15 Horror Manga Story Ideas: Terrifying Concepts to Haunt Your Readers

Horror manga leverages the visual medium for maximum dread—the turn of a page becomes a jump scare, and detailed art makes the horrific viscerally real. These 15 ideas embrace the genre’s potential for lingering terror.

Body Horror

1. The Donation

After receiving a transplant, she starts having memories that aren’t hers. The donor’s family wants their loved one’s organ back. The donor wants something else entirely.

2. The Growth

Something is growing inside him—not a tumor, not a parasite, but a structure. It’s building something. Doctors can’t remove it without killing him. He can feel it working.

3. The Mirror’s Delay

Her reflection is three seconds delayed. At first imperceptible, then noticeable. Then her reflection starts doing things she never did—and catching up to the present.

4. The Teeth

She keeps finding teeth. In her food, her pillows, her pockets. They’re human teeth. Then she realizes they’re her own teeth—ones she hasn’t lost yet.

Psychological Terror

5. The Memory Eater

Something in the house eats memories. At first small ones—what she ate yesterday, a coworker’s name. Then bigger ones. She’s keeping a journal, but the journal entries don’t match reality.

6. The Smile Village

A town where everyone smiles constantly. Visitors feel uneasy but can’t explain why. The protagonist moved here as a child. She doesn’t remember not smiling. She’s not sure she can stop.

7. The Wrong Family

He came home to find his family replaced—same appearances, same memories, same behaviors. But wrong. Subtly, indefinably wrong. And they know he knows. And they’re waiting.

8. The Helpful One

A creature appears offering to help with any problem. It’s genuinely helpful. It asks for nothing. Everyone who accepts its help eventually asks it one more question: “What are you?” The answer breaks them.

Supernatural Hauntings

9. The Previous Tenant

The apartment’s previous tenant didn’t move out—she’s still there, invisible, watching, increasingly frustrated that someone else is living in her home. She’s learning how to touch physical things.

10. The Debt Collector

A spirit that collects on promises broken by the dead. It appears to the living who benefited from those broken promises—children, spouses, friends—demanding they pay what was owed.

11. The Midnight Caller

Every night at 3 AM, his phone rings. A voice describes what it sees: “You’re sleeping. You’re rolling over. You’re—” But he’s awake. He’s not doing those things. Who is the voice watching?

12. The Inheritance

She inherits her grandmother’s house—and her grandmother’s deal with something in the basement. The deal was: a family member enters the basement once per year. No one told her what happens inside.

Cosmic and Existential

13. The Pattern

He sees a pattern in everything—wallpaper, clouds, crowds—the same impossible symbol. Research reveals it’s ancient, forbidden, and seeing it means something has noticed him seeing it.

14. The Dream City

Everyone in the world shares one dream—a sprawling, impossible city they explore while sleeping. But the city is getting larger. And the waking hours are getting shorter.

15. The End Archive

A library contains books about everyone who ever lived—their complete lives. Visitors can read anyone’s book. Including their own. Including how they die. Including how they die here, in this library, tonight.

Horror Manga Techniques

The genre excels through:

• Page-turn reveals: Using the format for shock moments
• Visual wrongness: Art that’s subtly disturbing before you understand why
• Building dread: Slow escalation more effective than constant scares
• Implication: What’s not shown often terrifies more than what is

Choose an idea where the horror feels personal—where readers can imagine themselves in the nightmare.

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Ready to create terror? Multic provides visual storytelling tools perfect for building dread and timing reveals.

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Related: Horror Manga Creation and Horror Webtoon Guide