When I saw an image of Uzumaki it grabbed my attention as it looked like something different and unique. I later found out it was a horror manga that had an anime, and decided to check it out. Had I known more about this spiral theme perhaps I would’ve never bothered. Happy that I did and I spiraled out of control to find everything related to this Japanese horror franchise.
The manga is only 3 volumes which you can get in a complete edition. It features the best explained version of the story and what is going on and also relationships. The artwork is also at its highest creepy factor. I had never really read a horror manga before and well I can understand the appeal,
The anime was a lesser but still good adaptation, I like the black white style as it kept the crepy factor. In fact I think it also helps it look like the manga, I would love to see other anime adopt the black and white style. The story is a bit rushed and emotional scenes or characters are easy to lose a track off at only 4 episodes. But even with that you can still feel the creep factor with the whirls and swirls. It’s still disturbing and some scenes even more so. I think a bit more time would’ve worked better to help understand what was going on and perhaps a bigger budget but I think it’s a solid adaptation, the smaller mistakes are not as noticeable.
uzumaki 2000 movie takes elements from the manga but also rearranges them and mixes things up. Some of the choices actually make sense if you don’t try to connect it with what went on in the manga. In a way it gives a different but still interesting interpretation. The horror is not as felt here, the dim lighting does give it a black and white type of look which i like. It’s condensed and gives a different take that is good. I can only imagine what they could do with today’s tech.
There are two video games both for the Wonderswan, it being a black and white handheld actually help the thematic and mood of the manga. Uzumaki Denshi Kaiki Hen is a visual novel game that adapts the manga for the most part from what I can see and feels just as creepy. Uzumaki Noroi Simulation is a non traditional sim game where you spread the spiral curse around the town, this one looks both interesting and creepy at the same time.
Overall It’s a good story, not one I can particularly love because of how creepy it is. The things that happen keep escalating and becoming more and further disturbing. Unsure how much sense the story actually makes in the end but logic is not something you’ll think too much of. Worth a look if you want to feel uneasy. 𖦹꩜˚꩜