Uzumaki

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'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.

This is a great adaption so far based off one episode. It takes about 4 or 5 chapters of the manga and tries to string them together as if they are all happening simultaneously. The two main stories in episode 1, the Dad's spiral problem and the girl with the crescent tatoo, are completed in this episode but they also throw in the spiral boy that goes to school and add some of the Mom chapter. I can already see the chapter they are going to pair the rest of the Mom story up with and I'm excited to see how they do it.

If you don't know what I'm talking about that's fine, just know these stories unlike the manga are now all being told next to eachother instead of the primary focus of each chapter that they were in the manga.

This... is an interesting choice. I think they pull it off fine. It makes more sense that these things would be going together. Unfortunately this makes the series seem rushed, and at 4 episodes you know there will be some cut content from the manga. So how much is cut in episode 1... well not much, almost everything from the first chapter is in there, but with so many things going on it feels rushed.

Animation, sound, and voice acting are all top notch, so despite me feeling the series is rushed I"m looking forward to how they weave everything together as they move on.

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...

If episode 2-4 were the same quality of the first episode I'd be willing to rate this an 8 or 9 but the quality fell off a cliff after the first episode. And the pacing ruins any tension the show is trying to build. So it just goes from wacky thing to wacky thing.

This should have been a non-traditional run length with stories that needed to be longer would be longer episodes and stories that were more side stories wouldn't feel the need to maintain a full episode length. But at least then the story would be contained.

Instead this anime adaptation feels like it happens in a matter of days instead of a longer period. It's just a shame because this manga of all of Junji Ito's works deserved a faithful adaptation.