“Uzumaki” Episode 1 (2024)
Running time: 24 minutes
TV-MA
DIRECTOR: Hiroshi Nagahama
WRITER: Aki Iazmi (based upon the manga by Junji Ito)
PRODUCERS: Jason DeMarco (executive producer) and Maki Terashima-Furuta
COMPOSER: Colin Stetson
ANIMATION/HORROR
Starring: (English dub voices) Abby Trott, Robbie Daymond, Cristina Valenzuela, Aaron LaPlante, Mona Marshall, Doug Stone, and Max Mittelman
“Uzumaki” is a four-episode, animated, horror television miniseries from director Hiroshi Nagahama. The series is a joint production between Cartoon Network's “Adult Swim” programming block and Production I.G USA, the American division of the Japanese animation studio, Production I.G. The first episode of Uzumaki made its debut on Adult Swim Saturday, September 28, 2024 and became available to stream on the Max service Sunday, September 29, 2024. There is both an English-language and Japanese-language version of this miniseries, and this review is based on the English version.
“Uzumaki” is an adaptation of the manga (Japanese comics), Uzumaki, originally published from 1998 to 1999 and created by Junji Ito. Uzumaki the anime is set in the coastal Japanese village where a high school couple confronts the spiral pattern that seems to be haunting the village.
“Uzumaki” Episode 1 opens in Kurouzu, a small Japanese coastal village where we meet Kirie Goshima (Abby Trott), a high school girl who is traveling to Kurouzu Station. There, she plans to meet her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito (Robbie Daymond). Upon his arrival, Shuichi seems withdrawn, and his moodiness apparently involves his father. It seems that Mr. Saito (Aaron LaPlante) has become obsessed with the whorled pattern known as the “spiral” (uzumaki).
Initially, Kirie laughs off Shuichi's concerns, but she eventually personally experiences Mr. Saito's weirdness. Soon, she is noticing strange and horrifying things herself. The most horrifying may involve her friend, the very popular teen girl, Azami Kurotani (Cristina Valenzuela).
Junji Ito's Uzumaki manga runs well over 600 pages, so the creators of its anime adaptation have streamlined the story in order to fit a narrative that won't be even one hundred minutes long. That doesn't bother me all that much as long as they capture the existential sense of dread and cosmic horror that is Uzumaki.
Uzumaki's animation is in black and white, not color, and the character and production design mimic Ito's drawing and graphic design style as closely as they can. In fact, the anime filmmakers' fidelity to Ito's aesthetic adds another layer of uncanny to this already uncanny series. So I can overlook, the fact that – judging by Episode 1 – this series does not adopt the hauntingly patient, measured, drawn-out pace of Ito's manga.
Much of the body horror that this anime depicts is as disturbing as that found in live-action body horror films. Combine that with persistently eerie sound design and it makes this one of the most chilling, scary, and troubling animated series every broadcast on American cable television.
The English voice performances are, quite frankly, superb – from the leads to the supporting players. They make it seem as if all the freaky things they are seeing are real, even surreal, but never fake and contrived. I won't spoil Uzumaki Episode 1 for those who have not yet seen it, but it ends with some body horror that had me pressed against the back of my couch.
A
★★★★ out of 4 stars
Sunday, September 29, 2024
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