Source: Amazon
Anybody who loves horror manga has most definitely read Junji Ito or at least knows about him and his style of weaving stories. I’m not much of a fan of horror manga since the element of surprise doesn’t really work in the manga because the reader has control over the pacing and I need my sound effects, lighting, and all that. But Junji Ito’s manga is something that even I found really interesting.
His mangas aren’t scary to me but rather so disturbingly interesting that it's got me completely hooked. Today, I bring you a super creepy manga, Uzumaki, one of the most famous works of Junji Ito.
Introduction
Name of the Book - Uzumaki
Created by - Junji Ito
Genre - Dark Fantasy, Psychological Horror, Supernatural
Language - Japanese
No. of Volumes - 3 (19 chapters)
Plot Synopsis
Kirie Goshima and her family live a very average life in the town of Kurouzu-Cho. One day, while walking to the train station to meet her boyfriend, Shuuichi Saito, she finds her father kneeling in an alley and staring intently at a snail shell. She doesn't think much of it and tells Shuuichi about it, who claims his father has been acting strange recently.
Shuuichi expresses his growing desire to leave town with Kirie, claiming that the town has become infested by spirals. However, his father's fascination with the shape becomes fatal, triggering a cascade of horrifying and incomprehensible events that send the people of Kurouzu-Cho spiraling into madness.
About Junji Ito
Source: Wikipedia
Over the previous three and a half decades, Junji Ito, the maestro of horror, has created disturbingly terrifying horror manga. Tomie was his first published piece, which he began in the mid-80s. Junji Ito has established himself as a horror icon, capable of disturbing everyone with his erratic plotlines and terrifying panels. Junji's art is unlike anything else in the horror genre.
Ito's work depicts skillfully constructed creatures and warped humanoid body horror with an impressively detailed art style. These characters and creatures are then placed in narratives that are both creative and bizarre. The stories are set against a backdrop of profound themes, including the nature of humanity and a sense of impending doom brought on by uncompromising deities.
His works are also greatly inspired by H.P. Lovecraft. These aspects work together to ensure that Ito's stories are truly terrifying, producing an indelible impact that keeps you wanting more. Though they are more on the grotesque and disturbing side, making the readers feel less scared and more uncomfortable.
Manga Review
‘Uzumaki’ in Japanese means spiral. Pretty straightforward, isn’t it? A spiral doesn't sound creepy or frightening at all, right? Well, that’s where Junji Ito catches you off guard and presents you with a thousand ways a spiral can give you your worst nightmares.
The story builds up nicely before anything actually terrifying happens. The “plague of the spiral” begins with Kirie’s boyfriend, Shuuichi’s father and slowly the whole town gets absorbed and infected by this grotesquely freaky obsession with spirals and Ito begins to reveal the spiral’s seemingly unlimited horrific possibilities.
The scar on a girl’s forehead slowly starts turning into a spiral and keeps growing until it becomes a vortex and engulfs her whole head. A student who is constantly late starts turning into an actual snail with a spiral shell. And well, don’t make me mention what happens to the umbilical cords of babies. There's even an army of pregnant women with blood-stained drills.
There’s definitely an abundance of panels that’ll make you suddenly close the book in shock, either from being scared or deeply disturbed and that’s all thanks to Ito’s amazing art style and his ability to visually express everything that the characters are experiencing.
It's his trademark to create scares on the next page. So, after ending the page with a completely normal scene or maybe a character looking into the distance, and then, when you turn the page, the scary will be all in your face. It's almost always a full page of a superbly realistically nightmarish image which might take some time to get out of your head.
Each chapter feels almost like a one-shot at first or like a collection of short stories; introducing a story then completing it (or as much of closure as possible) by the end of the chapter. Most chapters have little to no connection to the previous ones and felt completely random to the point that it appeared as if Ito was just spitting out any and every fancy spiral idea that popped in his head.
However, this is all a build-up to the finale, which is a bit sad but I won’t spoil it for you. By the end, all the random stories begin to tie up and come together and the whole concept of the spiral becomes all the more encompassing.
It's a terrifying story about humanity's breakdown, but it's also a deeply sad one. Fearful of one other and the outside world, a community crumbles. The people get transformed into something entirely different, figuratively as well as literally, and they know that nothing will ever be normal and with no good reason either. All because of an obsession.
The Bottom Line
The greater part of Ito’s manga is unfathomable, bordering on "abnormal and unexplainable" rather than haunting. You might not stay for the horror of the story, but you’ll definitely be hooked to the art. His stories always stay with you long after reading them, even if you don't want them to and Uzumaki is definitely one of them. I’d recommend reading other works of Junji Ito like Tomie or Gyo. They’ll also definitely leave an impact on you.
My ratings - 3.5 on 5
You can buy your copy of the manga on Amazon - Uzumaki
Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary
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