Follow the thread rules and be as critical as you can be to determine what anime is the best from Junji Itou, as it is.
I personally believe in bias, that the manga 'fans' should have a stronger opinion from understanding the intent and full lore.
... To Help How to Rank the Anime;
Break down, and judge everything as a whole.
From begining to end. The main theme of the storie(s), the plots/events, and how they compliment the full journey.
The believeable characters and relationships, or lack of. The finale to it all.
Judge how good or bad each individual thing is, and average that out.
... I personally care less about the animation.
If the voice actors, story, directing, and sound is still great or very good, the mediocre lazy cheap animation doesn't take away from the experience for me.
With that said,
Itou's Best Anime is: Junji Itou's: Collection
[...]I'm disappointed in myself for being influenced to refrain from reading Junji Itou's works earlier by watching an incredibly harsh youtube video by Super Eyepatch Wolf.
While I can accept the critisicm of the anime not having the best art/animation to portray the same gorgeous sophisticated art of Itou, the anime itself is truly great as a faithful adaptation of the twenty-four chosen stories.
Even with its few faults, flaws, overall condensed adaptions, and mediocre animation, it is solid in portraying these stories with a great cast, and feel.
Many of the selected stories are some of Itou's best works, which was enjoyable to experience as an anime.
The art/animation in some scenes are lackluster and poor in quality in comparison to the original, but most of it is acceptable, even if the art is flat in tone.
It doesn't shine like the dynamic slick art of Itou, but the story remains, the soundtrack and atmosphere delivers, along with mostly consistent great acting from the voice cast.
A few interpretations are wrong, some animations are subpar to the original in art, the cut content is somewhat disappointing, but this adaption is very satisfying in bringing the manga to life in a more than adequate manner, because it could have been worse like the many rushed anime adaptions, but this anime was very faithful to the original.
Sure, the art/animation looks flat for not being slick and lazy with still-shots, out-of-sync lip flaps, uneven proportions of the characters and panels, awkward three-dimensional movement, and censored scenes, but it doesn't ruin the experience of the remaining great entertainment of Itou's horror.
Tomie
Original Review;
I originally gave this anime a 3/10 before I read the original manga, but now that I have full context to the whole story of Tomie, I can appreciate this adaption a bit more, even if it remains mediocre.
... Admittedly, I thought this anime was bad, but now I realize that it's acceptable, but, only if you have context to all of Tomie.
One problem is that it's just the first two chapter's introduction to Tomie.
Quality-wise, in execution, the voice acting is great,
but the animation is very lackluster for being somewhat flat and slow.
At the some of the most thrilling points of the story, the anime fails to intensify them as they feel like in the manga, while insight to her phenomenom is lost for cutting that content from this adaption.
Unfortunately, two of the most pivotal moments of Tomie are very underwhelming.
Her fall is dull for how unrealistically slow it is, and her dismemberement is censored.
The introduced atmosphere from her classmates who speak of her beauty is cut, along some of her snob attitude with that boy and her teacher, which doesn't give proper pacing and care to her character.
The reason why this is problem, even moreso with the lack of context to comprehending who and what Tomie is is that it doesn't reveal all of her from the manga for how she's a narcissist sadist, and is cursed with her enchanting beauty that causes men to murder her for love.
Although, again, this is later and concretely comprehended after reading the rest of the chapters if it wasn't clear already from the first two, due to this loop of Tomie's manipulating several victims and then dying repeating.
With all that being said, not exactly a bad anime adaption, but not a very good one either,
regardless of the first two chapters not being the "best" of Tomie. 4/10.
Gyo
Original Review;
As one who's read the original manga, I can't judge and critique this solely as a standalone movie,
but as a fan of the manga, this anime adaption was awful. 3/10.
Technically on the visuals and sound; the soundtrack/sfx is decent, the animation is very good, but the cast's acting is very bad.
They're unsuccessful in evoking realism in their emotions, and they completely lack the skill to produce legitimate horror in their voices or any other extraordinary emotion.
The addition of original characters, exclusion of one character, along with the switching of roles and dialogue was terrible.
For what it was, I personally liked the original manga. Unfortunately, this anime adaptation ruined and somewhat killed the full original depiction of the manga with its changes.
