Uzumaki

Uzumaki was the first manga I've read and upon hearing it was getting an anime adaptation back in 2019 I was excited. Especially after seing the first teaser displaying the gorgeous animation. Five years and three delays later I was kinda let down by episode 1. The pacing was waaay to fast for me to connect with the characters and for any horror to be felt. The best horror works; be it movies, games or novels takes their time and simmer up to a boil slowly when this was speeding down a highway in 200km/h covering like 3-4 chapters of the original manga in roughly 20 minutes. However the music by Colin Stetson and the previously mentioned animation work was amazing. That was when I heard that the anime only would be 4 episodes long... a bit bummed out about that I started watching episode 2. That's when I realized that Uzumaki (the anime) is a total and utter failure. Apparently a new animation studio were chosen for this episode and now the animation looks laughably cheap and bad. Like vomit in a pile of manure. And full of animation errors. I am absolutely gutted by this. One of the reasons for delaying the anime three times were, and I quote: "... we don't want to compromise its quality by delivering a mediocre final product." Oh boy, that ship has sailed. This is not a mediocre product, this is just straight up bad. Really bad. I will probably still watch episode 3 and 4, but not because I have any faith that it will be getting any better after this, but because I want to see how far down the spiral of embarrassment this actually goes.

Well I really want to give this a 7 because this isn't horrible, but I can't. This is a okayish series, but the worst thing is that it's just super disappointing.

It started well with the first episode. It was in my opinion pretty great. Then the drop in quality in episode 2 was very disappointing. Then the quality never got better for the rest of the series.

Animation quality dropped the most, but the pacing also got worse. I have to say though that episode 3 did have okay pacing, but still the animation quality was poor. Episode 2 and 4 felt pretty rushed in my opinion and had pretty bad pacing.

So is this series worth watching? Maybe. It's a short series and if you want to watch a okayish horror anime it might be worth checking out otherwise don't bother.

I'll start with praising the first episode which was absolutely flawless, chilling and so beautiful to look at as what followed was just not what you would expect.

It seamlessly begins to suck you in to this plagued town where the people's paranoia, unsettling indifference to the happenings quickly crawls under your skin.

The atmosphere is oddly very entertaining as events don't take long to escalate. It was elevated by the exceptionally creepy music by Colin Stetson which merges with the scenes so accurately, it partially creates the mood for the show.

The artstyle remains remarkably consistent and polished in almost every frame making the main characters especially the girls very pretty and attractive.

Uzumaki has been a much anticipated horror manga adaptation since its first trailer was released by Toonami in late August 2019. That alone was so chilling and eerie, which was basically a prelude to only episode 1.

But despite how good episode 1 was, its horrifying how awful the animation becomes in episodes 2 & 3... Its just so jarring and disheartening becasue you see how beautiful and perfectly paced episode 1 was, that whatever the material is in subsequent episodes, it just seems cheap and unrefined, because the quality of animation is simply gone.

Personally, I felt like I was almost watching a different anime as it has lost most of its charm, the grounded human psyche element, and had devolved into bizarre out-of-nowhere transformations that have very little substance or depth to them besides poorly rendered bodyhorror and appalment, followed by sudden scene changes without closure that destroys immersion in the story. And the art continues to get rigid and poorly rendered.

It makes these following episodes almost unwatchable and sadly a viewer may be left reeling from how bad they look in comparison to the gorgeous and perfect episode 1.

I would say Episode 1 is a must watch but after 5 Years working on 4 Episodes, they should have given the same treatment to the rest of series... 4:05am.

I'm a fan of this kind of horror setup-the slow, creeping dread and the bizarre, nightmarish world and that's probably what kept me hooked for as long as it did. But the lackluster execution in later episodes really started to take away from the experience.

In terms of the art style, the first episode showed so much promise. The use of rotoscoping, while unusual for anime, fit the eerie, unsettling nature of Junji Ito's story. It added a layer of surrealism that felt appropriate for the twisted world of Uzumaki. But after that, the art became more of a distraction than an enhancement. The movements felt stiff and unnatural, and the once eerie tone of the show quickly faded into frustration. It's disappointing because the story deserves better, and the art should have elevated the horror instead of dragging it down.

In the end, this adaptation leaves much to be desired. If you're truly interested in experiencing the twisted world of Uzumaki, you're better off sticking with the manga. At least there, the horror comes through as intended.

The anime's biggest flaw is pacing, it lacks coherence, it's like the purpose of this show is just to animate Ito's scenes from the manga like a kill count compilation rather than telling the story with more clarity, the worse of all is that those scenes only went better on ep1, the rest were mostly "ok" or "meh...". To give more clarity about the absurdity the manga has 19 CHAPTERS it was shortened to 4 EPISODES each with 20 min and ep4 having 30 min.

My expectations on the anime were high, it took 6 years to develop this thing, just to have the best official adaptation of Junji Ito only in the first Episode. Indeed a curse on Adult Swim animes, starts great and then falls flat at the end just like Ninja Kamui or Housing Complex C (which was flat all the way). I didn't watched the other shows like R&M anime or FLCL reboot but as I have seen community review are just not nice with these shows.

Continue to make your west shows Adult Swim, stay away of Japan.

But I am giving it a 5 because for one thing this anime served purpose was to introduce people into Junji Ito's work. Read the original Uzumaki manga for yall that is reading this and perhaps read his other entries as well.

Until then we wait for a Junji Ito adaptation to fall in good hands...