I just ran across a new trailer for 🔗Bloody Smart, a live-action series Netflix series in Mandarin that seems to tie together a bunch of unrelated Junji Ito short stories and series. WARNING: This is a horror series and the trailer really seems to not hold back showing all of the scares.

According to the pinned comment:

Disclaimer: Bloody Smart (聰明鎮) is the first mandarin adaptation of Ito's work. The series was made with Junji Ito's own permission and monitoring, the series has been in post-production since 2022 and was completed in 2025 (its broadcasting rights were purchased by Netflix Taiwan last year). The series launches in the European and Taiwanese summer (June-August) on Netflix globally!

As Junji Ito fans might know, the general consensus seems to be that his work has not had an adaptation that's done it full justice. Ito's horror relies quite a lot on his sense of pacing and visual rhythm and, in my opinion, the sort of bleak emptiness of art, which can feel undermined by adding color, even in his own work illustrations. I also think that the medium of manga lends itself better to the sort of unreality his stories take place in, and that giving those illustrations movement just brings to light how off-the-wall and ridiculous his ideas are in a bad way. I am curious about how this one will pan out since it seems like it has its own ongoing storyline that riffs on a bunch of Ito's ideas but will tie them together somehow. Ito has, of course, done longer stories that tied various elements together, notably in Uzumaki, which seems like a very similar setting to Bloody Smart.

The Junji Ito stories I noticed in the trailer were Blood-Bubble Bushes, Licking Woman, Tomie, Uzumaki, Souichi and Hanging Balloons (a personal favorite of mine). Did any other Ito fans notice elements of other Ito works or short stories in the trailer?

What are your thoughts on the potential of this live action interpretation? Do you think Ito's work will ever have an adaptation that's as spooky as his original work? Or do you think it's already been interpreted well in some form? I liked the first couple episodes of the Uzumaki anime but have ultimately been pretty disappointed in the adaptations I've seen.