UZUMAKI

UZUMAKI: SPIRAL INTO HORROR (Max/Adult Swim) is a four-part miniseries based on Junjo Ito’s haunting manga about a Japanese town haunted by a “spiral curse.” After being disappointed by the 2000 live-action adaptation, I checked out this anime take and found it a pretty good adaptation, from the visuals to the quirky score.

The manga is a series of interconnected stories about Kirie, a teenage girl whose boyfriend, Shuichi, believes their town is haunted by uzumaki, the spiral and mesmerizing secret shape of the world. Time after time, she sees people become obsessed or infected by spirals. As the incidents mount, the spirals grow until becoming a whirlpool threatening to consume everything.

In some ways, the story reminded me of PI, a 1998 film about a man who discovers a number that is one of the names of God and drives him to the brink of madness. UZUMAKI has the same level of originality and strangeness, though it takes its concept much farther, straight to an unflinching, very satisfying finish.

The adaptation is basically the manga come to life. Fans of Ito’s work might be disappointed as it has a high fidelity to the original but periodically feels a little lifeless, though I went the other way, kind of wishing they’d interpreted the manga in a way that went deeper with character and otherwise put a fresh spin on it.

Overall, I liked it quite a bit. The anime was a great way to revisit this classic story. I hope you’ll check it out if you’re unfamiliar with Ito’s work.