Junji Ito is getting another live-action adaptation, and this one is leaving Japan. Toei announced on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, that it is working with Thai production company 13 Studio on a feature-length, Thai-language film version of Ito’s horror short story “Kubitsuri Kikyū,” known in English as “The Hanging Balloons.”
Thai director Taweewat Wantha is set to direct the film. His credits include Death Whisperer 2, Tha Rae: The Exorcist, and the upcoming Dawn of Soengsang. The project will move the story’s setting to Thailand, which the announcement described as a new interpretation that still respects the original’s eerie worldview.
What the story is
“The Hanging Balloons” first ran in Asahi Sonorama’s Monthly Halloween magazine in 1994. Viz Media included it in the Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories collection in 2017 under the title “Hanging Blimp.” The premise is about as Ito as it gets: after an idol kills herself, balloons float into the sky carrying the faces of the people they are meant to kill, and the victims have no way to escape them.
The story already has a screen history in Japan. It became a live-action film in 2000, and it was one of the segments in the Netflix anime Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, which premiered worldwide in January 2023. So the source material is well known to Ito readers, and a Thai-language feature gives it a treatment the earlier versions never had.
Ito’s adaptation wave
This film is part of a wider push to bring Ito’s work to screens. Toei, Thai studio M Studio, and South Korean production company Showbox announced in May that they are jointly producing a live-action film of another Ito short story, “The Long Hair in the Attic” (“Yaneura no Nagai Kami”). Sitisiri Mongkolsiri is directing that one, and filming starts next year.
Separately, Through the Lens Entertainment and horror label Fangoria Studios are working on films based on “The Mystery of the Haunted House” Parts 1 and 2, and “Bloodsucking Darkness.” On television, Strange – Junji Ito’s Strange Stories for Sleepless Nights, a live-action omnibus series built from 13 of his manga stories, premiered on July 3 in TV Tokyo’s Drama 24 slot.
The anime side is just as crowded. The Uzumaki manga became a four-episode mini-series that premiered on Toonami in September 2024. An earlier Junji Ito Collection anime ran for 12 episodes starting in January 2018, and his Uzumaki and Tomie manga both have live-action films behind them.
Why it matters
Ito’s reputation outside Japan keeps growing. The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards inducted him into its Hall of Fame in July 2025, after wins for Lovesickness, Remina, Venus in the Blind Spot, and his Frankenstein adaptation. Comic-Con International handed him an Inkpot Award in 2023.
For readers, the practical point is that “The Hanging Balloons” remains one of his most recognizable short stories, partly because the image at its center is so hard to forget. A Thai production is a notable shift for Ito adaptations, which have mostly stayed Japanese up to now. No release date or cast beyond the director has been announced. The broader wave of manga-to-screen projects keeps growing too, with titles like Firefly Wedding heading to Fuji TV in 2027.
Source: Anime News Network, citing Toei
Featured image: Visual for the film adaptation of Junji Ito’s The Hanging Balloons, via Anime News Network.
