Here's what Uzumaki Anime got right and where it fell flat

Key takeaways

• Junji Ito's unique horror style makes it difficult to properly adapt his works into anime due to intense fan scrutiny.
• The Uzumaki adaptation showed promise initially but suffered a noticeable drop in quality in subsequent episodes.
• Diehard Junji Ito fans are generally unhappy with adaptations, but the anime has found popularity among horror enthusiasts new to his work.

Junji Ito is no stranger to controversial anime adaptations. The Junji Ito collection anthology series from last year bombed among manga fans for ruining the mood Junji Ito is known for. Other attempts to adapt his work have met a similar fate; the Gyo The film is almost universally hated for the same reason. Junji Ito's horror manga is so successful because of a unique, eerie and unsettling atmosphere that no one else in the horror manga space has come close to mastering. This unfortunately also means that no one in the anime space has managed to adapt his work “properly”, due to the fact that the uniqueness of his style is difficult to convey or recreate in a traditional anime style.

It's been here lately Uzumaki customization comes in. Done in the original black and white manga-like art style, and initially with scene-by-scene accuracy, one would think that this adaptation finally did Junji Ito justice. But this 4-episode miniseries seems to have teased and upset many fans, for entirely new reasons than previous Junji Ito adaptations. Is this just a case of fans being too picky, or is it really impossible to properly adapt Junji Ito's work?

The anime showed promise, but…

Did all the effort go into the first episode?

One of the biggest complaints for this adaptation was the change in quality throughout the episodes. The first episode was practically revered online; the animation was flawless and smooth, with frames that looked almost exactly like the manga panels they adapted. The dialogue lines were exactly as they were in the manga. It was every Junji Ito fan's dream, which finally seemed to come true. Junji Ito's horror relies heavily on imagery and aesthetics to convey its terror. The problems don't start to show until after the first episode. There is a noticeable drop in quality starting with the second episode and continues throughout the rest of the limited series.

“The sea doesn't look like this from Midoriyama-shi, where I go to school. And that black lighthouse… it's evil. The looming mountains behind us… the winding streets… everything gets on my nerves. Yes, winding … I am winding … spirals … this city is polluted with spirals …”

Details become less intricate, outside of notable iconic scenes from the original manga, such as the Tongue Spiral and Azami's moon-shaped scar swallowing her face, which remained the same quality as the first episode originally established. This suggested that the drop in quality was somewhat intentional or at least acknowledged by the staff of the series, as the same level of care and attention was given to specific iconic scenes from the manga and therefore still obtainable under the right circumstances. While there are theories that this is due to understaffing or an overworked team with limited time, which are the same theories attributed to how the show was delayed multiple times, there are no confirmed reasons for this noticeable drop in quality or acknowledgment of this from the staff who worked on the anime.

Did Anime make up for it?

It depends on the audience

When it comes to die-hard Junji Ito fans, as a whole, they are not happy with this adaptation. While most agree that this is the best Junji Ito adaptation to date, they also generally agree that it loses the magical horror spark that Junji Ito is known for. The quiet eeriness and intense unease that builds as a reader flips from one extreme page to the next of Junji Ito's manga still proves an impossible feat to match for someone watching a smooth and consistent anime with clean lines and background music.

That said, the anime seems to be incredibly popular among horror enthusiasts unfamiliar with the source material. On its own, it has a very unique style of horror that is hard to come by, in animated form, and readily available on Netflix for horror fans everywhere. It still has a cohesive story with weird twists (pun intended) that the average horror audience isn't used to, and comes with an incredibly unique form of body horror. Animated horror is also hard to come by, which is why many horror fans have jumped at the chance to watch, overlooking minor complaints along the way for such a novelty in the genre.

Will there ever be a universally acclaimed Junji Ito adaptation?

Probably not, but this is what it takes to happen

Just like what was touched on earlier in this article, Junji ito has a deeply specific style in his horror manga that is seemingly impossible to replicate. Much of the problem lies in the art style that contributes to the gruesome scenes and moments in his stories. Another issue is the pace; Junji Ito often jumps from one subject to another to bring out the tension, something that would not work in a typical linear form of storytelling preferred by anime audiences.

A large majority of Junji Ito's works are short stories, and while Uzumaki is an exception to that rule, other adaptations of Junji Ito's works might work better as short films or anthologies. Although it will not be liked by the general audience, this is probably the only path to accuracy. If the quality of the first episode of the Uzumaki series could be combined with an anthology or short film format for future Junji Ito adaptations, it could bridge the gap between general horror audiences and Junji Ito superfans. However, there is only one way to find out.

You can watch Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror on Max, the HBO streaming service.