazon

Short story anthologies (collections of separate, standalone stories in one book — like Venus in the Blind Spot):

Shiver — fan-favorite collection, great for newcomers
Smashed — another strong anthology
Fragments of Horror — shorter, more experimental stories
Deserter — a mix of horror tales
Venus in the Blind Spot — the collection covered in this guide

Venus in the Blind Spot pulls stories from various publication periods in Ito’s career rather than collecting stories that were originally published together in sequence. That gives it nice variety — the tone, themes, and style shift from story to story.

For newcomers, either Venus in the Blind Spot or Shiver makes an excellent first Ito anthology. Venus has the slight edge if you’re interested in seeing how Ito handles literary adaptations alongside his original work. Shiver might be the pick if you want nothing but Ito’s own original stories.

Here’s a comparison to help you decide:

Collection	Standout Feature	Best For
Venus in the Blind Spot	Literary adaptations + Enigma of Amigara Fault	Readers who enjoy classic horror literature
Shiver	Consistently strong original stories	Your first Ito anthology if you want all-original work
Smashed	Diverse horror themes	Readers who’ve already tried one collection and want more
Fragments of Horror	Experimental, shorter format	Readers who want something different from standard Ito
Deserter	Mix of well-known and obscure stories	Fans who want to read everything Ito has published

If you already own Gyo Vol. 2, be aware that you already have The Enigma of Amigara Fault — it was originally published as a bonus chapter there. It’s still worth having Venus in the Blind Spot for the other 9 stories, but just so you know.

Have Any of These Stories Been Adapted?

Most of these stories live entirely on the page — they haven’t had major standalone anime adaptations. That’s part of the appeal if you’ve only met Ito through Netflix series like Junji Ito Maniac: there’s a lot here you won’t have seen animated.

The one piece worth mentioning is The Enigma of Amigara Fault. There’s no anime version, but it’s one of the most widely shared horror manga stories online — the imagery, especially the final pages, turns up constantly in horror discussions, memes, and fan art.

Ito tends to work better on the page anyway. His linework is dense and hard to reproduce in animation, and a still panel lets you sit with every detail in a way movement doesn’t.

Picking Up Venus in the Blind Spot

Venus in the Blind Spot is available as a 272-page hardcover from VIZ Media. A digital/Kindle edition is also available if you prefer reading on a screen. The hardcover format is sturdy and looks great on a shelf — VIZ has done a nice job with the physical presentation of Ito’s collections.

If this collection clicks for you and you want to explore more of Ito’s short story work, the Junji Ito Story Collection 3-book set (which includes Lovesickness, Deserter, and Fragments of Horror) is a solid way to keep going without having to hunt down each volume separately.

Junji Ito Story Collection 3 books set: Lovesickness, Deserter, Fragments of Horror