Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I announce with some degree of trepidation that we are returning to Uzumaki, the recent adaptation of Junji Ito’s famed horror manga. Though the first episode of this adaptation was actually phenomenal, there were apparently some catastrophic production breakdowns in the course of this series’ oft-delayed genesis. As a result, this second episode no longer boasts direction by Hiroshi Nagahama, the horror maestro whose uncanny application of rotoscoped animation and fastidious attention to sound design detail made the first episode such a wonder.
The reasons for this breakdown are both obscure and predictable; I don’t have exact knowledge of who pulled the plug, but it seems obvious that someone on the American side of this production got cold feet regarding the time and labor required for Nagahama’s approach, and instead tossed the production to a director who is renowned for putting in slipshod, subpar work at presumably cheaper rates. This is of a piece with American producers’ general lack of respect for the work that goes into anime production, and with Adult Swim in particular’s conflation of nostalgia with artistic value. Shows like the FLCL sequels embody John Ford’s maxim of “if I asked the people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses” – it is up to great artists to show people what they could never have imagined wanting, and a philosophy born of “I want to recreate the exact conditions of when I first saw Cowboy Bebop at 1 AM on Adult Swim” will never produce such new ideas.
Thus we journey onward, into the consequences of high-level producers demanding swift, affordable results from a process whose fruits they could never measure or understand. With the spiral closing in around Uzumaki itself, we return to the field!
Episode 2
The downgrade is clear right from the start, with the meticulous flowing movements of Nagahama’s rotoscoped actors now replaced by stiff, limited animation
The boarding also seems like a downgrade, more interested in minimizing the number of layouts than capturing the best angle for any given moment
Anyway, Katayama’s back in class, and now his gross back markings have started swelling. I quite like how Junji Ito adapted his short form storytelling style for Uzumaki, in that he actually didn’t change it that much, instead essentially crafting an array of short fictions that all interweave, each pointing towards the emergence of the malevolent spiral obsession in their own ways. I appreciate how that makes this force upon their town feel so ambiguous and all-consuming; there’s no specific list of symptoms to look out for, the spiral encroaches on each life in its own special way
Some still shots don’t look so bad, as the simplified CG models of the characters don’t reveal their limitations as fully when not moving
As we cut into a scene with two students observing snakes drawn into a spiral, the limitations of character animation are more clear. Where even incidental moments were previously defined by constant variations in character form, we’ve now been reduced to stills and lip flaps, alongside closeups designed to avoid drawing attention to how little movement is in the frame
Our episode director is now Taiki Nishimura, who has scattered episode director credits across a variety of shows
And overall director is Yuji Noriyama, implying Nagahama’s no longer involved even as a supervisor
As Kirie walks by a cemetery with a friend, we are treated to some good old-fashioned “raise and lower the still character models to simulate walking” quasi-animation
These cost-saving techniques are combined with others: panning over scenery during exposition to avoid having to animate characters, and flashing back to moments of the previous episode rather than animating new material. Honestly, the dynamics of cost-saving are indeed an essential aspect of anime production, particularly for weekly productions, though it’s obviously embarrassing to see such prominent and drama-undercutting limitations applied to an allegedly prestige miniseries years in the making
Kirie’s friend claims that bodies cremated in other towns also form a spiral, so long as those bodies came from Kurozou. The unsettling implication that the infection is already inside them, that they are all simply hosts for the spirals
A classmate named Yamaguchi jumps out in front of them, proclaiming his love for Kirie. They mostly avoid portraying the actual motion, instead using speed lines to convey, uh, speed
“Scaring people is just what I do!” Oh, I’m sure he’ll suffer a fine end
Elsewhere, she runs into a boy named Kazunori, who appears to be fighting with his family. A little more movement here, though still a stark lack of fluidity between frames
He claims his family “twists into knots” to avoid confronting the reality of their poverty, turning into emotional spirals via jealousy. A new framing of spirals, as the result of self-defeating, circular psychological preconditions. Also reflective of Ito’s general tendency to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks; there isn’t necessarily one clear “answer” to what’s happening here, Ito is just toying with various interpretations of the spiral mythology, running improvisational riffs on this central image he finds so compelling
Describing Ito’s work calls to mind the Samurai Flamenco quote “the line between justice and stupidity is paper thin.” He frequently pursues an absurd concept far beyond where another author would have abandoned it, which is part of why his work either hits hard or is a complete whiff for different audiences
Kazunori plans to run away with his neighbor Yoriko before they become twisted as well. You could construct a fine interpretation of Uzumaki as a portrait of rural Japanese towns aging and decaying, though it obviously prioritizes that less than something like Shiki
Shuichi claims the spiral hangs particularly heavy over Kazunori’s home, and also notes that Kirie’s hair is growing longer. Seems like we’re steering towards perhaps Uzumaki’s most dramatic case of “pursuing an absurd concept beyond its breaking point”
The next day, her hair has grown even longer, and started to form spirals
And outside the window, they see Katayama has turned into a giant snail. I’m beginning to think there might be something wrong with this town!
