The Strange Cosmic Horror of Junji Ito's Uzumaki

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43 thoughts on “The Strange Cosmic Horror of Junji Ito's Uzumaki”

  3. Been putting this off bc I’m reminded of the final picture in this book and.. fml I have tried to forget it for so long.
    This one and the one about the planet eating star stick with me. The visuals are crazy but the idea is like a brainworm.

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  11. its all fun and games until you realise that Heavy Weather's (jojo part 6 stand) ability was inspired by uzumaki… (heavy weather's ability is that it can destroy the ozone layer, creating rainbows that, if anyone sees it, will give them subliminal messaging that makes them think they and everyone around them are snails and will move like one despite not physically being snails)

    also junji ito and araki have very convoluted ways of explaining phenomena and im all for it

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  24. what i imagine his conversation with his editor was like
    Ito: I have an idea
    Editor: Cool
    Ito: What if I made another cosmic horror story starting from a small unassuming town
    Editor: Cool!
    Ito: And it becomes this massive, world ending thing by the end.
    Editor: Very cool! So it's going to be a multi-chapter story?
    Ito: Yeah, that's the only way I can convey the massive apocalyptic feel
    Editor: Great idea! What's the gimmick for the scares. Like, Tomie had Tomie who was kinda creepy and all that, in the Hanging Balloons it was all the balloon heads that look creepy, what's the new one for this idea.
    Ito: Spirals.
    Editor: S-Spirals? Like. something that makes spirals?
    Ito: No. I mean, actual, literal spirals. As written in the dictionary as a curve on a plane that winds around a fixed centre point at a continuously increasing or decreasing distance from the point. Spirals are just going to be everywhere and that's what's going to scare the readers.
    Editor: I- I don't know Ito, I think that's a little far-f–
    Ito: Trust me.

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  26. (BEWARE: MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW THIS WARNING)

    I like to imagine that Uzumaki isn’t just the name of the Manga itself but the name, or at least as close to it’s true name as can be, of the “Spiralled God” (as I have personally dubbed it XD) I also like to imagine that the Spiralled God isn’t actually fully aware of how it’s Spiral Infection causes so much suffering. It just wants to be seen, all it wants is to be known and the only way it can do that from so deep underground is by reaching it’s Spirals out towards the surface and trying to make itself known via it’s infection.

    Also, it’s almost certainly some kind of Fourth Dimensional being lol

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  28. I think another explanation as to why no one could ever leave is because once they were a part of the spiral, there was only ever one trajectory they could follow, one ending, the center. The center was an endless frozen moment, a moment they were already in, and always would be, the story was just the frame-drag of their experience catching up to what had already happened. If you were already in the town from the start, you were already at the center.

    If you came to the town half way through the story, you were already at the center and if you came later on towards the end to investigate and help the missing people, you were already at the center. Like falling into a black hole, your perception of time and falling in would likely stretch on, even though you had already fallen in and been swallowed in an instant.

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  30. I love his artwork but I'm not exactly a story fan. But I really enjoyed your telling of the book. I got rather bored during the middle but the ending was really good. I hope you do the next book.

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  31. There are stories I just couldn’t get into, like the skeleton key, because it felt like the way it ended rendered the whole story pointless. Oculus had a similar vibe though I actually really liked it, I just felt like the ending was super obvious and was really hoping it would surprise me somehow, but it ended kinda nihilistically and I was just left thinking well yeah, that was the most obvious way it would go, we saw this from the beginning.

    This video was essentially my interpretation of uzumaki as well, however I love it, and maybe it’s because of the lovecraftian nature of it that makes it more palatable. We are dealing with forces that out mind isn’t equipped to properly process, we can’t see it because our minds can’t handle it, just for reverence eye sight is simply the rods and cones in your eye balls absorbing light, which is reconstructed as an image in your mind, accurately reflecting your surroundings in tandem with your other senses. If your mind cannot handle what’s before you, you cannot see it, so it stands to reason that as a coping mechanism you will see what you can handle, but not the truth of it.

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