The eagerly anticipated anime version of Junji Ito’s UZUMAKI has finally debuted, providing viewers with a spooky and accurate telling of Ito’s terrifying story. The first episode lays the stage for what looks to be a terrifying voyage into a world in which the spiral a common and everyday shape becomes a representation of obsession and insanity. Viewers are taken to the odd and frightening town of Kurouzu-Cho in this first episode — which is brilliantly directed with black-and-white animation. Let’s examine this unsettling premiere’s events and its horrifying conclusion.
Mr. Saito’s Spiral Madness: The Start of the Obsession
High school girl Kirie Goshima opens the narrative by explaining how unusual things started happening in her community. We watch her meet with Shuichi Saito, her boyfriend, who has observed a concerning trend: spirals are present everywhere. Spirals appear to be appearing everywhere in the town, from the plants to the whirlpools in the drains. Because of his father, Mr. Saito, and his obsessive preoccupation with the spiral design —Shuichi is particularly distressed. His days are spent gathering spiral-shaped objects, ignoring his work, and even mastering the autonomous spiral motion of rotating his eyeballs.
Shuichi tells Kirie that he feels imprisoned by Kurouzu-Cho’s suffocating atmosphere — as he confides in her about his anxieties. He feels threatened by everything about the place, including its oppressive air and foreboding lighthouse. Kirie, unsettled by Shuichi’s remarks, later meets Mr. Saito, who has succumbed to his obsession. Mr. Saito declines Kirie’s gift of a spiral-shaped pot made by her father, saying he is no longer dependent on outside items to satisfy his fixation. Rather than that, he terrorizes Kirie by demonstrating to her — how to twist his tongue into a spiral.
Mr. Saito’s body is discovered dead a few days later— twisted into a spiral. His wife is horrified and severely shocked when she witnesses the eerie spiraling smoke rising from his body after his cremation. Shuichi’s mother starts to experience mental instability because she thinks she will be cursed by the spiral as well.
Azami’s Expanding Trajectory and Mrs. Saito’s Fall
We are introduced to Azami Kurotani — Kirie’s classmate with the scarred crescent on her forehead, which sets up another unsettling subplot. She thinks that having this scar makes her more appealing and attracts attention. But when she finally meets Shuichi, he reacts horrified, feeling that something is spiraling out of control inside her. Desperate for Shuichi’s acceptance, Azami grows more and more fixated on him, and her scar widens into a spiral with every interaction.
In the meantime, Shuichi’s mother starts to dismember herself in an attempt to get rid of anything spiral-shaped from her body since she is so terrified of spirals. She demonstrates the horrifying extent she will go to in order to break free from the curse by shaving her head and even chopping off the skin from her hands.
The Tragic End of Azami Kurotani’s Life
Azami hits a terrifying peak in his fixation on Shuichi. Her eye gets drawn into the vortex as her face is engulfed by a spiral-shaped scar. Her entire face has turned into a spiral that is swallowing everything around her when she eventually confronts Shuichi one again. One of their classmates is drawn into Azami’s vortex in a terrifying sequence and she too is eventually consumed by the spiral and disappears entirely.
UZUMAKI Ending
Kirie’s narration cautions that the atrocities they have seen are only the beginning as the episode comes to an end. The spiral is an ever-present — sneaky entity that will keep causing chaos in Kurouzu-Cho by distorting reality and entangling the locals in its grasp. UZUMAKI is characterized by a sluggish, creeping dread that is emphasized by the highly uncomfortable body horror and the weird imagery of spirals emerging in common objects.
The mystery surrounding the spiral’s power hangs large unsettling viewers and hinting at more horrifying disclosures in the upcoming episodes.