KurÔzu-cho, 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 According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the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 KurÔzu-cho are pulled ever deeper, as if into a whirlpool from which there is no return...

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While this story contains enough chilling events that it would even be effective in prose, the true magic comes from Junji Ito's illustrations. He takes some of the most outlandish concepts (a man's body twisted into a spiral, two girls fighting each other using their freakishly elongated hair) and makes them incredibly disturbing, rather than looking ridiculous. This is a far cry from most American monster or bump-in-the-night horror comics, and much more effective than simple drawings of visceral gore.

This is only the first installment of this series, so explanations and resolution are almost absent. However, I found myself so drawn in to this weird story that I am looking forward to future volumes, no matter how creeped out I know I'll get reading them.

7 of 7 found the following review helpful:

Unique, surreal and disturbing.Mar 01, 2002
By Jeff Rich
This manga further proves just how varied the subject matter of Japanese comics can be. It's horror, there's violent imagery, but the concept behind the goings on is utterly unique. And the sense of doom hovering over the small town where the story takes place is palpable.

I like the abstractness of the threat presented by the spiral. There doesn't appear to be a malevolent consciousness behind the eeire goings on presented. Some characters are victims of the spiral, others use it to their advantage.

Art wise, Uzumaki is great. Distinctly Japanese yet with a character all its own. There is a flair in the design and line work that gives simple scenes a richness. Page composition is also good, letting the actions and reactions determine the size and shape of panels.

There is some pretty startling imagery here (the fate of the one man obsessed with spirals is what drew me in), and I guess it might be too much for some people. I'm in no way a fan of 'gore' just for the sake of gore. Here it is purposeful, and there really is a nightmare quality to a lot of the events that can be pretty fascinating.

The author/artist does a nice job of exploring different applications of the evil spiral concept. It works well in this collection, and the stories complement each other nicely. I don't know if the series can continue to progress in an interesting manner, but this collection is very worthwhile.

There are a lot of manga translations out there now, and many of them end up blending together in terms of look and feel. Titles that have stood out for me before include Mai the Psychic Girl, Area 88, Nausicca, 2001 Nights, Battle Angel Alita, and Parasyte. Uzumaki takes its place among these titles in my mind for its uniqueness of vision, both in look and in concept.

8 of 9 found the following review helpful:

Will you be dining on the Escargot appetizer this evening?Mar 26, 2004
By Schtinky "Schtinky"
I certainly won't. I will never look at anything with a spiral the same way ever again.
Ito has created a great story, even for someone like myself who is not a fan of Japanese animation, and also a beginner in the wide world of graphic novels and chapter books. (or grown up comic books if you prefer that term)

The stories are told from the prospective of a young girl named Kirie Goshima who lives in the town of Kurozu, along with her boyfriend Shuichi Saito. The first two chapters deal with the tragic deaths of Shuichi's parents, his father dying from turning himself into a spiral, and his mother from trying to rid her body of spirals. (Think fingerprints and the cochlea in the inner ear for starters)

Shuichi is convinced that their town is infected with spirals, which is seemingly proven by the odd patterns in the river and the fact that every time a body is cremated, the smoke belches out from the smokestack in a spiral pattern that covers the town before falling into mysterious Dragonfly Pond. After the deaths of his parents, he quits school and becomes a recluse, popping out only in time to save Kirie from one spiral or another.

In the remaining chapters, we meet Azami Kurotani, a beautiful girl who has never been turned away by a boy since she received a crescent shaped scar upon her forehead. But when Shuichi turns her away, Azami becomes fixated on him, and falls victim to the spiral.

Then Kirie's father, a potter, begins to notice changes in the way his clay behaves when fired in the kiln. His everyday plates and bowls begin to twist and warp into unusable shapes, and he becomes transfixed by his work until Shuichi realizes what is happening and steps in to help Kirie.

