The spiral: It’s so ubiquitous that you may not realize it’s everywhere. The Fibonacci spiral, human fingerprints, even our home, the Milky Way Galaxy, is a spiral. Once you notice it, you can’t unsee it. Now imagine you are Kirie Goshima, an ordinary Japanese high schooler, whose boyfriend’s father, Mr. Saito, has developed a peculiar fixation. He watches snails on the wall, he can’t eat soup without spiral fishcake and he has to make a whirlpool in the bath water before he gets in. Little do you know this mental illness will soon spiral into a nightmare beyond your imagination, as Mr. Saito begins to distort his own flesh to achieve twisted perfection.
This is the world of Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki,” one of the most grotesque and beloved manga ever written. Beginning his career in 1987, Ito has left an undeniable mark on Japanese horror fiction. His resume includes four Eisner Award wins, manga adaptations of classic novels and collaborations with the Pokemon and Sanrio brands.
“Ito is particularly adept at delivering suspense,” Daniel Dockery of Vulture says. “If there’s one thing [he] doesn’t skimp on, it’s payoff.”
Ito’s slow-burn, detailed work mesmerizes the reader to turn the next page, even when they know nothing good awaits them. He pays the utmost attention to the slightest ink stroke, from the flowing hair and cat eyes of the femme fatale to the destruction of human flesh. It was only a matter of time before his art was set in motion, especially with his magnum opus, “Uzumaki.”
“Uzumaki’s” first adaptation came in 2000. The live-action film received mixed reviews upon its United States release, mainly for its attempt to recreate the manga’s spirals. It took 19 years for a second attempt. The “Uzumaki” anime’s first teaser premiered on the official Adult Swim YouTube channel in 2019, gaining over three million views. The impression it left was both beautiful and deeply disturbing.
Short stroke swirls move smoothly across the wind and water and the snippet of blaring saxophone leaves the viewer just as delirious as the protagonist, Kirie, when she looks up to see a ghoulish apparition of Mr. Saito in the smoke. The adaptation resulted from a partnership between Production I.G. and Adult Swim’s Toonami block. The impressive production team featured Hiroshi Nagahama, series director of “Mushi-Shi” and “Flowers of Evil,” and “Hereditary”composer Colin Stetson. Thus, anticipation was high for the 2020 release.
Then the pandemic struck. Executive Producer Jason DeMarco, speaking to Vulture in 2024, said production was halted for almost a year. The release was pushed to 2022, but “Uzumaki” was then delayed for a second time. The production team stated in an X post, “…[they didn’t want] to compromise its quality by delivering a mediocre final product.”
In an industry notorious for crunch times, this seemed promising. Popular YouTuber Cedgehog theorized that “Uzumaki”’s potential success could push more studios to prioritize quality over quantity. As more news and updates trickled in over the years, the production appeared to live up to its promise with a stunning first look in 2023 and a full trailer in 2024. There was finally a definitive release date: Sept. 28, 2024.
Episode one looked beautiful in two very different ways. The animator used both motion capture and traditional art. Under Nagahama’s guidance, animators rebuilt motion capture footage with CGI and redrew all of it with Ito’s signature linework. Despite the high production costs, the episode was captivating from start to finish.
It opened with the gentle flow of Kirie’s walking, hypnotizing the viewer to follow her. Ito’s signature body horror gripped its audiences’ attention with its intense shading, imitating the hatching techniques of manga art. This level of line detail is not only impressive in motion; it’s also deeply uncanny.
In a typical anime, characters are drawn with simple, flat shading to look cute and inviting. In contrast, Ito’s realism breaks the barrier between our reality and the screen; we’re terrified because we can see it creep into our world. The movement and squelching sound effects provided for an even deeper immersion. Episode one of “Uzumaki” delivered on the trailer’s promise to emulate Ito’s style while adding to the horror in ways only a moving medium can.
However, just as the town of Kurouzu-cho spiraled into madness, so too did the fans’ hope for another great episode. Episode one was by no means perfect. It compressed four of the 20 manga chapters into a single episode, rushing the gradual descent into depravity. The animation was enough to make up for the pacing.
Episode two proved the cracks could no longer be ignored. Viewers tuned in to a sudden nosedive in quality. The stark contrast in grayscale was washed out and diminished. The character movements were now stiff and jagged. The intricate linework felt slapped onto the 3D models and muddy when drawn in the distance. The five-year wait now felt wasted, and the disappointing follow-up was widely criticized.
Lynzee Loveridge of Anime News Network, who praised the animation of episode one, gave this episode 2.1 stars out of five. “It’s hard not to be frustrated by what’s on screen given…the pushbacks,” she stated. “I couldn’t bring myself to be shocked or care.”
Cedgehog made another YouTube short regretting his hype, saying it “…aged like milk.” Indeed, the poor animation did a disservice to both the first episode and the source material. It distracted from the horror of the story and made the worsening pace even more apparent.
What caused this massive downgrade? The production may have faced more hardships than just COVID-19. Loveridge pointed out that even though Nagahama’s involvement was emphasized in marketing, Episode two did not credit him as a director. Storyboards for Episode one posted on X in 2020 credited the animation to studio Drive, while the final release instead credited Fugaku Inc., and key animation and production for Episode two was outsourced to Chinese studio Phoenix Animation Holdings.
To that end, “One Piece” animator Henry Thurlow theorized on Twitter that Production I.G. simply dumped most of the work on a non-subsidiary studio, writing “it’s almost certainly *some* western producer’s fault.” Producer DeMarco spoke out in a series of now-deleted posts on Bluesky, claiming the production was “screwed over,” and staff were given a choice between finishing only one episode, rushing the rest of the series or canceling the project altogether. Abandoning the project would be a disservice to the animators and fans, so they trudged on with the cursed production, despite the “…actions of just one or two people.” Corroborating Thurlow’s claims, DeMarco was, most likely, referring to meddling from higher-ups.
Another root cause of the failed production could be in the source material. Ito’s horror panels are so realistic that they disturb the viewer in an almost primal way. While inking a single panel with such precision is already difficult, recreating the look over hundreds of frames is a nearly impossible task. Indeed, other adaptations of his work, like “Junji Ito Collection” from 2018, lost much of his impact due to the simplistic shading style and stilted movements common in anime. Perhaps a full “Uzumaki” anime would not work even in the best circumstances.
Episode one crammed together as many iconic moments as possible into a 22-minute runtime; spreading the 600-page story out over more episodes would have lengthened the “cursed” production by years. Still, Episode one’s animation should be given its due credit, and so should the staff’s commitment to see the whole project through. The “Uzumaki” anime will go down in history as one of the most promising and disappointing attempts at adapting the horror master, although his works may be best enjoyed in their original medium.
Gabriel Kelman can be reached at [email protected].