Uzumaki Anime Review - Junji Ito Adaptation Adds Intensity As It Spirals

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Among all of Junji Ito's vast body of horror manga work, Uzumaki manages to be the most unsettling. Many of his stories concern elements of building dread, encroaching madness, and beautifully off-putting body horror, but few combine all three to the same effect as Uzumaki, where the concept of a spiral pattern infects and mutates the inhabitants of a small town in myriad awful ways.

Adult Swim's anime adaptation of Uzumaki focuses on that unsettling feeling in its premiere episode, which was provided for review by Adult Swim. This introduction, for the most part, succeeds in bringing what makes Uzumaki so powerful in print to the screen. More than anything, it works to be painstakingly faithful to the manga in its art and style. It uses a black-and-white format to more closely match the book, a choice that serves it well, and some of the best images from the manga are transported exactly, or close to exactly, into the adaptation.