Overall, the sub-genre romance struggle of survival from the couple in the manga was very good,
so for the scenes of close-death from them both as the boyfriend Tadashi does his best to protect his girlfriend Kaori to be replaced by (new characters) friends and another man with Kaori was unpleasant.
The element of love, albeit not exactly grand in quality as a theme in the story, was very apparent in the manga.
In the anime, it's present, but arguably lost and forgettable. To the point that there's little to no care for the death of the significant other in the finale in comparison to the manga.
... In the anime,
the pacing of the incoming danger of crawling sea-creatures is very fast unlike the manga where the news slowly surfaces only after Tadashi and Kaori move back to Tokyo, while Kaori's legit paranoia continues as she's the only conscious one of danger who can smell the rot, as the floating bag of the fish that Tadashi killed followed her to Tokyo to which she screams in terror.
There's also more hints in the anime that quicken's our awareness of what's to come.
The changes in the anime are odd.
Instead of being a dependent fearful woman, Kaori was switched to Tadashi's role; as a strict, empathetic, courageous woman desperate to save her lover.
The anime's intention to reveal this type of character is very brief from how she judges her slut friend (Erika) for entertaining playboys, and correcting her other friend (Aki) that the slut Erika was only afraid and didn't mean to kick Aki in the face when attempting to run away.
The addition and dynamic of Erika/Aki alone is decent, but in the story of Gyo, they ruin the intended horrific scenes that were of Kaori and Tadashi that builds the beginning of their horror.
On its own, a slut losing her beauty, while the fugly one takes revenge by killing her and briefly attaining amnesia through trauma, to then die herself somewhat through karma to the slut is decent... but to me it's completely meaningless as the anime is subpar.
In the manga, the couple are having their honeymoon on that trip, flee the shark together, and Tadashi is the one to fall and survive in that pit of sea-creatures while he was searching for Kaori who escaped. She's the one who his uncle put into his machine, while Tadashi is the immune one.
I personally hate the change from Kaori,
because I personally enjoyed her horrific paranoia as the only one who was conscious of the smell and the incoming danger, while Tadashi didn't believe her until they were finally confronted with the shark.
Their arguments as a couple, reconciliation, along with her dependent desire of love to be with him, as he protects her was fairly entertaining.
Unfortunately, that isn't properly shown in the anime because it's ruined with the switch of other characters and another man in her presence.
The slight changes in the finale itself is bizarre as well.
In the manga, after Tadashi finally reunites with Kaori, he finds her machine, with Kaori flayed as a skeleton, and looks into the distance... while the world continues in its current terror.
In the anime, they make Kaori chuckle when replying about the smell, stating that she's used to it... when, ironically, in the manga, she detested it since first smelling it and was truly traumatized from it.
... It doesn't relay the same feeling of the original ending at all. One of a depressed man losing everything, with the world in jeopardy... to another of a woman seeming content.
As for the last original character, Shirakawa- 'Meaningless as well.
A videographer who coincidentally is searching for Koyanagi to frame, with a passion to reveal truth for the tragic past of his deceased parents.
Worse is the inexplainable attempt to connect his passion to Koyanagi's when he also claims to want to reveal the truth. Like the other new characters, Shirakawa kills the full original intent of the manga by replacing Tadashi.
Finally, Tadashi's uncle, Koyanagi.
The decision to cut his full knowledge of the crawling machines, with the fact that it was the creation of his grandpa, which is what drove his obsession to surpass his grandpa's invention with his own superior machine is utterly stupid, because then there is no sense to his actions in the anime.
In the manga, Tadashi brings the floating bag of the rotten crawling fish to his genius uncle to investigate which is what starts everything for Koyanagi.
Even though the romance in Koyanagi's character with his assistant was abrupt in the original story, it created the scene of her being captured by him in his flying machine, while also clearing the fact that the ghost gas of the machines keeps the victims "alive", which is shown through Koyanagi and Kaori when they're both shown to be jealous as corpses when they attempt to capture their romantic interest.
So, the exclusion of assistant Yoshiyama was a little surprising. Their dynamic is indeed odd for the complete lack of love shown from them, but they're used to ascertain the living emotions of the corpses in the machines.
My final critiscm would be the visibility and awareness of the haunted gas.
