Uzumaki
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror

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There are many horror mangas out there that try to make themselves scary. But often we just get a comic that’s more gory or disgusting than scary. Now there is Kazuo Umezu who really can write a horror story that’ll scare you. He is known as the godfather of horror manga, but there is another called Junji Ito called the master of horror manga who has wrote something just as terrifying as any scary movie, book, or comic out there. This story is called Uzumaki.

Story:

The story is simply starts us of quick with two main characters to get use to and ... the setting for our horror manga. Right away, we get the feeling that something isn’t actually right in this little coastal town. Soon, after the first chapter we get our first freak out and scary moment that is very twisted. The story is written well and focuses on something that really isn’t scary to begin with, a simple spiral.
But as this story shows, there is much more to this symbol then meets the eye.

As the story moves along, each chapter presents us a separate story that is completely different than the last, but still connects to the main plot. We get strange stories about a lighthouse, crazy hair, giant snails, and twisting bodies that all go together into this spiral story, no pun intended. But some of these stories within the story aren’t actually really horrific or anything which is why this grade isn’t a 10.

Art:

This story really is scary and what helps it is its sick and creepy style art. These characters are really well drawn and have a small alteration that makes them different than another person, though a lot of the girls seem similar to me and at one point I could tell two of them apart from each other.

Now let’s look at the world itself. It really is drawn well and if you look closer enough, you’ll find spirals that aren’t even apart of the story at hand. There’s also the carnage and scenes of disturbing violence in the story, now this stuff is freaky. This story contains a lot of this story and unlike most stories, it actually makes this story scarier!

Character:

Like I mention before, we are instantly given our two main characters right off the bat that both provide two different personalities. The girl is a bit uneasy and refuses to believe a lot of the things happening around her for a while and there is her boyfriend who is really nervous about the town and believes there isn’t something right about it.

Then we get the rest of the cast… there isn’t much of a cast besides these two. The only people that make repeat appearances are Kirie’s mom, brother, and dad plus one of her friends occasionally. Everyone else that has a big part in one of the chapters is pretty much a one time appearance. It’s kind of annoying that you get to know a new character only to never see them again.

Enjoyment:

Well… this series is extremely rewarding if you get it a chance and you’ll for sure think there is no other horror story around that can reach this level of freakiness. But this story might not appeal to everyone. Some might be put off by the crazy images or might find this story not that scary but just disturbing. Either way, this story provides a chilling, but enjoyable ride from beginning to end if you find that you like this series.

Overall:

This story might not appeal to everyone like said before, but a lot of people should at least read the first chapter before making their judgment. You never know, you could be missing out on a great horror manga and you could never have even known!

This series contains a lot of disturbing images, violence and gore, nudity, language, and intense scenes of horror. If find any of this not really your style, especially the disturbing images, avoid this series at all costs!

While Uzumaki starts off strong with its truly creepy first few chapters, it then loses everything that made those chapters great and becomes neither scary nor interesting. With the first chapters, even though the events that take place could obviously never happen, the author succeeds in making them believable. This is not the case for the majority of what follows, the plots become ridiculous to the point where the entire manga just doesn't work anymore. What is perhaps the scariest part of the manga after the first few chapters doesn't even come from the deeper, more psychological horror that is intended, but rather something that ... feels overtly done before, people who become zombies at night and feast on the blood of others. It's more complicated than that, but instead of those complications being scary, as they're supposed to, it's just the drawings at that point.

There are some stories (the manga generally works in the fashion of telling interrelated stories every chapter, with each chapter having a closure, the exception being the last set of chapters, which is the manga at its best other than the beginning due to its continuity) that are not only ludicrous and completely separated from reality (as opposed to the beginning, which succeeds in seeming as more of an extension of reality, something that could actually happen, which is the root of it's creepiness that isn't present for the rest of the manga), but aren't even remotely scary on the most basic level. Marvel as... a blinding light causes select people to walk in circles! The horror! The overall story is interesting and unique, much different from your average example of horror, as the "evildoer" is something as ambiguous as a shape. Now, if done correctly, this could make for a chilling manga that would haunt some readers' sleep for weeks. However, once again, the beginning of the manga is the only section that comes anywhere near accomplishing this. Many of the stories are barely even related to spirals (the shape in question), the "zombie" story mentioned earlier in particular, which also lessens the blow, making the stories feel much less related to each other, and the spiral as well. This takes away the feeling of the spiral taking over the town, one of the main elements of horror that's meant to be present.

