Geeky Nerd

Today I want to introduce to a short anime series – Uzumaki – produced by Production I.G USA  and Adult Swim in 2024. It is based on the manga of the same name by Junji Ito in 1998. He is a famous Japanese mangaka who is well-known for his horror works.

What is it about?

Uzumaki ( which means spiral) is originally a manga which describes a curse of Spiral that befalls a small Japanese village named Kurouzu. By the way, the village’s name means black vortex, not a nice name if I’m being honest. The audience receives narration from a high-school girl Kirie Goshima. She and her boyfriend Shuichi Saito become witnesses of an ancient curse which haunts the village making everyone around mad with the spirals.

It seems like no one truly cares about the oddities and simply thinks that it’s a single episode but her boyfriend who goes to school in another village is less subjected to the curse of the spiral, thus can sense its presence better than most. Alas, he too falls victim to it. After all, his father was the first major case of the curse twisting a person into madness.

Both manga and anime follow the same story and I don’t want to reveal too much of it. This is a treat for any horror lover for Junji’s imagination creates truly magnificent images of horror that can be both fascinating from the stand point of creativity, yet equally repulsive due to their gory nature.

The many faces of the Spiral

When Junji Ito is asked to talk about Uzumaki, he explains that the plot came to him from a very simple idea: to find spiral motives in everyday objects and turn them into horror, so everything that’s usually cozy and safe becomes terrifying and repulsive.

This way, ordinary pottery becomes a nightmare craft; the guiding light of a lighthouse becomes a trap luring to disasters and even fingertips on your own hands turn into dreadful spirals that consume everything.

Good news, though, the plot in the hospital about the pregnant women who turn into blood-thirsty creatures akin to mosquitos is still the most terrifying of all in the tale. At least it always felt to be the most terrifying to me as the carrying mothers are turned into monstrosities sucking blood. At the same time, the story about the lighthouse is as mezmerising as ever. It’s rather subtle in it’s depictions, just like the story in nagaya, in the sense that it lacks action scenes, but at the same time it simply shows the consequences of the spiral curse. And those consequences are horrifying.

Is it a faithfull adaptation?

Yes, a rather faithful one, I’d say. Some plots of the manga were skipped or cut but the majority of the work is there and is tied together very nicely. I especially liked how the story didn’t develop strictly from one adventure to another as it was in the manga, but rather simultaneously.

If manga was having a strict structure of one plot for one chapter, which gave me the impression that the timeline was a bit disrupted at places, anime is not restricted by this. The studios would show the beginnings of several plots and then unravel them as they should occur in the time line. It may sound like a bad thing, but truly it only makes the story more coherent and allows the audience to see how the curse of the spiral takes on many forms at the same time instead of being restricted to only one place and form at a time.

The artstyle

It is exactly like the manga. And when I say exactly, I truly mean it. It’s black-and-white and looks like it has been drawn even though the show uses 3D models. I appreciate that they left the style the same. I remember that Japan already tried to make a live action film based on the manga but it was made before the official manga finished and, as a result, it’s got a different ending from the manga. I haven’t seen the film, but I couldn’t find many people talk about it either.

Surely, since the film was made in 2000, it was restricted by technologies of its time, but this mini-series looks better not because of the technological advancements, but rather the style. The black-and-white drawings of Junji’s style feel much better than life action adaptation to me. The sights he draws are meant to be unnatural and drawing are better to create this “unnaturalness” than life action.

This, of course, is purely subjective, but I really cannot imagine Junji’s works in any other style. The simplicity of manga’s colours allows to create complexity of details and landscapes impossible with greater number of colours. The mix of black and white with rare grey shadows allows for some great contrasts which cannot be attained with a greater number of colours.

On the other hand, the second episode would definitely look like a downgrade from the first one. Apparently, it has to do with the production hell the show had to go through in order to get finished, but the it’s one of the best efforts to adapt Junji Ito’s work, so I’ll give it some slack for the effort.

What’s with the sound?

And this doesn’t pose a problem at all. The voice actors have been chosen brilliantly and they sound exactly how you imagine the characters to sound like. Sataki Uki(voice actor of Kirie) and Miki Shinichiro(voice actor of Shuichi) are the best voices for the two lead characters. I knew the plot of this anime way too well to look for a dub, so this one I watched with original voices.

The sound design in general is great. The anime doesn’t over rely on music and only adds it when to set the tone. I especially liked the little song at the end of each episodes. It was hauntingly beautiful.

Final Thoughts

It’s a good anime adaptation for those who are familiar with the original manga. Its unique style of Junji’s drawings adds to the atmosphere of the tale it tells and it sounds exactly like it should. The show has got a few pacing issues going a bit too fast at times which means that some elements had to be cut out during production but I still loved it. Nothing beats the original manga but all of Junji Ito’s works are notorious for being hard to adapt. After all, it’s art in its purest form and art takes time. Time that businessmen who run animation studios don’t like to give. Still, I don’t want to diminish the beauty that they managed to achieve. The show was eerie and that’s what matters.

I’m a bit disappointed at the last scene where they have shown the town rebuilt and the new cycle of the spiral curse starting, though. The scene is set well, but this implies that the cycle of the spiral is way shorter than it should be. Yes, it’s a subjective thing to say, but logically, it just doesn’t fit, so let’s all collectively agree that it’s not canon and reread the manga again?