The visible haunted gas through fire in the circus didn't have the same art depiction of what the manga had at all of Junji Itou's art, which was disappointing. Nor was all of the scenes of haunted gas shown, including another where Tadashi was running away from the ghost's attempting to capture him.
Very disappointing anime adaption of Gyo.
Y'all can't be seriously thinking Uzumaki was the best?...
Ironic, considering it's his most popular, yet overrated work and "worst" original long-story.
It's somewhat intriguing, but as a whole, it's a disappointing mess.
It's not a Good Spiral of Chaos like it intends to be. It's a Random Lackluster Faulty Mediocrity.
Original Manga Review;
[...]I am somewhat shocked at how mediocre, overrated and extremely disappointing it was, and regret buying it instead of reading the non-high quality scanlation.
Most, if not all of Itou's horror work are "great" in how they're fascinating, creative and intriguing with their concepts and how he displays the horror in his stories. Some better than others, while most are left inconclusive to the unknown in their finale.
The mystery is often "disappointing" for wanting to fully comprehend the story, but most of his horror stays entertaining regardless.
The problem that I dislike and is a legit flaw from The Spiral and possibly all of his long stories or rather bad works is how unstructured and awkward they can be.
I'm a fan who's fondly enjoyed and continue to enjoy reading his work as I'm close to finishing all of his work,
but unfortunately this one is one of the few bad ones.
So far out of his series of long stories that I enjoyed are; Tomie, Souichi, Fashion Model, The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings, The Intersection Boy and, Remina.
None are perfect, and all are inconclusive... but at least they're intriguing and captivating,
while Tomie has sense with good plots to its trope, unlike The Spiral.
... The Spiral is mostly boring, and underwhelming in its depiction from most of the plots of what exactly the Spiral is and why it creates these specific phenomenoms.
The art and display of the horror is great as is common from Itou,
while the characters even though critisized as unsophisticated from fans, serve their purpose well in displaying a realistic attitude and interaction of people which I think is an overlooked talent from Itou that most people don't realize, even if his characters aren't extraordinary.
On the contrary, I think they're realistic in his own style, even if other mangaka have a different style of character interpretation that's arguably more realistic in other manners.
Anyway.
The timeline of events is somewhat interesting for the mystery of how the spiral affects the townspeople differently, but as a whole, the difference and lacking relation of sense to the phenomenoms together till the ending overall is unfulfilling and disappointing.
The main plot of the town's dragonfly pond with a spiral figure under it causing these phenomena and somehow causing the town to loop into a spiral of time is awesome!
Although, again, the events in relation to the main plot is underwhelming as a whole to the story.
Shuichi's father's obsession is what starts the story, which introduces a decent intrigue to this upcoming obscure mystery. Which surprisingly is never revealed how he first became affected, but no matter.
The bizarre attitude of his father while creeping out the characters is fairly good; from his eyes seperately rolling, his tongue curling, and unnaturally curling his body inside a round box as he dies, later haunting his wife with spirals from his death, with his ashes smoking into a spiral figure in the clouds- which is all good.
The issue afterwards is how random most of the events are with little to no logic to the spiral itself and its supposed meaning which I don't know what it is aside from a loop that enjoys to suck people in.
The girl with the scar who's attracted any boy ever since she's had it, ending up being sucked in by her own spiral in her forehead.
Shuichi's parents as spirits burning in Kirie's father's kiln... his father calling him to join him, while her mother screams to him for help, along with other spirit victims of the spiral who've died.
The couple intertwining together like snakes against their enemy neighboring family who don't accept each other.
Kirie's hair locks curling into spirals, with her friend gaining the same ability craving to show off and ending up dead by her living hair sucking out her life.
The boy who has a crush on Kirie, attempting to prove his love by having a car stop in front of him, causing him to die with the car's spring in his spine as he was curled on the front wheel, to then his undead corpse springing into to her after Shuichi tried to kill him before reanimating.
A classmate who comes to school turning into a snail from a spiral on his back which turns into his shell.
The lighthouse's burnt dysfunctional light somehow causing fire to spread inside whenever it starts, with the stairs almost being an endless loop.
Female mosquitoes biting pregnant women and causing them to become blood-suckers to feed their babies, with the babies having the ability to talk and want to return in their mother's womb, and their umbilical chord turning into a mushroom-like spiral.