Next is a love story of two youths whose poverty stricken parents have declared war on each other, and refuse to allow the young lovers to see each other. Just as the spiral seems to twist in upon itself forever, so does unrequited love writhe about the hearts of Yoriko and Kazunori.

In the last chapter, the spiral steps it up a notch and enters the realm of the truly bizarre, when Kirie discovers that her own hair has been infected, and begins a life of its own. Surprisingly, this causes her friend Sekino to become jealous of the attention Kirie is getting from being led around by her hair. Some people will do anything for attention, and Sekino finds a way to compete with Kirie while Shuichi tries to find a way to save her.

I found this volume to be extrodinaryly entertaining, and am already buried deep within Volume Two. With the subtle horror and fast paced storyline, these books are a great read for young adults and old adults alike.

A simply fascinating study of how a mundane pattern can awaken from non-existence and possess an entire town, this is definately an entertaining "Food For Thought" piece that will cause you to wake up and take notice of all the patterns within your own life. Quite enjoyable, all in all. :o)

10 of 12 found the following review helpful:

I'm really not sure what to do out of this fine manga.Aug 03, 2006
By A. Tamez Elizondo "magnum_innominandum"
First off, it most be said that the core idea of the story (that of the spiral) is an incredibly good one. More than one person has gone near the borders of insanity by the crazy spiral patterns that govern the Universe, and one can see the insane effects this fascination can cause in certain individuals by looking at the most affected characters of this story.

Also it must be said that the art direction is pretty good; all the organic grotesqueries one would come to expect from vintage David Cronneberg and H. P. Lovecraft can be found here. Clearly we're talking about a talented individual here.

Yet, I cannot help but feel somewhat disappointed by this first volume in the Uzumaki saga. The ideas are strong, and the individual stories are all eerie and strange, worthy of the title of "weird fiction", (worthy of the most obscure horror writers of the post-Lovecraft era, such as Thomas Ligotti and Mark Samuels, amongst other, not hacks like King of Koontz) but I feel that the execution was wrongly taken, at least from the emotional standpoint.

Not spoiling much of the story, the two main characters are witnesses (and sometimes experience first hand) of fantastic supernatural events that violate all conventions of sane anatomy and of such grotesque and insane nature as to bend the fragile psyche and bodily functions of normal individuals, and yet they go on with their ordinary lives as if NOTHING had happened at all. Only one of them presents mild symptoms of madness and paranoia, even sheer horror and repulsion to the events, yet even he doesn't seem to be all that affected by the events... the horror is there, however the characters act as if it were an every day phenomenon.

This volume is divided in six chapters, all plots genuinely weird and disturbing... the main story arch that unites these episodes is the strongest point of the saga, and it is ultimately what forces me to obtain the next two volumes, since I do want to know badly what is the reason (if there is any) behind this organic madness and where and with what will it end. However I am not that hyped if the remaining two volumes will have the main characters, and the general populace of the town, acting as if nothing has gone terribly wrong in their lives.... Horror is the certainty that there is something wrong going on, and this certainty, that could present itself in many diverse ways (a violation of the laws of nature, a fatal car accident, a serial killer stalking us), will always affect our lives and our world view; it'll change us inside and the world outside will be perverted by it as if an overgrown cancer. Horror is the certainty that there is no safe place to hide on this world, this life and even in death.

And if the people that are supposed to experience this horror do not feel it creep and waste their lives anew, then horror becomes routine, and routine becomes mere absurdist escapism.

Make it 3.5 out of five.

3 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Creepy, Surreal MangaMar 29, 2004

Uzumaki is one of the few things that I've read lately that really scared me. It's a creepy, well drawn, Japanese comic about a town possesed by the idea of the spiral. It may be a weird idea, but it works, and Junji Ito moves it along by using grotesque images and twisted situations. The main character is mostly there to bring the reader from one bizarre horror to the next, but the comcic is extremely compelling despite that. It's a relativelty gory comic, so if you don't want to see people twisting themselves into spirals then this comic might not be for you.

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