TV Tokyo's Drama 24 slot will premiere a 13-story live-action Junji Ito omnibus titled Strange on July 3, adapting classics like Lovesickness and Tomio: Red Turtleneck with IVE's Jigsaw as the theme song.
Japanese horror manga master Junji Ito is returning to live-action television this summer. TV Tokyo has announced Strange - Ito Junji no Yoru mo Nemurenu Kimyo na Hanashi, a 13-episode live-action omnibus series adapting some of the artist's best-known short stories, which will premiere in the network's Drama 24 late-night slot on July 3, 2026.
The omnibus format gives each week a self-contained adaptation, echoing how Ito's short stories have circulated for decades in magazines and tankobon collections. The announced lineup draws from across his career and includes Lovesickness, Tomio: Red Turtleneck and Penpal, three tales that regularly turn up on fan lists of Ito's most unsettling work. Lovesickness follows a town haunted by a beautiful stranger who drives residents to suicide, Tomio: Red Turtleneck is the grotesque story of a young man whose severed head is held to his body by his girlfriend's cursed hair, and Penpal is a slow-burn tale of correspondence that turns malignant.
The remaining ten titles round out a set that spans Ito's body horror, cosmic dread and domestic unease registers, giving a broad introduction to the author for viewers who know him mainly from the recent animated anthology work on streaming.
Drama 24 is TV Tokyo's long-running Friday late-night drama block, and it has previously been a home for genre experiments that would not fit in a prime-time slot. Strange - Ito Junji no Yoru mo Nemurenu Kimyo na Hanashi, which translates roughly as "Junji Ito's Strange Tales to Keep You Up at Night," leans into that identity with a one-episode, one-story structure designed to deliver a fresh nightmare every week across the summer cour.
The series is the latest in a run of Ito adaptations to reach screens over the last few years, but it is the first Japanese live-action omnibus pitched at this scale, with 13 consecutive weeks of stand-alone episodes rather than a handful of specials.
On the music side, K-pop group IVE is providing the theme song. The track, titled Jigsaw, will serve as the opening theme for every episode, and Ito himself has drawn an original illustration that will be used as the cover art for the single's Strange tie-in release. The collaboration links the show directly to IVE's own promotional cycle and gives the series a crossover hook beyond traditional horror-drama audiences.
TV Tokyo has not yet announced an international streaming partner for Strange, and no Indian platform has confirmed pickup as of the announcement. Ito's recent animated anthologies have landed on Netflix globally, so Netflix India is the most natural candidate if a same-season simulcast is arranged, but nothing is locked in. Viewers in India wanting to follow the rollout should watch for a formal licensing announcement closer to the July 3 Japanese premiere.
With a 13-week run, an IVE theme and a lineup that reaches into the darker corners of Ito's bibliography, Strange is shaping up as one of the most ambitious live-action horror projects Japanese television has attempted in recent memory.
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