Junji Ito Teams Up with K-Pop Group ZEROBASEONE for New Single Cover
Legendary mangaka Junji Ito has officially teamed up with K-Pop group Zerobaseone to create their latest single digital cover. 2025 has been a huge year so far for Junji Ito. Even with its controversies, the success of Adult Swim's adaptation of Uzumaki has seen the artist making new collaborations. Now, not too long after bringing his creations to the hit asymmetrical horror game Dead by Daylight, Junji Ito is breaking into the world of K-Pop for his latest work.
K-Pop group Zerobaseone recently revealed the digital cover for their latest single called Doctor! Doctor! The artwork features a man, likely group singer Seok Matthew, in a reclining chair, reaching out as a doctor listens to him in the background. It's a beautifully designed cover for the digital release of this song, but fans of Junji Ito were quick to notice that it was actually designed by him. The look of the characters mirrors Ito's iconic design perfectly, and with his signature in the corner, it signals an exciting collaboration that no fan saw coming.
Junji Ito's Cover for Doctor! Doctor! Perfectly Blends Horror with K-Pop
The Agony of the Singer Calls Back to One of Ito's Best Story Collections
What's amazing about this cover Junji Ito designed for Zerobaseone is how it perfectly fits with the song the group created. When listening to the song itself, it's a piece about a lovesick man, pleading with the doctor to help him cure his lovesickness. The use of blues surrounding the lovesick musician perfectly highlights the agony that he's feeling. He's clearly lost in a hole of endless darkness that he can't escape, and the only one that can pull him out is the doctor standing behind him. It's an undeniably unsettling image, and it's made even better by seeing its inspirations from Junji Ito's own work.
The best part about this artwork though is how it calls back to one of Junji Ito's own works. It's clear that he was inspired by his own collection of short stories, Lovesickness, in which a mysterious young man walks through the fog of a town, causing untold horrors in his wake. The colors used in this album cover are eerily close to how the young man is depicted on the cover of the story collection. This callback makes for a perfect blending of Junji Ito's brand of horror with K-Pop, proving that Ito's style of horror works incredibly well in the music industry.
Junji Ito's ZEROBASEONE Collaboration Comes Not Too Long After Another Music Project
Junji Ito Breaks into the Music Business
The coolest thing about Junji Ito's collaboration with Zerobaseone is that it's actually not the first time this year that the mangaka has shared his work with the music scene. J-Pop group Phantom Siita also called on Ito to design one of their albums as well. What's interesting, though, is how drastically different in tone the two covers are. Phantom Siita's album design is far more Ito-esque, with the cover completely in black and white, emphasizing the dark side of Ito's art style. Zerobaseone's cover, on the other hand, is far more colorful, yet the muted blues still emphasize the unsettling nature of the image itself.
It's clear that Ito has a future working in the music business. His signature talent works incredibly well for the abstract world of album design, and he's proven himself to be a huge voice in the industry based on these two works alone. As he continues to become more popular in the eyes of the mainstream, Junji Ito has shown that he has a talent for anything involving artwork, and his collaboration with Zerobaseone proves it with an incredible single cover design that highlights why fans love his work.
Source: ZEROBASEONE
Junji Ito Collection
- Release Date
- January 5, 2018
Cast
Yuji MitsuyaSouichi- Mami KoyamaFuchi
- Rie SuegaraTomie
- Hiro ShimonoOshikiri Tooru
This anthology series presents animated adaptations of horror stories from the acclaimed Japanese artist Junji Ito. Through eerie and unsettling narratives, the collection captures the essence of Ito’s distinctive art style and storytelling, immersing viewers in a world of grotesque imagery and chilling atmospheres.
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