Typhoons, Whirlpools, Whirlwinds. A cursed house causing ones inside to gain horns throughout their body leading to death.
The townspeople gaining the ability to cause mini gust of tornados with any impactful movement or sound, with some having the skill to fly through a self-made tornado.
To finally people curling into themselves inside the built home extensions, curling together to the past of the town, eating snail people to survive, with time speeding for the main characters, and in the finale, the couple going down to the source of the spiral figure and intertwining together themselves after Kirie finds her parents turned into stone after years have passed seperate from their time together.
... There are kinda great plots and events in this story, but it's shamefully unstructured, illogical, and boring to some extent which is ultimately very disappointing.
Shuichi's sense of danger as the sole character who's noticed since the beginning for attending school elsewhere is great as the only medium who's aware of the spiral.
His wish to flea with his girlfriend together and constant failing to do so from her denial until its too late is well done.
I was mostly entertained after Chapter 10's Mosquitoes for how the horror started becoming grander in creativity, which got better in some form after the characters were struggling to survive and the town went into chaos.
I keep repeating myself, but even if some events are great individually, as a whole it just does not function.
A lot of it is greatly entertaining, but...
Azami, the girl with the scar spiral on her forehead arguably lacks explanation to her character's point of the story, exactly how and why she's the only one to get sucked in into herself, even though her demise of horror is fucking great. I think to the logic of the story, because (as Shuichi deduced) the spiral is in all of them, by becoming arrogant with ego to fail in charming Shuichi, the spiral sucked her in. Why though.
Shuichi's spirits and the other deceased. How are they trapped from passing away peacefully. The Twisted Souls Chapter of the couple intertwining is self-explanatory and a good introduction to the foreshadowing of the townspeople intertwining together later, even though the spiral affecting their family with hate unlike the couple is left a mystery to me.
Jack-in-the-Box is probably the stupidest event of the story. The boy's corpse reviving and springing to his crush Kirie was idiotic and meaningless to the story. The tornado being attracted to Kirie doesn't make sense at all either.
The Snail People is great to an extent. The way it's used to induce the plot of people eating them to survive is interesting... but I don't exactly understand the logic of how being slow or whatever causes specific people to turn into slugs. The tranformation itself is also fascinating.
The Black Lighthouse is bizarre in how it burns people to death, but, it's a decent introduction to travel having the occurence to be neverending causing one to be stuck in the same place.
The Mosquitoes' concept alone is great, but babies having the ability to talk and yearning to go back to their mother's womb doesn't make sense to me even if I feel there's probably a sense of loop in relation to the spiral, but I don't fully understand it's probable hidden meaning.
The cursed house is very random, and I don't understand why the old buildings are incable of being destroyed while stronger buildings are easily destroyed in comparison.
The last quarter of the story is fairly entertaining. The way in which practically everything in town is destroyed, with people trying to survive, kids previously being tied up, blowing things to destruction, with gangs flying, survivors eating snails, others intertwining in the safe buildings, Kirie and Shuichi attempting to keep her little brother safe before the cannibals attempt to eat him as he escapes as a snail and is saddenly never reunited with his sister in the finale.
That whole struggle, with others dying from being blown away by others is pretty good.
The finale itself though isn't bad. The doom that it's a bad ending is good, with the fact that The Spiral is a neverending loop, but I don't understand how it's a loop that could cause them to somehow repeat this cycle, or how time works in and out of the spiral from being in the hill out of the town for them to continue to travel time while in town afterwards, or even why some townspeople are turned into stones in face of Thee Spiral. I guess it's because they're stuck in time, to eventually revive later...
All in all... Flawed and Overrated. 4/10.
Although, if I completely neglect how the story and events lack logic, arguably 5-6/10.
waalex11 said: Y'all can't be seriously thinking Uzumaki was the best?...
Ironic, considering it's his most popular, yet overrated work and "worst" original long-story.
It's somewhat intriguing, but as a whole, it's a disappointing mess.
It's not a Good Spiral of Chaos like it intends to be. It's a Random Lackluster Faulty Mediocrity.
Original Manga Review;
[...]I am somewhat shocked at how mediocre, overrated and extremely disappointing it was, and regret buying it instead of reading the non-high quality scanlation.
