Uzumaki Spiraled Out of Control – This Week in Anime

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Uzumaki Spiraled Out of Control - This Week in Anime

Lucas and Coop discuss the recent Junji Ito anime catastrophe: Adult Swim‘s Uzumaki adaptation.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

Uzumaki is streaming and available for purchase on HBO Max, Amazon, Google Play, the iTunes Store, the Microsoft Store, and VUDU.

CONTENT WARNING: This edition of This Week in Anime features graphic imagery and discussion of potentially upsetting subject matter. Reader discretion is advised.

Coop

Hi Lucas. I am calling to let you know that I’ve taken a big nasty drink of the spiral slime. I just woke up in Denny’s parking lot with no memory of the past 24 hours. Avoid the spiral slime.

Lucas

A Denny’s parking lot!?? Oh no, Coop, I think I know where that spiral slime came from! Did you mess around with a fear hole!??

I mean, it couldn’t have come from the new Uzumaki anime. After all, while this latest adaptation of Junji Ito‘s work is a lot of things, it sure ain’t scary!

Nor is it a “so bad it’s good” experience… like the occasional 3 a.m. trip to Denny’s. No, Uzumaki is a limited series that started with the best spooky intentions but ended up losing steam as the production seemingly coiled around its throat.

Even a passing look at producer Jason DeMarco‘s now-deleted Bluesky posts painted a troubled picture—long before I’d seen a single finished frame.

With a very public, five-year production cycle for an anime consisting of only four episodes, the writing on the wall was that this project was either going to be an arthouse masterpiece or a production hell-induced disaster. This would have been evident without DeMarco’s comments, but now it’s especially clear that this was likely a really rough project to work on.

By now, most folks reading this column have likely seen the infamous running clips from episode 2, but I implore everyone who hasn’t to check them out before continuing. They’re so, so much worse than even the awkward perspective and wealth of dead space in this still image implies.

And here’s what gets me: I can live with less-than-desirable animation when the drama keeps me on the edge of my seat or provides a good laugh. Outside of the first fifteen minutes of episode three, Uzumaki doesn’t do that for me. This is a shame because Kirei’s struggle to outrun a horde of blood-frenzied mothers was the most enjoyable part of the series. But not just that, I think it provides a blueprint for what the show could’ve been.

Before I go further, it might be best if we roll it back to the first episode and identify a few issues present from the jump.

That’s a good idea. As noted by our fearless leader, Lynzee, in her review of the first episode, outside of some pacing and skipped-over character building, Uzumaki seemed on track to be the best adaptation of Ito’s work yet, largely thanks to the killer soundtrack and adherence to Ito’s visual style.

In my estimation, I felt like the first episode was a bit rough around the edges, but thought it mostly stuck the landing. I was prepared for Uzumaki to become the next great example of how ideas have to be executed differently depending on the medium! While the anime lacked the level of detail that makes Ito’s work so affecting, the soundtrack, vocal performances, and unnatural motion during suspenseful moments more than made up for this necessary change.

I agree with you for the most part. When it comes to all the presentational bells and whistles, Uzumaki‘s first episode stuns in a way that only Hiroshi Nagahama and his collaborators could provide—building off many of the general ideas he employed in Flowers of Evil. But regardless of the series’ status as an adaptation, there’s something important missing: a baseline. Viewers are thrown so quickly into this twist-and-turny-tale that they’re not allowed to get a feeling for Kirei, Shuichi, and the people of Kurouzu. I need to know a bit about what everyday life is like for everyone before someone starts twisting my arm. Unfortunately, the breakneck pace just doesn’t allow for that.

For instance, the opening thrust of the story with Shuichi’s father could’ve been drawn out a bit further. In the process, you’d get a little more time to see what Kurouzu is normally like before things start to spiral out of control.

Actually, that could’ve been enough for the entire first episode.

I absolutely agree. Uzumaki is coiled too tightly, even in its first episode. While I think a lot of anime adaptations would benefit from taking more time to set up characters, their backgrounds, and their community, this rushing is even more egregious in the horror genre, where building anticipation is critical.

I’m not sure if Uzumaki was originally intended to have more episodes than its final total or if the anime misunderstood what made the original manga work from the get-go. Either way, the result feels like a rush to get to the most iconic panels in the Uzumaki manga, which I can now see is a glaring issue in the first episode after finishing the whole anime.

As someone who’s more passingly familiar with the source material but knows its importance, I understand why there would be a focus on nailing those panels, even if the connective sinew is hard to chew. However, there are some creative ways to go about that would’ve made the most out of what the team had to work with. One very specific option comes to mind: an anthology.

