https://www.cbr.com/uzumaki-producer-episode-2-quality-drop-reveal/
The executive producer of the Uzumaki anime series has spoken up about the show's downward spiral in quality for Episode 2. Jason DeMarco, who's also the co-creator of the Toonami action block on Cartoon Network, revealed what went wrong with the anime adaption of Junji Ito's most famous work.
DeMarco spoke up on the social media website Bluesky about Uzumaki Episode 2's sudden drop in quality, which aired on Oct. 5, 2024, on the Toonami Saturday night block on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Although DeMarco later deleted his comments, his revealing posts were screencapped and spread online. "It's fine, we knew this would happen," DeMarco said in a series of deleted posts. "I can't talk about what went down, but we were screwed over, and the options were A) not finish and air nothing and call it a loss, B) Just finish and air Episode 1 and leave it incomplete or C) run all four, warts and all. Out of respect for the hard work we chose C. After waiting so long, it makes sense people would be mad. Unfortunately, I can't tell them who to blame it on... but someone is definitely at fault here, and we all just had to do our best when things imploded. Maybe others would have made different choices. We did the best we could with what we had."
"But again, a lot of people worked very hard on this show, and I didn't think the actions of just one or two people should be the reason it never saw the light of day," DeMarco continued. Maybe that's the wrong choice. I truly don't know. But those people have a right to be annoyed and disappointed. I'm glad you are digging it." The series premiere of Uzumaki was highly praised for its haunting visuals that brought Ito's horrifying artwork to life. The critical acclaim for Episode 1 was unanimous, with many believing the "curse" regarding adaptations of Ito's printed works had finally been broken. However, the dip in animation quality for Uzumaki Episode 2 was anything but subtle. Clips of extremely stilted animation, poor lip synching and inconsistent drawings -- seemingly a complete 180 of the animation in Episode 1 -- began circulating on social media within minutes.
While DeMarco didn't go into detail about what went wrong with the production of Uzumaki, the series' development woes have been well-known since its initial announcement in 2019. The highly anticipated adaptation of Ito's famous horror story took five years to air, suffering three critical delays. The third delay occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic when the entertainment industry was struggling to adapt to working remotely. DeMarco even joked about the series' "cursed" production in a recent interview with Vulture |