Uzumaki
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror

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I read Uzumaki for the first time in 2012, I think. Back in the day, I was at my cousin's house in another town, reading this manga a friend recommended me while she was busy with her boyfriend. For 13-year-old me, it was one the best things I had ever read.

This still holds true 12 years later. Uzumaki is, undeniably, a masterpiece. 25-year-old me isn't as impressionable as my younger self; reading it as an adult is a very different experience and some of the manga's flaws start showing. This is not to say the manga is anything short of a tour de force, but ... a few of its minor defects must be recognised.

The story follows the slow descent into madness of a small Japanese town called Kurouzu as its inhabitants become obsessed with spirals to the point of eventually becoming one. We are brought to this universe through the eyes of main character Kirie Goshima. Kirie is not a superhero nor someone who depends on her wits to keep herself alive: she's an everywoman who mostly just reacts to what's going on around her. This is done on purpose: Kirie is supposed to be the embodiment of the reader inside that universe, she is what brings us into Kurouzu and its ghastly events. This is not to say she is a useless character: as the town becomes more and more ravaged by the curse of the spiral, she learns to rely on her instincts to survive.

Itō is known for his short one-shot horror stories and this series works as an anthology of short stories connected by the common theme of spirals. Mirroring Scheherazade's frame story in the Arabian Nights, Kirie sews together these stories through her perspective, but the whole work feels episodic - because it is! While it might displease potential fans who are looking for a more cohesive narrative, this sort of narrative works very well to fully develop each of the horrors in the narrative, to the detriment of the story's pacing, which often makes it feel like the stories are happening in sequence and not at the same time, which makes you wonder why nobody's getting the fuck out of that god forsaken town. This is one of the things I think the infamous 2024 anime adaptation did right: adapting multiple chapters at once to remind us that this is all happening at the same time, which does not give the inhabitants the time to react properly.

Kirie's boyfriend Shūichi is one of the characters I could not care about. He starts off as an intuitive character that becomes progressively more lackluster and annoying as he loses hope and keeps making vague, pessimistic comments about everything around him. I think he is the greatest fall in the manga. A few of the smaller characters and situations might look a little ridiculous and goofy when you're not 13, but I think that's part of Itō's style.

Speaking of which, one of the things that makes this manga so great is Junji Itō's grotesque artstyle. He manages to evoke some visceral sensations with is realistic, detailed artwork. Some of the ridiculous situations I mentioned above are balanced out with Itō's satirical narrative and exquisite art. Masaru Satō's preface in the omnibus edition sheds light to the possible critique of Japan's aggresive neo-liberalism and the fear of poverty expressed by the Japanese after the economic cooling. The subversion of the spiral, an auspicious symbol in East Asian culture, is a bold and creative approach that makes the story even more curious. The grandiose, bittersweet ending is cemented as one of the best in horror manga's history.

With its engaging stories and superb art sewn together by mystery and vertiginous pacing, Uzumaki is considered one of Itō's finest works and for a very good reason. It strikes you from beginning to end and has some of the most iconic iconography in manga history. It might not be a 10 like it used to be for 13-year-old me, but it's still a 9, which is no small rating. Still one of the best mangas in my collection and one I treasure like no other.

I wasn't really interested in reading this, but a review recommended reading this before watching the anime, and I'm glad I did.


§ Overview

The story starts with Goshima Kirie going on her way until she finds her boyfriend's father observing something. This bloke has been obsessed with spirals. Kirie's boyfriend, Saitou Shuuichi, feels something is amiss in this town, which he calls the curse of the spiral. Eventually, his father dies and a series of horrors plague this town.


§ Remarks

It starts as an agonising read until it hooks you. The so-called horror starts out as creepy, i.e. strange phenomena happen, until several chapters later, you're ... engaged and horrified at how such things happen.

Perhaps its greatest fault is not stating why there's a curse of the spiral. It's just a given. Also, it bugs you that, after several chapters, our main couple hasn't left town. This is answered in volume 3, and I found it to be a page-turner.

As a horror manga, it's good. But what annoys me is that it rests on a malevolent universe premise. I won't spoil the ending, but this premise rests on the assumption that man is a helpless being and that the Universe is conspiring bad things to happen to him. Once you understand the difference between a malevolent universe premise versus a benevolent universe premise, you will understand my annoyance with it.


§ Conclusion

It's a good horror story, and for many people, it's a masterpiece. But thematically, it's flawed. I don't like its use of the malevolent universe premise.

I heard so many good things about Uzumaki before finally deciding to read it.
I had high expectations for this book, but I was so disappointed.

All of the characters are unlikable, bland, irrational, or complete weirdoes. This ensures that no tension can ever be built, because I absolutely do not care what happens to any of them. The best example is a character towards the beginning of the story who becomes increasingly obsessed with spirals. His family becomes concerned and we watch him spiral into madness. Props for thematic storytelling. I was initially invested in this plot thread ... and I saw promise in this setup. I liked exploring his weird psychological issue and wanted to see how it escalated.

So the payoff is that this absolute weirdo stuffs himself into a basket and breaks all his bones so that he can be shaped like a spiral. I assume this was meant to be spooky scary body horror. Props for the art. It is very well drawn. But I just started fucking laughing. After this, Uzumaki becomes a weird goofy comedy. But it's not funny for long, and it isn't scary, either. It's just stupid. It started off gripping and engaging and then completely shits the bed.

This story has very little in the way of coherent logic. Completely outrageous things happen all the time, and I guess you're supposed to take them at face value while questioning nothing. By the time people started turning into snails, I was just so uninvested in every weird little thing that proceeded to happen.

I'm going to give some of Ito's other stories a try eventually. There's no doubt in my mind that he's an extremely talented technical artist, and he is demonstrably very creative, but this just doesn't do it for me. I think my expectations were just too high going into this. A lot of that is my fault. But I also blame you fuckin weird Uzumaki people for hyping it up so much.

If you enjoy campy B-movie horror, you may get a kick out of this. But don't go into this book because of all of those people who say it's a life-changing masterpiece of psychological horror with complex philosophies and themes. It is not, and those people are dumb. You will not learn anything from this book. It will not change your perspective. It will not challenge
your beliefs. If that's what you're looking for, as I was, I'll save you some time. These are the three most profound questions Uzumaki will ask you to consider :

"WHY IS THIS CHARACTER ACTING SO DUMB"

"WHAT THE FUCK IS EVEN HAPPENING"

"HOW DO PEOPLE ENJOY THIS MANGA"