Halloween is just around the corner, and so every streaming network is pulling out their scariest tricks and treats. But Adult Swim, the mature cartoon channel that has played some of the best tricks on its audience in recent years, may have the most unnerving show on television. On September 28, the channel premiered a horror anime called Uzumaki (Japanese for “vortex”) on its Toonami block. Directed by Hiroshi Naghama, this anime adapts the horror manga of the same name created by Junji Ito, a creator known for his drawings of body horror and overall weird ideas. While there are a couple of issues with its execution, Uzumaki is a delightful watch for those with dark tastes.
The first episode story helps ease the audience into the world. The anime is about Kirie and Shuichi as they try to survive their town, which has recently become inundated with spirals—rivers make random spirals, twisters randomly form in the streets, and even the stems of flowers twist into spirals. Shuichi has to deal with his father’s growing obsession with spirals as a girl becomes obsessed with him. The mania of these characters highlights the horror of Ito’s graphic designs of people with their heads caved in by spirals and spiral growths erupting from their bodies.
The story is almost completely overshadowed by the animation, which is beautiful and looks like the original manga was brought to life. Every frame is expertly (if sometimes grotesquely) detailed. The choice to leave the animation in the black and white of the manga allows the show to capture both the shading that goes into the scenes and the darkness of the story.
However, the story isn’t perfect. The episode feels rushed because it tries to fit two stories from the manga and two new stories into one episode. Two of these plot threads were well done and set up what is going to be happening in the next episode quite well; the other two felt like they were trying to adjust for details that were in the book but not expanded on in the anime, and these felt like something was missing. The characters are also kind of flat due to the little time building onto them in the first episode, but this will hopefully be fixed in later episodes.
Something that does help bring the characters alive is the amazing voice acting. Aaron LaPlante, who is known for his work as Spear from Primal, plays the English voice for Shuichi’s father and makes the character sound eerie, which makes almost every scene with him very uncomfortable to watch. The character’s reaction to the horrors they are seeing is also very well represented.
While held back by the rushed story, Uzumaki is still a good time for horror lovers. That being said, anybody who doesn’t enjoy blood, body horror, or disturbing media should skip this one as it’s images are pure, wonderful nightmare fuel.
