Uzumaki is a horror manga written and illustrated by critically acclaimed horror artist Ito, Junji and in anticipation of the upcoming anime adaption I decided to give it a read.

The story is set in a small town of Kurouzu-cho, following a young girl Goshima, Kirie and her boyfriend Saito, Suuichi as their town and the residents are being plagued and driven to madness by the “spiral curse”.

Uzumaki’s core horror focus are spirals, the various supernatural tragedies related to them and the madness the residents succumb to. On first hearing it makes you wonder how such a concept could work for horror, but Junji Ito finds various creative ways of doing so, it is very commendable. Successfully and creatively being able to visually disturb the reader on various degrees.

A very efficient horror technique that Junji Ito uses and is without a doubt better than any author I’ve seen before is body horror. Body horror the disturbing and horrifying imagery regarding the human body. I have struggled to find an artist that is able to make as horrifying examples as Junji Ito.

It works to his favor even more with the fantastic artwork, when nothing is happening the artwork looks average, but when it wants to disturb you or show detail landscape, it looks exceptional.

Uzumaki is fairly short being only 3 volumes long, volumes 1-2 have an episodic structure each having a different horror theme focus but in entirety all are connected by the spiral curse. While the last volume is an arc of the characters attempting to escape from the town. I did find it a bit baffling how the main characters only decided on escaping once there was no way of escaping despite all the horrific stuff they have witnessed.

Unfortunately, while Uzumaki is very disturbing in its themes, art and sanity deprived characters. Much of the horror really is just creepy imagery rather than psychological or anything deeper. Ryukishi07’s Higurashi, is a prime example of a horror that is able to scare you on a psychological and deeper level rather than by just imagery, while having a great cast of characters.

As for the characters of Uzumaki, they’re nothing of note worthy to mention, they don’t really have much characterization or much development, for a story like this it would’ve been more appreciative if Junji Ito spent the time to flesh them out more. A part of makes a horror good is having attachments to the characters.

Overall Uzumaki was a good and entertaining read, definitely interested in seeing how the anime will adapt the material. I would still recommend giving it a read, it is short and fun. I’m giving Uzumaki a 7/10.