Adult Swim is adapting the iconic Uzumaki manga as an anime, and the latest footage released unveils a shockingly faithful adaptation that visually mirrors the source material. The Uzumaki manga by Junji Ito was released from 1998 to 1999 to mass acclaim, and has since become a horror classic ripe for a modern anime adaptation. The final result looks glorious, a mind-boggling visual feast that will surely upset the stomachs of those who come across it. The shape of a spiral has never looked so terrifying.
The trailer released for the Uzumaki series showcases a very faithful adaptation of the iconic horror story, going as far as to look like the manga art style in motion. Every frame of its black-and-white aesthetic feels hand-drawn, with animation that flows like the characters are spiraling off the manga pages. Uzumaki is known for its disturbing, reality-bending imagery that feels straight out of a lucid nightmare. A faithful anime adaptation had to capture that visual language without feeling like an overly polished modern anime, and it seems Adult Swim accomplished just that. Check out the trailer below:
What is the Plot of Uzumaki?
Created by supernatural horror mastermind Junji Ito, Uzumaki spanned 20 chapters and was fully published within a year in the Big Comic Spirits magazine. The plot follows Kirie Goshima and Shuichi Saito, a pair of high schoolers who live in a small fictional town called Kurouzu-cho, which is suffering through a mysterious curse related to spiral imagery. They confront a host of disturbing supernatural occurrences, which involve horrific body transformations, possessed individuals, and a spiraling shift within the very world. The flow of events in the story is shaped around the shape of a spiral, which Ito manipulates to create an eternal nightmare.
In an interview with Japan Times, Ito shared his philosophy when it comes to using the human body and all of its features as the basis for his horror. It’s not hard to see why his magnum opus Uzumaki became an iconic horror manga that lived rent-free in people’s heads for 25 years.
“I believe that the human body, with its complex and incomprehensible mind, forms the basis of all horror. Anxiety is an emotion all animals feel, but the anxiety felt by humans, with our highly evolved brains, is unfathomable. The human body is a symbol of that bottomlessness.”
The Uzumaki anime adaptation was originally announced in 2019 by Adult Swim, but the four-episode miniseries will be worth the wait if the latest trailer rings true. In addition to reading the original manga, there are plenty of fantastic anime in the horror genre that are worth watching before Uzumaki releases. What better way to prepare for the stomach-turning manga adaptation than by building up an immune system with other great anime shows and movies? Popular recommendations include Parasyte, Tokyo Ghoul, Junji Ito Maniac, among others.
Uzumaki
arrives on Adult Swim on September 28, before streaming the next day on Max.