Oct 22, 2024
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.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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