 |
| Uzamaki |
Alt name(s): Sarmal ,Spirála, The Spiral, Vortex, Whirlpool, うずまき, 漩涡
Author: Itou Junji
Artist: Itou Junji
Demographic: Seinen
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological
Theme: Supernatural
Pub. status: Completed
Volume: 03
Chapter: 20
Description:
Kurozuchou, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed.
According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie
Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a
pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It
manifests itself in small ways: seashells, ferns, whirlpools in water,
whirlwinds in air. And in large ways: the spiral marks on people's
bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuichi's father, the voice from the
cochlea in your inner ear. As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of
Kurouzu-cho are pulled ever deeper, as if into a whirlpool from which
there is no return...Reading order
The reading order of uzamaki manga by Itou Junji is left to right.
Review from goodokbad.com
Uzamaki
I’m skeptical of comics’ power to truly horrify using supernatural
elements. Because the reader controls entirely the pace of a story’s
execution, one of the primary tools of the horror genre is kept from
authors in the comics medium. Additionally, revulsion is increasingly
difficult to elicit from static imagery—a gross drawing is merely that
and draws forth none of that sense of fear or terror that aficionados of
the genre tend to relish. Certainly a compelling story about the
affects of war on a civilian population can horrify, but only because it
is humanity who is the monster and not some lumbering creature of the
imagination. There seems little room for the supernatural to scare us
from the immobile, two-dimensional page.
When I first approached Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, I hoped for my
understanding of comics horror to undergo a dramatic shift. I hoped that
his mind-bending work would bring me to see that the comics page could
truly deliver terror. Not so much because I like being frightened but
simply because I love experiencing the expanding boundaries of what the
medium is capable of. And Ito seemed the perfect guide if anyone was.
Junji Ito is, so I read, considered to be a master of Japanese horror.
He’s created several works that have been lauded for their depiction of
strange horror. But as inventive as his stories are and as horrifying as
I would find these tales had they been committed to film, they come off
rather sterile in screentones.
Which is not to say that Ito’s Uzumaki isn’t a good time. It is. What it isn’t, however, is in any way horrifying.
Uzumaki, in Japanese, means “spiral” (hence the helpful English subtitle for the book: Spiral into Horror)
and throughout these three volumes we become well acquainted with a
town that is becoming possessed by the idea of the spiral. The theme of
spirals makes its mark across every chapter and in numerous inventive
(and usually gruesome) ways. In one case, a girl’s hair takes on a
spiraling, hypnotic life of its own. In another, a boy grows a spiraling
shell on his back and gradually becomes a snail. A scar bores into one
girl’s mind. Another girl finds herself the love interest of a typhoon.
Uzumaki begins as a collection of interrelated short stories,
each exploring one more aspect of the town’s strange connection with
spirals, but gradually takes on the form of a longer, more
interconnected narrative. There isn’t much in the way of character
development because apart from the protagonist and her boyfriend (who
wants desperately to get out of Dodge), most characters don’t last much
farther beyond the chapter of their introduction. There is a lot of
death (and worse) in Uzumaki and so the story soon becomes the
question of how this couple will survive the increasingly manic terror
being visited upon their town.
Really, by series’ end, the moral becomes clear: Girls, when your high
school boyfriend says that the town is possessed and you two should run
away together, you’d be crazy not to do as he says. Perhaps Ito is
projecting his own childhood’s discreet woes. Really, after even just
one of these incidents, it’s not entirely clear why any of the witnesses
don’t flee the town immediately. Perhaps they find the spirals too
hypnotic.
Uzumaki, though boasting its share of faults (both in art and in
storytelling), still stands out as something that may be worth your
time. While it probably won’t frighten you or give you any kind of
nightmares, you may find Ito’s images, in a certain sense, indelible. In
the couple weeks since I finished the book’s last chapter, I have
continually found myself reminded of particular story moments or ideas
that were rather strikingly composed.
If you’re curious what Ito’s all about, his short story “The Enigma of Amigara Fault” is a good starting place. It’s pretty representative of the kind of horror that is found in Uzumaki.
Read it on mangadex.org
0 Comments