THE JUNJI ITO ANIME CURSE LIVES ON!
This anime adaptation of Junji Ito’s late 90’s opus was directed by Hiroshi Nagahama at Fugaku and Yuji Moriyama at Akatsuki(already yikes) and was released in 2024.
LET’S SPIN A STORY
Uzumaki is one hell of a weird twisty little story and out of his long form works is easily Junji Ito’s best so when it’s anime was announced everyone cheered…right? Well, if there’s one thing fans of Ito can agree on its that his work historically hasn’t translated to the animation medium gracefully which is a pretty generous way of me saying they’re universally garbage. I have successfully failed to watch Studio Deens contributions but I did unfortunately witness the Gyo movie made by a little known and obviously talentless studio named what was it oh yeah Ufotable, man I wonder where they went after making quite possibly the worst animated film I’ve ever seen. So when Uzumaki got announced for an anime everyone was decidedly not hyped, that is until the first teaser dropped. If there’s one thing that immediately sold me on this projects potential it was when in dropped an animated trailer in a rich black and white palette with gorgeous animation courtesy of Production I.G under acclaimed if unconventional Hiroshi Nagahama, plus composer Colin Stetson notable for Hereditary. By all means it looked and sounded like we’d finally done it and would get a good adaptation, but the first worry was the length which was only gonna be 4 episodes long, man I sure hope those are longer than your average timeslot because there’s tons of materials to adapt. This was in 2019.
In 2020 we got the first episodes cast so it looked like things were still on track but that year it was also revealed that Prod I.G wasn’t actually handling the animation but a fresh Studio Drive who at that point hadn’t done much but hey Nagahama was there so it’s not that much of a switchup, all is good I hope. Than Covid hit and hit everyone hard so when 2021 became the new release date nobody was too pressed, let em do it right I say, take all the time you need. Than 2022 came around and we got the bad news, the team couldn’t finish in time so it would be delayed indefinitely with the hope from the English producers being a 2023 release which wouldn’t end up happening. This should’ve been my warning that maybe things were not progressing and that this wasn’t a healthy productive environment behind the scenes but I was very optimistic thanks to the teaser and just thought man how ambitious are they, maybe all this time is just a confirmation all the episodes are longer than usual and ready to adapt everything. I stayed in my blissful ignorance all the way to 2024, when a whole 5 years after it was announced it finally graced us with its presence and now we can finally begin this review, sorry it took so long but I think it’s thematically authentic to the experience of this show.
WORTH THE WAIT!?
Hiroshi Nagahama’s Uzumaki anime’s first episode isn’t just good but possibly one of the best episodes of horror anime ever produced, it is on all fronts an astonishing success and set all of our expectations immediately through the roof for what he had done here. It’s a blisteringly paced thrill ride through the early incidents of this frankly absurd spiral focused story as we see a towns reality begin to tear itself apart. Spirals are not a scary concept, heck they have a slight whimsy attached to them so Ito had to try his darndest to make them creepy whatsoever and the result was one of the wildest things ever penned. The anime does one better in its opening act by using extremely authentic art and spine chilling audio to make every little spiral a sight of pure terror. The B&W art direction is something to behold from beginning to end, the ultra detailed backgrounds popping off constantly and the character art in closeups looking as good if not better than their manga counterparts. The Nagahama twist to the production was his ultra laborious choice to have motion capped animation which was than rotoscoped over in 2D lends the movement on screen it’s own unsettling vibe as characters move just a touch too smoothly for an anime, it’s unnatural in the most effective way possible. Sure there’s some hiccups, some jankiness here and there but the impact wasn’t diminished at all in this first attempt by a man whose had practice with this technique in his controversial Flowers of Evil adaptation, he pulled it off the madlad. The biggest knockout was the soundscape that Colin Stetson’s music brings, it’s simply the best thing going here. Every word that could describe horror music is applicable, it’s rude, grating, otherworldly, uncomfortable, or succinctly put just the perfect sound we could’ve gotten for this anime, take a bow my man this was incredible. Episode 1 of Uzumaki was everything we’ve been waiting for in a Junji Ito adaptation, heck even the mile a minute pace only added to the tense atmosphere and left me very confident in this being the hit we’ve all been waiting for.
DOWNWARD SPIRAL
But I learned 2 things that day, no.1 was Drive didn’t animate this, when did that happen and no.2 when I opened my own copy of the series I realised we did barely a sixth of this shebang in episode 1, that isn’t good. For 1 whole week Uzumaki was the anime we all hoped and prayed it would be, than episode 2 dropped and everything changed. Literally speaking everything changed that day, Nagahama and episode 1 Studio Fugaku were nowhere in sight, replaced by Studio Akatsuki and director Yuji Moriyama in charge with episode director and allegedly blacklisted Taiki Nishimura leading the way with what stands as one of the greatest quality drops I’ve ever witnessed as an anime fan. It was not a slowly falling apart production but a completely different show in cheap sheeps clothing, a hideous from top to bottom affair that only succeeded in making me laugh in shock of its utter incompetence. Going from legitimately scary to Berserk 2016 level CGI was something else, the butter smooth rotoscoping and sharp art nowhere in sight. The story was rendered completely ineffective by adapting double the amount of material as episode 1 on top of just looking like absolute garbage so I really can’t be charitable with this one, it’s a catastrophic subversion of audience expectations that would mar any anime but cripples one where it makes up a whole quarter, unfortunately we never recovered. The final 2 episodes are neither the triumph of 1 nor the disaster of 2, they exist in a middle ground of consistent mediocrity.
For every sad slideshow or hideous 3D we get a decent scare or a good drawing, they neither impress nor depress but after knowing the range of quality we could get I was honestly grateful for the mundane competence. The actual plot by this point is pure nonsense no matter how you experience it so the slightly goofy production values at least felt tonally consistent with the tornado riding gang and the pregnancy mushrooms, I didn’t dislike my time here. As the end arrived in all of it’s art direction flexing glory I felt relief that this journey was over, just like the MC who I can never remember I just laid over in tired defeat as another Junji Ito anime turned out to be a disappointment. But, I don’t hate Uzumaki, I can’t hate Uzumaki because it was engaging throughout and it’s ambitious and wholly successful first episode stands tall as proof that you can make a Ito anime with the right directorial choices which is something I’m confident no adaptation of his work has previously proven a capacity for. Was it worth the 5 years, no not really but I won’t soon forget the bold little anime that tried the previously thought impossible and succeeded, even if for but a fleeting moment. Uzumaki isn’t simply bad, it’s atrocious, mediocre and genius in equal measure, thanks for trying guys we’ll get it eventually.
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
Uzumaki can currently be streamed on Max or purchased as a omnibus volume from Viz.
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