By the time we hit the end, it FEELS like the production team has their feet in the trash can as they try to make room for more stuff.

In an anthology, I believe those key “these have to be here” moments (like the mosquito mothers) could’ve been given the space to breathe a little more. Maybe even tell the story out of order, too. And if I put my John Business hat on, these scant episodes could entice potential customers to pick up the manga if they haven’t already, as a bit of advertising for the books. That way, if Adult Swim wanted to do more in the faithful fashion they intended, they’d have a deep pool to return to.

But who knows if our current “content churn” media ecosystem (especially Warner Bros.‘ biome) would be too crazy about that idea.

Oh god, those CGI tornados!!! What looked worse, those tornados in episode 4 or the stock clip adjacent fire in episode 3?

Oh boy, they weren’t implemented all that wonderfully. I’ll say that for sure.

You bring up some interesting points that my buddies and I ideated at our Halloween party over the weekend. Do you think the Warner Bros./Discover merger had a direct impact on the quality of this project? The timeline would certainly add up, and I can see a more niche project like this one getting its budget slashed quickly as WB‘s leadership undervalues all forms of animation.

But I agree that an anthology, where episodes can be of varying lengths, would have been a better fit for Uzumaki. That way, more involved ideas can have the room they need to breathe, and some more visceral and quick-hitting plot points can land more sharply. It’d be a little tricky to fit different-length episodes into Toonami‘s programming block every week. Still, I watched this on HBO Max, and streaming platforms are PERFECT for media that doesn’t cleanly fit into established formats.

The merger could’ve influenced the final product, but I think it’s more than a whole 12-piece bucket of issues hit Uzumaki. First off, the pandemic dealt a major blow to the production. Secondly, I don’t see the suits as a big fan of Nagahama and his often expensive processes. Be it the CG animation here or Flowers of Evil‘s live-action footage, drawing over already created assets could seem overly flagrant to the most business-minded. I could easily see a higher-up with a crab in his pants going, “Can he, like, finish the rest with what’s already there?”

Then, when you consider any potential broadcast standards or considerations, Nagahama might be a little too arthouse for some Western cable television execs.

But that might just be why I like his work a lot, personally.

Which also raises the question: why put this series on cable, to begin with? Especially with its subject matter.

The anime became much less directed and thematically consistent as it went on. If nothing else, episodes 1 and 2 fully commit to body horror elements of Uzumaki, and then in episode 3, we see a horrific perversion of a pregnant woman with a sown-together belly and mosquito-stinger-like tongue who noticeably doesn’t have nipples.

Having taboo and recognizable elements of human anatomy present here would have made the horror and uncomfortableness of this storyline hit so much harder. Uzumaki as a final product is the result of a tremendous number of compromises, but this character design undermined the parts of the show that had been working and signaled to me that it’d be limping to the end from here on out.

I agree. There’s really something here. But in this specific jump to the screen, I can’t stop thinking about the horror classic we could’ve had.

Hopefully, this doesn’t turn into something of an… obsession.

Oh man, I would LOVE to go all the way down this—spiral-shaped—rabbit hole and figure out exactly where and how this production fell apart, but to turn that into an article would involve a volume of people going on the record that’s uncharacteristic of the medium production industry; so I should probably spiral into a different fixation.

One thing I did want to mention, though, is that I’ve seen a fair amount of chatter that blames Uzumaki‘s shortcomings on Western studios being involved in this project. I think that’s a really irresponsible comment to make without evidence or investigative reporting, as it feeds into manufactured culture war ideologies. Uzumaki does not suck because some people from outside of Japan worked on it. It sucks because of production issues that could—and frequently do—happen in any studio.

I wholeheartedly second you on this. Regardless of a creative work’s country of origin or where its artists are from, one truth is constant: producing anything is a herculean task.

Even though it wasn’t in ideal form, I’d give the team some applause for getting it done and out the door.

If nothing else, they made memorable art. We’re talking about it right now, after all! God knows that there are plenty of anime from this season that I won’t give a second thought to, and being forgettable is more damning than being bad.

Also, for folks who want to know why so many people were so excited about this anime, go check out the Uzumaki manga! Viz has dropped way more promotions for Junji Ito‘s body of work than WB did for this anime, which is a little hilarious in a sardonic way. Plus, Junji Ito seems like a genuinely cool dude, so people reading this should support his work directly if you’re so inclined.

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

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