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A review by beaconatnight
Uzumaki by Junji Ito
5.0
In Uzumaki, everything is twisted. Minds are twisted by the most shocking of events. Bodies are physically twisted. Even time is twisted. Spiral structures in nature put their mark on unwary individuals and possessed by the spiral – the spiral, not just any spiral – people commit the most twisted acts. Slowly, a place of madness turns into a nightmarish hell.
Quite similar to my other Halloween read, Stephen King's The Shining, the horror gets under your skin because of how psychologically real it all seems. People do suffer from compulsions that control their every being, and I'm sure even nonpathological subjects have looked into the abyss when put under great stress. The obsessions are so disturbing because of how irrational they are. A spiral is just meaningless pattern, how could you develop such deep interest in them? Yet, in some vague sense you understand that not all behavior can be rationalized by unveiling reasons.
Junji Ito's artwork draws you right into the maelstrom of madness. There were so many images that cast a very dark spell on me, being so completely out there that you cannot but look at them in perturbed awe. While I have to admit that the characters at times seemed wooden and lifeless to me – somehow like the heroes in a more classical age of comics – it's the visual side from where the enchanting power stems.
The chapters of the manga are mostly self-contained episodes embedded in an overall arc (or downward spiral). The main protagonist is Kirie who is our witness to many of the strange events that take place in the village of Kurouzu-cho. Usually, there is a single premise drawn to its shocking conclusion.
In more than one instance, people acquire animalistic traits that manifest themselves in the most distorted form. A routinely slow boy gradually turns into a human-sized snail and eventually mates with his cruel bully. Apparently it's a fact of nature that only female mosquitos that are about to lay eggs are seeking blood. In an horrifying take on this, pregnant women become blood-sucking monsters roaming dark corridors at night. It's so effective because of how embroidered the chapters are with upsetting details. To mention but one, the babies in the mosquito chapter cling to their umbilical cord in order to be reinstated into the warm shelter from which they had been taken.
Naturally, the chapters differ in quality. For instance, the Shakesperean episode about young love from opposing families (twisted to the lower-class) and their eventual conflation surely was among the less memorable happenings and the visual presentation wasn't very inspiring, either. To my mind the climax felt outstretched too, though you may reasonably argue that it was to fully deliver the sense of hopelessness. To say that outstretching things was in line with the manga's general imagery would certainly overdo it. But that being said, I strongly suspect that the vignettes are intended to be metaphorical in nature. There is no obvious social commentary or any political or philosophical messages, but for people who are into this sort of storytelling there is meaning to be discerned that goes beyond what is presented on the surface.
It's only to be expected that after the literally breathtaking first couple of chapters the suspense slightly wanes. The nightmare at the very end made for a thoroughly satisfying conclusion, though. The image of the entire village expanded into an overarching and centuries-spanning spiral was truly mesmerizing. We got a glimpse at hell when Kirie looked into her father's pottery kiln, yet to have the entire village to become the center of an everlasting torturous existence was something else.
In a genre that suffers greatly from repetition and dulling familiarity, Uzumaki's most distinguishing quality is its persistence to carry surprising ideas to their most terrifying conclusion.
Rating: 4.5/5
Quite similar to my other Halloween read, Stephen King's The Shining, the horror gets under your skin because of how psychologically real it all seems. People do suffer from compulsions that control their every being, and I'm sure even nonpathological subjects have looked into the abyss when put under great stress. The obsessions are so disturbing because of how irrational they are. A spiral is just meaningless pattern, how could you develop such deep interest in them? Yet, in some vague sense you understand that not all behavior can be rationalized by unveiling reasons.
Junji Ito's artwork draws you right into the maelstrom of madness. There were so many images that cast a very dark spell on me, being so completely out there that you cannot but look at them in perturbed awe. While I have to admit that the characters at times seemed wooden and lifeless to me – somehow like the heroes in a more classical age of comics – it's the visual side from where the enchanting power stems.
The chapters of the manga are mostly self-contained episodes embedded in an overall arc (or downward spiral). The main protagonist is Kirie who is our witness to many of the strange events that take place in the village of Kurouzu-cho. Usually, there is a single premise drawn to its shocking conclusion.
In more than one instance, people acquire animalistic traits that manifest themselves in the most distorted form. A routinely slow boy gradually turns into a human-sized snail and eventually mates with his cruel bully. Apparently it's a fact of nature that only female mosquitos that are about to lay eggs are seeking blood. In an horrifying take on this, pregnant women become blood-sucking monsters roaming dark corridors at night. It's so effective because of how embroidered the chapters are with upsetting details. To mention but one, the babies in the mosquito chapter cling to their umbilical cord in order to be reinstated into the warm shelter from which they had been taken.
Naturally, the chapters differ in quality. For instance, the Shakesperean episode about young love from opposing families (twisted to the lower-class) and their eventual conflation surely was among the less memorable happenings and the visual presentation wasn't very inspiring, either. To my mind the climax felt outstretched too, though you may reasonably argue that it was to fully deliver the sense of hopelessness. To say that outstretching things was in line with the manga's general imagery would certainly overdo it. But that being said, I strongly suspect that the vignettes are intended to be metaphorical in nature. There is no obvious social commentary or any political or philosophical messages, but for people who are into this sort of storytelling there is meaning to be discerned that goes beyond what is presented on the surface.
It's only to be expected that after the literally breathtaking first couple of chapters the suspense slightly wanes. The nightmare at the very end made for a thoroughly satisfying conclusion, though. The image of the entire village expanded into an overarching and centuries-spanning spiral was truly mesmerizing. We got a glimpse at hell when Kirie looked into her father's pottery kiln, yet to have the entire village to become the center of an everlasting torturous existence was something else.
In a genre that suffers greatly from repetition and dulling familiarity, Uzumaki's most distinguishing quality is its persistence to carry surprising ideas to their most terrifying conclusion.
Rating: 4.5/5