That she can inspire such fascination, fanaticism, jealousy, and fits of fury makes her more a force of nature than a conventional villain in Ito’s repertoire. This love-hate relationship that men often have with Tomie is also expressed in how they’ll keep body parts as souvenirs after brutally killing her, as in The Basin of the Waterfall. Haughty and perpetually unimpressed, Tomie is a divisive figure: The people around her are either in love with her or despise her they are eager to kill her or kill for her-there’s not much middle ground.

To put an interesting twist to her misadventures, Ito says he had written her as an unlikable character. But like Tomie herself, there’s no telling if the franchise is done for good, since these don’t share any real continuity and are largely self-contained stories. The movies each have their own take on the immortal girl, with the last Tomie movie released in 2011. She’s also lent inspiration to one of the most enduring horror movie series in Japan, with a franchise spanning nine films over 12 years. Since then, she’s been a focal character in many of Ito’s shorter fiction and subject to many a death scene: On paper and onscreen, she’s been incinerated, stabbed, hacked to pieces, ground to a pulp, and buried alive.

An alluring sociopath whose machinations inevitably drives her lovers to a murderous rage, Tomie and her famous beauty mark made their first appearance in 1987-marking Ito’s own foray into manga. So much of horror mangaka Junji Ito’s body of work is distinctly female-driven, such as in multi-volume series like Uzumaki and Hellstar Remina, but none of his leading ladies are quite as memorable as Tomie.

Tomie by Junji Ito