Title: Uzumaki
Author: Junji Ito
First published March 7, 2000
653 pages, Hardcover
ISBN: 9781421561325 (ISBN10: 1421561328)
Rating: 4.44
Overview
Dark secrets lurk in the town of Kurouzu-cho, nestled along the foggy coast of Japan. Shuichi Saito, the shy boyfriend of Kirie Goshima, knows the truth that locals refuse to acknowledge – their town is cursed by the spirals.
These hypnotic, alluring patterns plague every corner of the town, causing madness and death. Uzumaki by Junji Ito is a spellbinding collection of horror manga that will take you on a twisted journey through the depths of terror.
Get ready to be sucked into a sinister whirlpool of fear and despair that will leave you gasping for breath.
About the Author
Junji Itō, a renowned Japanese horror manga artist, was born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963. He was influenced by his sister’s drawings and Kazuo Umezu’s comics at a young age and developed an interest in drawing horror comics.
Despite training as a dental technician after graduation, Itō continued his hobby of drawing horror comics, and even won the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.
Itō’s work often features obsessions with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, as seen in his collections Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror. In these comics, hair rebels against being cut off, girls catch a disease to become beautiful and then murder each other, and a woman tries to steal her sister’s skin after treating her own skin with lotion.
Itō’s universe is cruel and capricious, where characters become victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no reason or are punished disproportionately for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.
His most notable work, the three-volume Uzumaki, is about a town’s obsession with spirals. The book projects an effective atmosphere of creeping fear as the town’s inhabitants become less and less human, and more and more bizarre things begin to happen.
Before Uzumaki, Itō was best known for Tomie, a comic series about a beautiful, teasing, and eternally youthful high school girl who inspires her admirers to murder each other in fits of jealous rage. However, her body always regenerates, no matter how they try to dispose of it.
Since Tomie, many of Itō’s works have been adapted for TV and cinema.
Editoral Review
Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is a visually stunning and masterfully crafted horror manga that will send chills down your spine. First published in March 2000, Uzumaki has cemented itself as a classic in the genre, and for good reason – Ito’s ability to blend the supernatural with the mundane is a true marvel.
Ito has made a name for himself in the horror genre, and Uzumaki is a clear demonstration of his skill. The story follows Kirie, a young girl who lives in the small town of Kurzu-cho.
Her town, like many others, has its legends and superstitions, but when she notices strange occurrences happening all over town, things take a turn for the worse. Spirals, a seemingly innocuous shape, become the center of what can only be described as a nightmare.
The spirals are everywhere, and they’re all consuming. They slowly chip away at the sanity of those that live in Kurzu-cho, and it becomes clear that there’s no way out.
What’s so captivating about Uzumaki is how Ito manages to create a sense of unease and tension before things even start to get really bad. The spirals are introduced gradually, at first just a part of everyday life, but as the story goes on, it’s clear that they’re something much more insidious.
Ito’s illustrations are divinely unsettling, with spirals emanating from every surface imaginable, and the town’s inhabitants slowly succumbing to their madness. While the story is thrilling and at times downright terrifying, the characters themselves are where the narrative really shines.
Kirie is an excellent protagonist – level-headed, resourceful, and always willing to fight for what’s right. The other characters in the story are similarly well-crafted, each with their unique quirks and personalities.
Uzumaki isn’t without its flaws, however. The story is good, but it does occasionally suffer from uneven pacing, and some of the scares feel a little repetitive.
Despite these issues, Uzumaki is a vivid and captivating horror manga that’s sure to leave a lasting impression. Some may find the spirals to be a bit too bizarre, but it’s precisely that strangeness that makes Uzumaki so extraordinarily unique.
While Uzumaki is certainly not for the faint of heart, it’s a must-read for fans of horror manga, and a remarkable work of art. Overall, Uzumaki is a triumph of the horror manga genre.
Fans of Junji Ito will find much to love here, but even newcomers to the medium will find themselves enthralled by his masterful storytelling and impeccable art. Uzumaki is a tense and unsettling experience that’s well worth the read.
A score of 8 out of 10.
