Dead By Daylight: Who is Tomie?

A survival horror title Dead by Daylight recently announced an ultra-scary collaboration with horror manga artist Junji Ito, creator of many infamously creepy manga over his decades of work. This Dead by Daylight Launching in 2025, the collaboration will feature eight skins, two legendary and six very rare, that will transform his slayers and survivors into some of It's most iconic characters and creatures. One of them is Tomie, perhaps the most famous character Junji Ito has ever created.

Dead by Daylight update adds new characters

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Tomie: A beautiful but terrifying immortal monster

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

Tomie's primary powers include the ability to induce obsession in men and paranoid, horrified hysteria in women. Affected people commit disturbing acts of violence, including murder and cannibalism. A person Tomie targets, especially a female, can potentially turn into another copy of Tomie, especially if they come into contact with her blood (such as a transfusion). Should Tomie herself die, she simply regenerates; she is also able to “sprout” more Tomies from her own body similar to the growth of a tumor.

Tomie is one of Junji Ito's most frequently appearing characters

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

Tomie's stories have been adapted into a series of live action films, a television drama called Tomie: Another face, and a novel titled Tommy: Play it. Episodes featuring Tomio also appeared in both 2018 animated anthologies The Junji Ito Collection and its 2023 successor Junji Ito Maniac, which aired on Netflix. A Tomie series was also planned for the TV platform Quibi, but its fate is unclear following Quibi's shutdown in 2020.

Dead By Daylight Tomie draws from his performance in “Painter”

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

IN Painter, an artist named Mori is obsessed with Tomie and longs to paint her perfect portrait. He eventually sees a photo of her taken by a friend and realizes that Tomie is a monster when he sees a second, terrifying face that appears behind her outwardly beautiful face. Mori paints Tomie in this form, earning her wrath and causing him to kill her (since he does not know she is immortal). He cuts her into pieces and over time each piece becomes a fully formed copy of the original Tomie. Mori went crazy after meeting Tomio.

Dead by Daylight's The Tomie skin sees her in the short white dress from this story with two faces – one ugly and one beautiful – pointing in different directions. The unique audio lines included in the skin depict Tomie screaming, possibly a reference to her death by Mori's hand slicing. She's a terrifying assassin that the Survivors will definitely find strange as she stalks them when it comes to Junji Ito's collaboration. Dead by Daylight in January 2025.