timwburke

“Tomie was written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Ito was inspired to create Tomie by the phenomenon of lizard tail regeneration.^[1] Ito’s initial concept for the manga was to depict the strangeness of a girl who was nonchalantly attending school, but in reality was dead.^[2] He further explained that the original concept was that for some reason a dead person would come back to life and visit their former friends as if nothing had happened.^[3] As he developed the story, Ito established that the titular character would be a mean-spirited girl because he believed it would be more interesting if the manga featured someone that wasn’t likable.^[2]

He noted that the proliferation of Tomie was created while writing a serial storyline, which helped greatly to convey the concept of regeneration.”