He seems suited to survive this apocalypse, but at what cost? 'The Enigma of Agihara Fault' long a favourite amongst Ito's fans, is one of the most Lovecraftian of his stories, features a mysterious mountain full of people-shaped holes that call to the people they're molded after. An antisocial shut-in watches the panic grow when the crisis hits people who gather together. In 'Billions Alone', dead bodies are discovered sewn together with thread. It's a pessimistic view of humanity as helplessly impulsive. By the time people realise what's happening, it's too late. It's also Lovecraftian – when that secret world erupts, humanity may not survive its merciless onslaught. It's a deeply gnostic view of the world that insists there's secret knowledge, another secret layer to the world underneath what everyone takes for granted as normal reality. Ito's stories are usually about ordinary life disrupted by the discovery of something dark, surreal and horrific that upends the status quo. 'How Love Came to Professor Kirida', an adaptation of a short story by Robert Hitchens, is about a pompous, misanthropic academic who becomes haunted by the ghost of the woman he rejected who won't take 'no' for an answer. 'The Licking Woman' features a grotesque, creepy monster woman who stalks the streets licking people with her monstrous boil-infested tongue, which results in them developing ugly skin rashes like a venereal disease that kills them. There's also a Lovecraftian fear of female sexuality in Ito's stories though it's hard to tell if it's genuine or just a trope he likes to put in his stories. That only makes them lust after her even more and things don't go well. 'Venus in the Blindspot' is an Ito original about a society of UFO geeks who become convinced the girl who runs the club is an alien because she's turning invisible. Reading the adaptations and the Umezz story is a peek into the stories and ideas that informed Ito's thinking in how he creates horror stories. Umezz would probably have been flattered at the portrayal. It's a surreal in-joke where Umezz is portrayed as another of Ito's weird, creepy monsters. 'Master Umezz and Me' has Ito talking about master of horror manga Kazuo Umezz' influence on him and turns his encounter with the famously eccentric Umezz into another Ito monster story. Rampo's 'An Unearthly Love' features a bride discovering what her creepy husband has been cheating on her with a doll that might be haunted. His telling of Edogawa Rampo's 'The Human Chair' pushes the fetishistic creepiness of the original short story. The collection features several adaptations that reveal Ito's influences think seem to determine his thinking.

Venus and the blind spot