Dead By Daylight: Who is Tomie?

Survival horror title Dead in daylight recently announced an extremely creepy collaboration with horror manga artist Junji Ito, creator of many infamously creepy manga over his decades of work. This Dead in daylight collaboration, which will start in 2025, will include eight skins, two legendary and six Very Rare, transforming its Killers and Survivors into some of Ito's most iconic characters and creatures. One of these is Tomie, perhaps the most famous character Junji Ito has ever created.

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Tomie: A beautiful but terrifying immortal monster

On the surface, Tomie Kawakami appears as nothing more than an unusually beautiful young woman with black hair and a distinctive beauty mark under her eye. But in reality, she is an inhuman, immortal monster with an infinite potential for cruelty. Her origins are mysterious, but she appears to be a demonic, succubus-like creature that can either make people obsessed with her or drive them insane simply by spending enough time in her presence.

Tommy's main powers include the ability to induce obsession in men and paranoid, terrified hysteria in women. Affected people will commit disturbing acts of violence, up to and including murder and cannibalism. A person subject to Tomie, especially a female, can potentially transform into another copy of Tomie, especially if they come into contact with her blood (such as via a transfusion.) Should Tomie herself die, she will simply regenerate; she is also capable of “sprouting” additional Tomies from her own body similar to a reproducing tumor.

Tomie is one of Junji Ito's most frequent characters

Junji Ito introduced the world to Tomie in 1987, when a series of short stories featuring her appeared in the magazine Monthly Halloween. He has since produced a number of Tomie-centric anthologies; she has also made cameos in stories alongside some of his other iconic characters, such as the curse-loving child Souichi.

Tommy's stories have been adapted into a series of live action films, a television drama called Tomie: Another face, and a novel of the title Tomie: Repeat. Episodes featuring Tomie also appeared in both 2018 animated anthologies Junji Ito collection and its successor in 2023 Junji Ito madman, which aired on Netflix. A Tomie series was also planned for the television platform Quibi, but its fate is ambiguous after Quibi's shutdown in 2020.

Dead By Daylight's Tomie Draws From His 'Painter' Appearance

Dead by Daylight's take on Tomie, a legendary skin for Killer The Spirit, primarily draws its inspiration from a short story of the same title Painter. Painter appeared as a chapter in the second volume of the original Tommy manga, and was later adapted into an episode in Junji Ito collection.

IN Painter, an artist named Mori becomes obsessed with Tomie and wants to paint the perfect portrait of her. Eventually he sees a photograph of her taken by a friend, and realizes that Tomie is a monster when he sees a second, terrifying face appear behind her beautiful exterior. Mori paints Tomie in this form, earning her wrath, which prompts him to kill her (since he doesn't know she's immortal.) He chops her into pieces, and over time each piece becomes a fully formed copy of the original Tomie. Mori is implied to have gone insane after his encounter with Tomie.

Dead by Daylight's Tomie skin sees her wearing the short white dress from that story, with two faces – one hideous, one beautiful – pointing in different directions. Unique audio lines included in the skin feature Tomie screaming, presumably a reference to her death by dismemberment at Mori's hands. She's a creepy killer that Survivors will definitely find freaky as she chases after them when the Junji Ito collaboration comes to Dead in daylight in January 2025.