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:O

Yayyyy! Yippeee! Thank you!

I’ve just realized that Shuichi Saito doesn’t smile even once in the manga and that is a CRIME

I want my boy to smile and be happy :(((((

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Reminder that I will not stand for any Kirie slander with the anime out. She had her reasons to stay in town, and there’s no guarantee her and Shuichi would even be able to leave town if they tried, and no guarantee that leaving would keep them safe from the curse. Remember how Kirie and Shiho talked about how citizens from Kurozou-cho being cremated in other towns still made spiral smoke clouds in the sky? The spiral would have followed them wherever they went, the point is that there is no escape. Once you’re in the spiral you can’t go back, you’ll always be drawn to the center.

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For all its faults, the Uzumaki anime at least got Kirie and Shuichi right. Which is for me one of the story’s greatest strenghts. I do wish they had kept more scenes of Kirie being protective of Shuichi, but the anime communicates well that they love each other and would do anything for each other.

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Maybe in another universe...

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Uzumaki episode 4 review

Spoiler warning for this episode

I'll admit, I was reluctant to watch this episode because I was afraid it would be as bad as episode 2 and 3. But it was actually pretty good.

So they skipped over the butterfly chapter with the kids. If only they had learned that lesson earlier, but I'm not gonna keep complaining about the pacing of previous episodes. What I will be sad they skipped over is the old map of the town. Without it, it just seems like Shuichi is wildly guessing the nature of the curse. Another minor thing is the people in the row houses asking Kirie, Shuichi and Chie to help them dispose of the dead body, but other than that, this episode was extremely faithful to the manga.

The animation is good again, which I'm so thankful for. The rotoscoping is back, hooray! And the effects of the whirlwinds are so good, the attention to detail as every quick movement is complimented by a whirlwind is great. Of course there are a few moments where it drops, like when Shuichi falls down the staircase, but overall pretty decent. And I liked the effect they used when Kirie reaches the heart of the spiral.

The post-credit scene showing the cycle repeating was a cool touch. I like the design of the new characters, and it leaves room to speculate if it's possible to escape the curse, or if it will continue the same way every time.

Overall, I'm very happy with this episode.

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SECRET ADMIRER

My headcanon. One of Shuichi's hobbies when he was younger was drawing, usually birds, landscapes, ponds. However, he had his favorites.

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Studio Fugaku (the guys who made the first episode) are the ones making the final episode, and Nagahama is back for storyboards. We might be so back

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Forgot to put this in my review, but the town really just left Sekino’s body to rot in the anime? That’s messed up

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Uzumaki episode 3 review

Spoiler warning for this episode

Okay, so this episode wasn't as bad as episode 2, at least. The animation is a little better, and the impactful moments get a little more weight than in episode 2. But I'm not here to compare this episode to the last. I'm going to talk about it as it is.

This episode covers the hospital arc, as expected. I also expected the anime to combine it with the end of Mrs. Saito. But even though it takes up a big part of the runtime, it still feels like it went by too fast. This is another argument for how this anime should have been given more episodes.

The firing effect section was disappointing for me. It's one of my favorite chapters in the manga because it contains one of the best quotes in the story: "We try our best with human hands, but sometimes nature can create things beyond our imagination. After all, most shapes are really patterns, but we can only see a piece of them at a time." This quote from Mr Goshima is important because Uzumaki is a piece of cosmic horror, and one of the biggest themes of cosmic horror as a genre is forces beyond what humans can comprehend. And it foreshadows that it's already too late to escape town because the spiral is already everywhere, we're only witnessing pieces of it at a time.

It also skipped over some great character moments that are in the firing effect. Kirie forcibly dragging Shuichi to her house is replaced by Mitsuo pulling him along, we don't get to see Shuichi running away and throwing up after eating from the spiral plate, or Kirie yelling at her dad for serving Shuichi food from that plate. And the fact that the clay comes from dragonfly pond doesn't come up in dialogue either. Shuichi calling Kirie because he felt lonely isn't there either. It just felt like they adapted the chapter with none of the depth that it had in the manga.