The characters here have absolutely no personality. At all. The vast majority of characters are just generally kindhearted people whose dialogue is the same as everyone elses'. The only exceptions: Shuichi, who becomes a recluse early on in the story, mumbling to himself about how the spiral is taking over. No, he's not interesting (probably more interesting than any other character though). Kirie's (the main character's) little brother, whose name doesn't come to me despite having just read the last few chapters (a sign of how forgettable the characters are?). He's whiny. That's it. The final exception are the "bad people," the people who become possessed by the spiral and have a mean disposition. But nothing else. Yes, they're all cruel, but they're all the same type of cruel. There is a subsection of "bad people," however, attention cravers. And that's the only thing setting them apart. And yes, like the others, they're all the same as each other. So let's sum the characters up: We have nice people. We have mean people. We have attention craving mean people. We have Shuichi. We have Kirie's little brother. The characters are another thing that takes away from the horror of the manga; if I was at all interested in the characters, all these terrible things happening to them would have a much greater impact.

Uzumaki is a unique idea that lost all its steam early on. We can at least be glad that we got to see it live up to its potential, for a few chapters anyway.

Junji Ito, master of the horror manga.
I had expectations for Uzumaki, having heard it was one of Junji Ito's better known work. But I was disappointed in this manga: Uzumaki is hardly scary or horrifying. Uzumaki is not, in my honest opinion, a horror manga. Let me tell you why.

It's all in the atmosphere. Or in this case, the complete lack of it. The story is just so ridiculously over the top! It breaks any kind of immersion. The best (and well known) example is: The Spiral is granting the mosquitoes the terrible power of... flying in spirals. Hypnotizing! I won't spoil it for you, but ... it gets better. As in hilariously stupid.

While the overall concept of a strange and unknown force messing up the world is refreshing (no big bad monster!), I could never get into it. Once the Spiral has taken hold of the city, it never stops tormenting it. And it goes way too far. Intentionally or not, this manga is parodying itself.

Each chapter can stand on its own, the manga being more of a collection of interconnected stories. And after reading a couple chapters, you start noticing a pattern... Ito's world follows a number of rules. For example:
1-Newly introduced character(s) will die at the end of present or next chapter.
Corollary:1.1- Fighting the Spiral is useless. Humans cannot escape or change their fates.
(And I'm not even spoiling anything. Just read a couple of chapters, you'll see! Discerning this pattern made the reading boring as hell too)

The minor character don't get a lot of exposition or characterization. One chapter isn't enough to get me to know and get attached to any character. It leaves them flat as cardboard, and half as interesting. They do serve a purpose, however: meatbags. It's sad really: potentially interesting characters reduced to meatbags. They exist so they can get killed. Quite gory deaths too. I didn't care about them though. And seeing a character you don't care about suffer or die won't trigger a strong emotional response. I mean, I didn't care for their deaths. Too bad for the horror I wanted. Ito got me a truckload of gore though.

Now, I've got to give credit where credit is due. The art is nice. Ito's got his own realistic-ish character drawing style, and he always show the mutilated dead people in great detail. He also tends to exaggerate his character's expressions when they get crazy, making them look inhuman. I find it ugly and silly, but it's a personal preference.

In the end, I found that only one chapter of the manga was interesting and memorable: the attention seeking-hair (it still is one of the first chapters, don't worry). This one is light on blood and gore, but was still delightfully creepy.

All in all, this manga was rather boring. Bland and forgettable characters lessen the impact of the gore. The ridiculous storyline gets out of hand pretty fast and I found myself laughing at the stupidity of it all in the later chapters. As I said, the art is really nice, but I find that Uzumaki lacks the most important part of a horror manga: the horror. It's got gore though.