Behind The Artworks: Onryō - Exit Here (2026)

Onryō UK is really fortunate as a band, as our vocalist’s brother, Ed, is responsible for all our artwork. This means we are able to work very closely with the artist to get the results we want, and we have a lot of faith in his artistic process.

The band is named after a vengeful spirit in Japanese folklore, and our aesthetic is heavily inspired by Japanese culture. Our image and videos take cues from Japanese horror, and our artwork is inspired by manga and anime.

Exit Here, the song, is about rejecting the first thought that comes into your head and how someone’s environment and socioeconomic background can lead to good people coming to wrong and, sometimes, damaging conclusions.

We wanted an intimidating figure offering out a door so that we could reflect the song’s themes in the artwork for the EP. Is the door being offered as an escape or one the viewer is being led into to their own detriment? To get the intimidating feel, we provided Ed with inspirational images from a manga called Kakeguri: Compulsive Gambler. In short, the manga is about a school where someone’s status is ultimately decided around gambling. The illustrator, Tōru Naomura, does an excellent job of making characters intimidating through unsettling angles and shading. We also told Ed that we wanted the image to be predominantly yellow with pops of red.

Ed went away and worked on a first draft. What he returned with was something more horror-based, which wasn’t quite what we were looking for. We wanted something more subtly disturbing without the need for tentacles and extra eyes. Ed’s second draft was much more what we were looking for. He’d also been experimenting with adding the red but told us that he didn’t think this was looking as good as it could. So, we decided to trust him and let him pick the colour palette, and that’s how we came to the final art piece.

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