Most, if not all of Itou's horror work are "great" in how they're fascinating, creative and intriguing with their concepts and how he displays the horror in his stories. Some better than others, while most are left inconclusive to the unknown in their finale.
The mystery is often "disappointing" for wanting to fully comprehend the story, but most of his horror stays entertaining regardless.
The problem that I dislike and is a legit flaw from The Spiral and possibly all of his long stories or rather bad works is how unstructured and awkward they can be.
I'm a fan who's fondly enjoyed and continue to enjoy reading his work as I'm close to finishing all of his work,
but unfortunately this one is one of the few bad ones.
So far out of his series of long stories that I enjoyed are; Tomie, Souichi, Fashion Model, The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings, The Intersection Boy and, Remina.
None are perfect, and all are inconclusive... but at least they're intriguing and captivating,
while Tomie has sense with good plots to its trope, unlike The Spiral.
... The Spiral is mostly boring, and underwhelming in its depiction from most of the plots of what exactly the Spiral is and why it creates these specific phenomenoms.
The art and display of the horror is great as is common from Itou,
while the characters even though critisized as unsophisticated from fans, serve their purpose well in displaying a realistic attitude and interaction of people which I think is an overlooked talent from Itou that most people don't realize, even if his characters aren't extraordinary.
On the contrary, I think they're realistic in his own style, even if other mangaka have a different style of character interpretation that's arguably more realistic in other manners.
Anyway.
The timeline of events is somewhat interesting for the mystery of how the spiral affects the townspeople differently, but as a whole, the difference and lacking relation of sense to the phenomenoms together till the ending overall is unfulfilling and disappointing.
The main plot of the town's dragonfly pond with a spiral figure under it causing these phenomena and somehow causing the town to loop into a spiral of time is awesome!
Although, again, the events in relation to the main plot is underwhelming as a whole to the story.
Shuichi's father's obsession is what starts the story, which introduces a decent intrigue to this upcoming obscure mystery. Which surprisingly is never revealed how he first became affected, but no matter.
The bizarre attitude of his father while creeping out the characters is fairly good; from his eyes seperately rolling, his tongue curling, and unnaturally curling his body inside a round box as he dies, later haunting his wife with spirals from his death, with his ashes smoking into a spiral figure in the clouds- which is all good.
The issue afterwards is how random most of the events are with little to no logic to the spiral itself and its supposed meaning which I don't know what it is aside from a loop that enjoys to suck people in.
The girl with the scar who's attracted any boy ever since she's had it, ending up being sucked in by her own spiral in her forehead.
Shuichi's parents as spirits burning in Kirie's father's kiln... his father calling him to join him, while her mother screams to him for help, along with other spirit victims of the spiral who've died.
The couple intertwining together like snakes against their enemy neighboring family who don't accept each other.
Kirie's hair locks curling into spirals, with her friend gaining the same ability craving to show off and ending up dead by her living hair sucking out her life.
The boy who has a crush on Kirie, attempting to prove his love by having a car stop in front of him, causing him to die with the car's spring in his spine as he was curled on the front wheel, to then his undead corpse springing into to her after Shuichi tried to kill him before reanimating.
A classmate who comes to school turning into a snail from a spiral on his back which turns into his shell.
The lighthouse's burnt dysfunctional light somehow causing fire to spread inside whenever it starts, with the stairs almost being an endless loop.
Female mosquitoes biting pregnant women and causing them to become blood-suckers to feed their babies, with the babies having the ability to talk and want to return in their mother's womb, and their umbilical chord turning into a mushroom-like spiral.
Typhoons, Whirlpools, Whirlwinds. A cursed house causing ones inside to gain horns throughout their body leading to death.
The townspeople gaining the ability to cause mini gust of tornados with any impactful movement or sound, with some having the skill to fly through a self-made tornado.
To finally people curling into themselves inside the built home extensions, curling together to the past of the town, eating snail people to survive, with time speeding for the main characters, and in the finale, the couple going down to the source of the spiral figure and intertwining together themselves after Kirie finds her parents turned into stone after years have passed seperate from their time together.
... There are kinda great plots and events in this story, but it's shamefully unstructured, illogical, and boring to some extent which is ultimately very disappointing.
