Two young boys become entangled in the proprietor's twisted games after they try to sneak in for free. The arrival of a haunted house turns a town upside down when derision turns to terror as each new visitor enters its doors. While their schemes can have deadly consequences, the Hikizuri siblings are generally rather hapless, though you wouldn't want to be invited to their table for dinner.

Over two tales collected in Lovesickness, we meet some of the unlucky people who come into their path including an old school friend of their most beautiful member and a photographer. One of the funniest of Ito's creations, this bleakly humorous slice of life story follows an unhinged set of siblings who take great pleasure in tormenting and terrorizing each other and unsuspecting victims. Blinded by his new acquaintance's beauty, he's willing to overlook how often his lover appears covered in blood and the fact that she claims to 'love his ghosts.' Her real desires are darker than anyone could have foreseen and Shigeru of course doesn't realize until too late. Days later, the two begin a secretive affair despite the fact that Shigeru is married and expecting a baby. Although Shigeru worries at first about her bloodied and disoriented state, she explains it away. When Shigeru kindly picks up a beautiful wandering woman from the side of a road, his life is changed. If you enjoy horror that breaks taboos, then you'll certainly be satisfied as the death count here is huge and features a rarely seen demographic of victims. If you love a story about strange rituals, unusual cults, and the occult then this is the sort of story you'll gobble right up. Life now revolves around a strange factory of unknown origin, and even weirder are the all-consuming sirens that emanate from it each night. Alas, when he returns he finds that the once lively-though rural-village has turned into a ghost town. In the wake of a strange phone call from his parents and an ominous apparition at his window, Kyochi decides it's time for a family reunion. Turning his hand to folk horror, Ito crafts another bleak homecoming in Village of the Siren. The devastating reason for that will soon be revealed, but in the meantime, his arrival coincides with a trend of young women seeking out 'crossroads fortunes.' Soon the bodies of school girls who ask strangers for their fortunes begin to turn up brutally murdered but who is to blame? How does it connect with Ryusuke's pass? This wonderfully chilly mystery is one of the most memorable of Ito's tales and introduces one of his scariest creations.

The teen boy is moving back to his hometown after years away, but the simple notion of it haunts him. The first-and throughline-story from his Lovesickness collection is a great example of just that. Ito often writes of love and how it can curse us.

Shiver junji ito stories