The typhoon chapter also changes things by having Shuichi being the one coming to Kirie's house in the storm instead of the reverse. It's a change that I don't like, since Kirie going out in the storm to make sure Shuichi has food is part of why I like their relationship so much. We didn't get Shuichi predicting the storm was coming either, or their nice quiet moment at the beach together.

Now for a part that I did like. The way they adapted chapter 13, "the house" was neat, even though a lot of details were skipped. Namely, because in the anime, Shuichi starts living with them in the row house. Though he doesn't speak a lot in this section, it's nice to see that he's included and is staying with Kirie. It makes sense that he would want to stay with the family to look after her, and I'm guessing his house was destroyed by the typhoon in this one. We don't get the Goshimas being temporarily infected with the spiral, but Wakabayashi's transformation is scary and effective.

Then there's Jack in the box. Yeah, he's here too, I guess. He just comes in at the end, does a few bounces and then falls apart. If they weren't going to do his part properly, then he shouldn't have been included, because the ending of the episode would have been fine without him.

Things that I liked:

Junji Ito himself voicing the typhoon was neat. Shuichi having more interactions with Kirie's family was also neat. Though I said the hospital arc went by fast, I actually think it was okay. The pregnant women were creepy, and Shuichi being with Kirie when the "mushroom" twist was revealed was pretty cool.

Overall, it's an okay episode. It's a big improvement from episode 2 at least. And I'm feeling slightly more optimistic about the end of the anime.

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So episode 3 is made by the same guys who made episode 2. I’m not happy about this. My only hope is that the last episode was made by the studio making episode 1, and even that might not be able to save this anime

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My silver lining with the whole Uzumaki anime mismanagement is that I hope the new fans watching it decide to read the manga so they can read the story in its full glory. I want this story to be known for more than just its drop in animation quality, and seen for the amazing horror manga it is

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I think there's something wrong with my copy of Disco Elysium...

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Seeing how the quality of the Uzumaki anime declined, I'm kind of tempted to watch bad adaptations of other Junji Ito works. I'm particularly interested in the Uzumaki live action movie and the Gyo animated movie. Does anyone know where I can find these?

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So appearantly episode 2 was outsourced to a different studio and had a different director, and that’s why it looks bad. Holy mother of mismanagement. I’m genuinely upset about this

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Uzumaki episode 2 review

Spoiler warning for this episode. Also, I get angry in this one so be warned for some rambling.

Wow, talk about quality drop of the decade. I had high hopes for this anime, as you can tell from my previous posts. The first episode was amazing, and did wonderful rotoscope animation with high-quality movement and expressions, imitating Ito's style well. This episode didn't do that.

Immediately when I started this episode I saw the quality drop. The backgrounds and character models are significantly less detailed, the animation took a nosedive, and the pacing that I was mostly okay with in the first episode became downright bad in this one.

First thing I'll address: the animation quality. I praised the animation in the first episode because it was smooth and cleanly blended in with the backrounds and the movements were natural. In this episode it just looks like transparent animation cels being pasted on the screen. Moments that should be impactful are brought down by it. In one instance they even resorted to shaking a still frame. Some moments make it look like the video solution downgraded.

Second: the models. The character models are way less detailed, and look worse than the first episode. They are way less expressive, and the characters don't emote a lot. We the audience have a harder time interpreting the character's emotions because of this.

And then there's the pacing. Because so much is happening this episode, none of the scary moments felt impactful for me. And Sekino's motivation and desire to be the center of attention feels like it comes out of nowhere, instead of it being established in the manga. And we're seriously doing the hospital arc before concluding mrs. Saito's story? Or the firing effect?

I may sound harsh on this episode, but after waiting five years for this anime, I feel I have a right to complain. We've been told for five years that they're doing everything to make this anime good. And maybe they did, I don't know the details of the production and the complications that might have happened. But our expectations for this anime were high, and the high quality of the first episode only makes me angrier at the nosedive this episode took.

