There are some things that the human body is definitely not supposed to do. Parasitic infections, alien mutations, supernatural transformations that turn people into something truly unrecognizable: that’s the wild and frightening world of body horror.
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It’s a staple of horror everywhere. With the freedom that animation brings, the nightmares are limited only by the skill of the artist, from body parts in all the wrong places in Parasyte to the terrifying transformations from the Junji Ito Collection.
Parasyte
In Parasyte, a swarm of alien worms invades Earth, burrowing into the brains of human victims and taking them over, turning them into monsters that devour other humans. One worm, however, screwed up by burrowing into Shinichi Izumi’s arm instead, and now the pair of them have to share one body while dealing with both their species.
Shinichi’s parasite, known as Migi, manifests by spawning eyeballs, a mouth, and tiny hands on Shinichi’s right hand. Other parasite-infected humans are even worse, such as the man in the episode “The Metamorphosis,” whose head suddenly splits open to reveal a mess of sharp teeth and eyestalks and eats his horrified wife alive.
Lily C.A.T.
This obscure 1987 film Lily C.A.T. is as if Ridley Scott’s Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing had a horrible animated child. In the twenty-third century, workers from the Syncam Company have their mission interrupted by an alien bacteria that has been brought into their spaceship. Now, there’s no telling who can be trusted.
Once it’s infected a person, the bacteria wreaks havoc on the body. It first devours them from the inside out, dissolving them into nothing but goo, and then fuses them together into one being. The unlucky crewmates who get thrown out into space instead might have gotten off lightly.
Claymore
In the world of Claymore, vicious creatures called youma run rampant, and can only be defeated by the sword-wielding mercenaries known as Claymores. Both the half-demon nature of the Claymores and shapeshifting abilities of the youma lend themselves exceptionally well to body horror.
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If a Claymore uses too much of their demon energy in battle, they undergo an Awakening: transforming completely into a youma. Their bones and joints audibly strain and crack as their bodies are twisted out of shape, they sprout wings, and their teeth elongate into fangs too big for their mouths.
Mushishi
Mushi are similar to real-world insects or germs. Many of them are bothersome but ultimately harmless or easily dispelled, but some of them have truly horrific effects on the human body. Ginko, the wandering mushishi whose job it is to deal with them, often has his work cut out for him trying to save their victims.
Standout cases include the mukurosou of the episode “Mud Grass,” which causes plants and grass to sprout uncontrollably on people’s bodies, and the ending of the episode “Eye of Fortune, Eye of Misfortune,” when Amane’s Mushi-infested eyes jump straight out of her skull and are replaced with wriggling larvae.
Noragami
Living in one of the bleakest worlds in anime and being a god’s Regalia is not easy in Noragami. In addition to the Phantoms they must fight, there is always the risk of becoming corrupted, or even transforming into a mindless Phantom themselves. Blight causes the body to supernaturally deteriorate, and it’s a slow, agonizing process.
Special mention goes to Yukine’s ablution in the episode “Name,” meant to cleanse him of blight so Yato won’t have to release him. He fights the process, causing the blight to nearly overtake him. One symptom of this is large eyeballs growing all over his torso.
Neon Genesis Evangelion
As one of the most influential anime ever, the horror of Neon Genesis Evangelion has imprinted itself on the minds of millions of viewers. Pilots submerging in the blood of Lilith to sync with their Eva and everybody on Earth being reduced to LCL and melded together in The End of Evangelion is just the tip of the iceberg.
The highest form of body horror in the show is the reveal that the Evas aren’t actually mecha at all, but massive organic beings imbued with human souls. Their “armor” are restraints, which they’re sealed inside so tightly they cannot move and allow NERV to control them completely.
Junji Ito Collection
A conversation about body horror in Japanese media just isn’t complete without mangaka Junji Ito. Ito’s art eschews the popular concept that what viewers don’t see is scarier than what they do: he’s going to draw the most horrific things imaginable in broad daylight, and readers are going to be subjected to every grotesque inch of them.
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While this animated adaptation of several of his works doesn’t quite capture the detail and intensity of Ito’s work, it certainly tries. It has plenty of concepts to choose from, such as the unfortunate Yuuko in “Slug Girl” whose head ends up as the shell of a giant slug, or Hideo in “Shiver,” who is cursed to have holes open up in his body until it becomes hollow.
Soul Eater
In the wild and macabre world of Soul Eater, the students of Death Weapon Meister Academy train to defeat Kishin, monsters created by killing humans and eating their souls. Though the weapon halves of each team transforming into metal objects isn’t treated as body horror, there’s plenty else in-universe that is.
Medusa is able to fill a person’s body with her magic snakes, tearing them apart from the inside, and her experiments on her child Crona involved replacing all their blood with the liquid weapon Ragnarok. (How Ragnarok was reduced to this state is never explained and probably shouldn’t be.) Asura, one of Chris Patton’s best voice roles, was sealed in a bag of his own skin, and after his release uses that same skin to fight with.
Jujutsu Kaisen
The world of Jujutsu Kaisen is full of cursed spirits who cause all kinds of mayhem and torment to humans, including horrifically transforming their bodies. Ryoumen Sukuna manifesting extra eyes and mouths on Yuuji Itadori’s body is possibly the mildest case of body horror in the show.
The spirit who really goes all out with it is Mahito and his Idle Transfiguration technique. He can change the shape of his victims’ souls with a single touch, causing their bodies to transform and distort so horribly that they die of shock in minutes. One notable victim is Junpei Yoshino, who Mahito kills by transforming him into a froglike creature.
Akira
So much of modern body horror owes this film a debt. This 1988 classic sported revolutionary visuals and made Western audiences sit up and begin taking anime seriously. Young delinquent Tetsuo is accidentally given godlike psychic powers, and uses them to wreak destruction across Neo-Tokyo.
Among the many things Akira is famous for is the climactic sequence where Tetsuo’s powers go haywire, causing him to mutate into an enormous, pulsating mass of flesh and bodily fluids. He unwittingly engulfs and crushes his girlfriend Kaori, and in seconds he looks more like some sort of amoeba than a human being.
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