Uzumaki

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.

Uzumaki is a series which I had very high expectations of to be the best horror anime of the famous manga artist Junji Ito. I was excited when the anime's first episode was released; even after the atrocious pacing, I loved the animation, sound design, and voice acting. I was hoping they kept the slow pacing just like manga or at least a close enough pacing... But who am I kidding? If you want to complete a whole manga in 4 episodes with just 20 to 30-minute episodes, the pacing will be worse. Let's go to the 2 nd episode... Bro, everything changed except pacing. Well, the pacing went even worse, and the animation was worse than any studio could have made. The animation felt like animators were given mere days to complete the episode. Well, also, guess what? The studio was changed after the first episode, and they gave it to the worst animators out there... How could you!?!?! You made the fans wait for years, and you gave us this; it's pathetic; I am so disappointed not only in the anime but also in myself for expecting the masterpiece manga to get a well-justified anime adaptation... Now I have no hope...the rest of the 2 episodes will be worse, and it won't even be worth looking at...

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.

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.

Most of the good reviews are of the 1st ep. Which by itself, wasn't that good considering the pretty bad pacing, the only thing that saved it was the music and animation. The second ep is out now and oh boy... the pacing... is absolutely terrible, even worse than the 1st, they skip chapters like I skip my homework. They just put creepy scene after creepy scene after creepy scene witouth much care of how they each play with each other, its almost like they're just trying to meet the quota or notebook checking what creepy scenes they got to include, instead of trying to make any kind of buildup to make them actually work. The animation took a real nosedive too, and this is all on ep2... (to note that the anime has 4 eps only and was postponed like 3 times or something...) how is this even possible, did they waste all their budget on ep 1?

I will be watching the final 2 eps, but honestly, I just really hope that I'm wrong and they didn't waste all their budget on ep 1 animation.......... damn, I'm really disappointed.