This just proves my concerns about the episode lengths correct. Uzumaki is a slow burn, and you can't cram everything into just four episodes and think it'll turn out as well as the manga. Uzumaki is a manga that should have 12 episodes at the very least. I want to give the creators the benefit of the doubt and assume it was some higher-ups decision to handle things this way, but since I don't have that information I can't make conclusions like that. This episode was handled poorly.

Was there anything redeemable in this episode? Well, the voice acting is still good. And one moment I actually liked was that after Shuichi cut Kirie's hair, he acted concerned when she got up right away to help Yoriko and Kazunori. It was cute. It was nice that he helped her get up and supported her. I'm glad we're getting moments like that. Shuichi you will forever be famous as horror manga's best boyfriend. And I liked that there was a moment of Kirie being kind to snail Katayama.

Let's hope episode 3 and 4 are better, because I'm really disappointed right now.

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Uzumaki episode 1 review

So I found the time to watch the new episode today, and I have some thoughts.

Spoiler warning for those who haven't seen it yet.

First of all, the animation looks amazing. The black-and-white really benefits the atmosphere, and it imitates Ito's style well. The rotoscope animation is very smooth and does a good job of giving the characters a good range of expressions. It's easy to tell that the animators put a lot of work into the art and animation. I liked how they added little details like Kirie blinking her eyes trying to move her eyes independently when Shuichi talked about his father doing so.

The voice actors did a great job too. The voices fit the characters, and everyone did a good job of portraying the emotions the characters were feeling. Especially Mrs. Saito, who delivered some fantastic screams of horror.

Then there's the pacing. Since it is a four-episode series, it's only natural that they had to fit in a lot in each episode. So having the first episode cover chapter 1, the first half of chapter 2, chapter 3, and the beginning of chapter 8 was a choice I think was smart. One of the biggest criticisms I've seen of the Uzumaki manga is that it's too episodic and that characters seem to forget the horrors they've seen every new chapter (which is debatable but not the point of this post), having multiple things happen in one episode gives the series a bigger sense of urgency. And I liked the choice of Azami taking the bus to Mr. Saito's funeral. It shows her manipulative nature by appearing kind to Kirie, when it was an excuse to see Shuichi.

Though personally, I think some scenes went by too quickly, but I suppose it's harder to linger on a shot and let the horror really sink in in an anime, especially when you're limited to four episodes. I wish we had more episodes so we could let more scenes sink in, however, because Uzumaki has some nice quiet moments that I really enjoy.

And because the series is limited to four episodes, we do miss out on some details that I really enjoy from the manga. Like how in the manga Azami rents an apartment in Kurouzu-cho so she can harass Shuichi at night and bang on his door. A lot of Azami's behavior just wasn't adapted. And the scene of Mr. Saito getting violent towards his wife when she threw away his spiral collection was sadly lost, too.

And little details like Mr. Saito telling Kirie that Shuichi's not home when she comes to deliver the bowl to him, or Kirie and Shuichi calling each other about Azami and Okada. Those are very small details, but they tell a lot about Kirie and Shuichi's relationship. They inform us that Kirie and Shuichi spend a lot of time together and they're used to visiting each other, and that they're open and communicate clearly with each other. And I really miss the scene of Kirie telling Azami to stop bothering Shuichi and to back off from her boyfriend.

A detail that I understand they changed is that Azami first sees Shuichi when she goes with Kirie to meet him at the train station. It's pretty natural, since in that scene, Azami is just going to the train station to get home. And since Mrs. Saito's not dead yet, it makes sense that Shuichi's not reclusive yet and is still taking the train home from school.

For all the differences from the manga, I'm enjoying the anime so far. I'm excited for what they do for the rest of the series.

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I won't be able to watch the episodes of Uzumaki when they come out because I'll be working, so right now I'm listening to the official soundtrack, which sounds great.