Shuichi's sense of danger as the sole character who's noticed since the beginning for attending school elsewhere is great as the only medium who's aware of the spiral.
His wish to flea with his girlfriend together and constant failing to do so from her denial until its too late is well done.
I was mostly entertained after Chapter 10's Mosquitoes for how the horror started becoming grander in creativity, which got better in some form after the characters were struggling to survive and the town went into chaos.
I keep repeating myself, but even if some events are great individually, as a whole it just does not function.
A lot of it is greatly entertaining, but...
Azami, the girl with the scar spiral on her forehead arguably lacks explanation to her character's point of the story, exactly how and why she's the only one to get sucked in into herself, even though her demise of horror is fucking great. I think to the logic of the story, because (as Shuichi deduced) the spiral is in all of them, by becoming arrogant with ego to fail in charming Shuichi, the spiral sucked her in. Why though.
Shuichi's spirits and the other deceased. How are they trapped from passing away peacefully. The Twisted Souls Chapter of the couple intertwining is self-explanatory and a good introduction to the foreshadowing of the townspeople intertwining together later, even though the spiral affecting their family with hate unlike the couple is left a mystery to me.
Jack-in-the-Box is probably the stupidest event of the story. The boy's corpse reviving and springing to his crush Kirie was idiotic and meaningless to the story. The tornado being attracted to Kirie doesn't make sense at all either.
The Snail People is great to an extent. The way it's used to induce the plot of people eating them to survive is interesting... but I don't exactly understand the logic of how being slow or whatever causes specific people to turn into slugs. The tranformation itself is also fascinating.
The Black Lighthouse is bizarre in how it burns people to death, but, it's a decent introduction to travel having the occurence to be neverending causing one to be stuck in the same place.
The Mosquitoes' concept alone is great, but babies having the ability to talk and yearning to go back to their mother's womb doesn't make sense to me even if I feel there's probably a sense of loop in relation to the spiral, but I don't fully understand it's probable hidden meaning.
The cursed house is very random, and I don't understand why the old buildings are incable of being destroyed while stronger buildings are easily destroyed in comparison.
The last quarter of the story is fairly entertaining. The way in which practically everything in town is destroyed, with people trying to survive, kids previously being tied up, blowing things to destruction, with gangs flying, survivors eating snails, others intertwining in the safe buildings, Kirie and Shuichi attempting to keep her little brother safe before the cannibals attempt to eat him as he escapes as a snail and is saddenly never reunited with his sister in the finale.
That whole struggle, with others dying from being blown away by others is pretty good.
The finale itself though isn't bad. The doom that it's a bad ending is good, with the fact that The Spiral is a neverending loop, but I don't understand how it's a loop that could cause them to somehow repeat this cycle, or how time works in and out of the spiral from being in the hill out of the town for them to continue to travel time while in town afterwards, or even why some townspeople are turned into stones in face of Thee Spiral. I guess it's because they're stuck in time, to eventually revive later...
All in all... Flawed and Overrated. 4/10.
Although, if I completely neglect how the story and events lack logic, arguably 5-6/10.
I mean, if you don’t like Uzumaki to begin with, saying it’s overrated, then there’s not much more I can tell you than “you don’t understand Junji Ito, your take is trash, please stop”.
Peace
I still say Uzumaki is the closest we'll get to a ''good'' adaptation. I enjoyed some of the stories in the collections but a large percentage I didn't. tomie would be my close 2nd and I didn't enjoy reading gyo
I haven't seen the other works, but watching the Uzumaki adaptation was honestly terrible. First episode was amazing, but the last 3 were meh at best. I actually wanted to drop it, but I kept thinking that it would get better (it didn't).. It was alright, not the worst, but nowhere near the best
At least Collection is #2 from the votes, which I disagree with.
I have to admit that I could fix my rating by averaging every story adaptation in Collection individually, but it's still greater than Uzumaki as is, simply for how much of a grand failure Uzumaki itself is.
Junji Itou's adaptations of other's stories are surprisingly all mostly awful, but Uzumaki is easily his greatest failed potential.
He has very few mediocre one-shots, but nothing compares to the disappointment of Uzumaki to how imperfect it is.
I love his work, but his most popular work, Uzumaki, is grossly overrated.
