Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself.

Maybe it’s a cultural thing or has something to do with the era but I totally failed to grasp the significance of this. I was really pleased to see how this manga was able to keep the essence of the story and I enjoyed most of the creative liberties Ito took. And then, I was unable to avoid thinking about how much of the content was Dazai's and how much was Ito's.While the original seems to have focused on the sadness and pathos that marked the existential crisis that our lead (who seems to have been patterned after Dazai himself) labored under, true to Ito's style this book lets the horrors and absurdities of his experiences take the limelight. Yozo Oba suffers from intense anxiety and feels disconnected from the happiness that others seem to experience. There had been numerous other warnings signs of this book's misogyny, and this one was the most direct.

Oba is himself haunted by ghosts in his daily life, so he draws mostly ghosts, so you can see the attraction to the supernatural for Ito. If he were truly human, then his misfortunes could be seen as a collection of mishaps, of accidents, and comedy could be one means of understanding such a life of misfortune.If one does however, I would highly recommend reading the novel beforehand as well as reading up on Dazai (there are a lot of autobiographical elements in the novel).