Summary
The first episode of theUzumakianime blew everyone away. Impressive animation that elevated the manga, tense and nerve-wracking music, sound design, and excellent voice acting delivered on the terror an anime adaptation of Junji Ito’s masterpiece should live up to. But thesecond episode premiered to universal disappointment from fans. The animation and direction took a nose dive as a different studio and director took over the production.
There’sonly hearsay as to what happened behind the scenesthat caused such a shift in quality, but at the very least, episode 3 does improve on the disaster that episode 2 was. However, this may be too little, too late to save the anime.
Animation, Better But Not Great
An Effort Was Made
Episode 2 was a total disaster when it came to the animation. Episode 1 set a very high bar just for the follow-up to have an extreme downward slope. Episode 3 is animated and directed by the same staff, but it does look far better than Episode 2.The art is much more consistent and closer to the original manga. Animation is much more fluid and natural. Overall, the art department stepped up this week, but considering how low the anime fell last time, it could only go up.
Several scenes are delivered well with better art,but the overall eerie and dark feel established in episode 1 is virtually gone. The choppy art often distracts from the horror of the events in Kurouzo Town. Although this hasn’t been confirmed, the production came to a point during its hellish development that the anime was almost canceled, but they gave the project to a different studio altogether to salvage it. This would explain the sudden change in quality, and more importantly, the absence of director Hiroshi Nagahama, who hasn’t been credited as director since episode 2.
Music and Sound, The Saving Grace
Stetson Carries the Atmosphere
Thankfully, the music composed by Colin Stetson remains to be the best thing about the production. His style of subtle sound that crawls into your ear to submerge your senses in thehorror of the scenes is still effective and potent. You can tell he knows how to accompany Horror with his compositions. His work in Hereditary and The Menu shows why he was chosen for this project.
The sound design is also excellent, as hearing is incredibly important for the delivery of horror. Each important scene is held together by unnerving sound effects that properly convey the otherworldly nature of the Spiral curse. Disturbing moments are elevated as the raw and organic sounds are etched into the audience’s brain, helping out immensely while the animation sorely lacks.
Direction, Getting out of Control
Spiraling Pacing Gone Wrong
The production staff had explained beforehand that their intention behind the rapid pacing was to have it speed up with each episode, making the audience feel like they were inside a spiral with the hectic speed of events. While conceptually this idea sounds great, in execution this may have hurt the story more than it helped. There’s no room to breathe and process the events. Kirie and Shuichi simply go fromone horrific experience to the nextwith little to no acknowledgment of them. It looks as if Kirie is numb to all the chaos happening around her, and not just her, as stories just happen after another.
While this works in the original mangadue to the chapters each being dedicated to one story, cramming several different stories in one episode does nothing but hurt the impact of each one. Just like Kirie seemingly becomes numb to the horror, so does the audience, as there’s just too much happening constantly.
Episode 3 ofUzumaki: Spiral Into Horroris certainly an improvement over episode 2 when it comes to animation. However, the spiraling pacing only hurtsthe delivery of Ito’s work. The events have no time to let the audience process them truly. There’s no time to let the fact that several mothers became blood-sucking monsters and killed a lot of people sink in. As soon as that ends, Kirie just moves to the next horrible experience.
The improvement may be too little, too late to salvage what started as the breaking of the Junji Ito anime curse and then turned into yet another flop in the line. The Spiral curse may just be real after all.
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror
Cast
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror is an adaptation of Junji Ito’s acclaimed manga, directed by Hiroshi Nagahama. The series unfolds in the town of Kurôzu-cho where inexplicable events related to spirals plague the inhabitants, leading to terror and madness. Highlighting the psychological and supernatural, the show follows high school student Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito, as they confront the spiraling horrors that engulf their town.
