Uzumaki || Review [TW : graphic descriptions, Spoiler Alert]

I just finished watching this horror series by Junji Ito called Uzumaki, which simply translates to "Spiral." Initially, I thought it would be one of those typical horror anime—nothing too deep, nothing too mind-blowing, just some eerie visuals and predictable scares. But once I started watching, I realized it was far beyond simple horror. It was crooked, twisted, and everything I haven't watched in a while. That’s what motivates me to write this review, like I do for most anime series I watch. But before we begin with the review, I'd just like to give a small trigger warning since the anime itself consists of disturbing and graphic scenes. Although I don't aim to make this blog with graphic descriptions and stuff, I cant guarantee the entire blog being clean because you know, the anime itself is a bit crazy so if it falls on sometime somewhere, that's what the trigger warning is for. so anyways, lets get started with this.

So this anime is about this small coastal town of Kurouzu-cho which is cursed by nature. The protagonist here is a girl named Kirie Goshima and her (good looking) boyfriend Shuichi Saito. Being the protagonists, they're first ones to notice this odd curse, where these people in the entire town are growing to have this weird and unsettling obsession with spirals. It specifically begins with Shuichi's father who's one of those people who are obsessed with spirals. It includes him staring at spirals for long hours, his eyes gobbling independently of each other in a grotesque spiralling manner and eventually, he ends up in a rather horrific death where he spirals into a huge circle tub to death. And moving forward, it all simply gets more and more crooked and crazy. Rather, its just the beginning of a mind boggling curse that ruins the entirety of humanity. Everywhere, the bodies are twisting and contorting. Many people are turning into snails, mating and then giving birth to more snails. The clouds in the sky align into a disturbing pattern of spirals including the wind and the storms and the tornadoes. Everything is crazy and this huge spiral curse is making people meet their inevitable and grotesque end. What I grow to notice is that the curse itself isn't so scary but the inevitability of it is what is horrifying. A lot of curses exists in the anime world but they are also capable of being ended by some sort of help but this curse, its just beyond understanding and before anyone can put their mind on it, they've already died into a spiral. The more I watched it, the more it tightened its grip over me and I just couldn't believe something so crooked, so terrifying is able to get out of a human's mind, of course, Junji Ito. Its like this slow descent of madness and that indeed is the prime reason why this anime is so scary and terrifying.

Our protagonist, Kirie Goshima, is obviously the one who's centered around this bizzare-ity of a curse. She's a pretty school girl who lives the cruel fate of witnessing the spiralling horrors of the curse in her town until she herself gets sucked up into it. In some other horror anime, you might find the protagonists looking for ways to fight back but Kirie and Suichi, they don't have any way they can use to fight back. They're just stuck inside this endless loop of nightmares which is inescapable and just doesn't come to an end. Shuichi, he is specifically the first person to sense this curse, particularly through his father. He knows that something's terribly wrong with the town and in the entirety of the series, he can bee seen convincing Kirie to leave the town before its too late, but then, escaping isn't easy either. The town just wont let go off the clutches of the curse. In my opinion, the side characters have much more disturbing stories and scenes or to be specific, the side characters are the primary sources of the depiction of how bad this curse can be. Every episode focuses on the gruesome impacts of the curse. For example, the people who turn into snails and then mate to form more snails, the people who eat the snails because the meat is too delicious to miss on, then two lovers who intertwine with each other like snakes to unite. And then the pregnant ladies who are bit by mosquitoes and every night, they kill the patients to drink of their blood, following the notion that pregnant female mosquitoes drink blood to nurture their eggs. That was personally the most horrific episode for me, Then their are also the newborns who desire to go back into the womb of their mothers and a huge placenta grows out of their umbilical cords. Then there's also people intertying with each other in the row houses because there's no space and also that one episode where the girls grow a hypnotic vortex out of their hair, one of them being Kirie as well who's eventually saved by Shuichi as he cuts her hair down. Every character shows how doomed this town really is.

If the anime itself wasn't eerie and scary and unsettling, the animation style just adds more to the fear factor. The animation style being black and white with a different kind of touch to it, horrific, eerie and Junji Ito style, which mimics the manga itself. It just gives the anime a more haunting feel and vibe. Its a blend of an eerie stillness, the tension that burns slowly, and then the unsettling characters, and vibes and everything, it just turns into a nightmare. I found the animation style to be truly terrifying and I was content as well. But only when I googled the anime was when I found out that people weren't satisfied with the animation style and claimed that the details and portrayal only degraded with every episode and that it didn't live true to the manga. Maybe because I don't understand very well the intricacies of art and depictions but I failed to notice any of the degradation in the anime style and I enjoyed the entirety of it.

Well, I completed this anime series in 24 hours and I can say that its truly a gripping tale of a grotesque curse that doomed an entire town. I couldn't understand a few parts of the anime, specifically the ones in the last episode but for the majority of it, I was thrilled at the depiction of the curse and all the atrocities that these people bared by the "grace" of this curse. The characters do a great job portraying the horrific-ness of the impacts od this curse, and chills me to my bones to actually see that happening. The anime sometimes becomes a bit difficult to navigate, especially the last episode for me but overall, it maintains that chilly vibe and lets you peek into the twisted spiral of the curse. Its a fairly decent one time watch which you can complete watching in mere 2 hours ig and can enjoy it as well.

Hey guys, this blog comes to an end here and I'm sorry for all that yapping but this is my review and I hope you guys enjoyed reading. I apologize for the graphical descriptions I randomly dropped in which i had initially decided not to but they just naturally fell down on it which cant be helped either since the anime is what is triggering itself. Rest, do let me know if you plan on watching this or your opinions and thoughts if you've already watched it. That's all and see you in the next blog, peace out.