His twisting body at least still affects some grotesque fluidity. One of the great advantages this adaptation should theoretically have over the source material is that it is easy to evoke a sense of horror through off-putting animated fluidity
The spiral hair fights to defend itself! Yeah, this was one vignette I could only see as farce in the original manga, and sinister synth notes vibrating in the background are not making it any less silly
“Just you wait Kirie, I’ll attract even more attention than you.” I’m not sure this is the sort of attention you should be craving
Now isolated from her peers, Kirie takes pity on poor snail-Katayama. The spirals are drawing them into themselves, but separating them from others
God, the character animation is so stiff! Shuichi runs away from Kirie looking like a chimpanzee lugging an invisible suitcase. Whatever happened behind the scenes of this production, it’s clear that Adult Swim are just awful business partners for anime studios, lacking appreciation for either the labor or artistry of animation
Yamaguchi decides to prove his love by throwing himself in front of a car, an action this production clearly lacks the resources to actually animate. Instead, we just get a still shot of Kirie’s face as she basically fails to react to her classmate’s gruesome demise. While the first episode was an exercise in conveying horror through animation, this episode is serving to demonstrate all the reasons horror is so difficult for animation, and the many pitfalls you must somehow evade
Tsumura is now also a snail
And now Kyoko’s hair is a giant spiral! Spiral hair battle!
I have to imagine even Ito was giggling as he wrote this vignette. “Shonen battle between spiral hair parasites” is not a perverse corruption of mundane human life, it is absolute farce
Of course, it does play into the psychological spiral theme of these townsfolk scratching at each other for scraps, spiraling into self-destruction as their town collapses around them. In a situation that demands absolute collaboration among the townsfolk, they are instead acting like crabs in a bucket, ensuring only that their neighbors don’t make out better than they do
Shuichi manages to cut Kirie free of her hair spirals, but Kyoko is not so lucky. Her sacrifices made to draw the attention of the crowd threaten to swallow her entirely
Meanwhile, it appears the snail boys have broken free and laid a clutch of eggs. Always something new going on around here
Kirie then recalls that Kazunori and Yoriko are attempting to flee town
Aw jeez, their out-of-focus run cycle approaching the station is so sad
Yeah, these atrociously simplified run cycles and barely-articulated character drawings are clearly demonstrating why the rest of this episode stuck to still shots – there is simply no one associated with this episode’s production who has the time or ability to animate a character running
The simplicity of the CG models they’re tracing over becomes far more apparent in these “action” sequences, when they attempt to make those models move
Kazunori and Yoriko instead fuse together into a horrific spiral of their own. Actually a reasonable sequence here, aided greatly by the ominous music and the gross crackling foley work
“Too tight! It’s as tight as a steel cable.” Through refusing to acknowledge their children’s dissatisfaction with this self-destructive community and its old grudges, the parents lose those children entirely
The town’s latest spiral innovation: folks stuck traveling in circles, never getting any further. A condition that further echoes the implications of Kazunori and Yoriko’s story, a refusal to move forward
Welp, now their teacher is a snail
We then learn of a ship that run aground, a story conveyed entirely by off-screen speakers to avoid any need for lip flaps
I actually quite like these high-angle compositions as Kirie climbs the lighthouse stairs, which effectively emphasize the spiral nature of the building
And Done
Whoof, what a tragedy. After such auspicious beginnings, Uzumaki has already descended into a spiral of total production breakdown, marred by persistent scenes of absurd cost-cutting that persistently undercut any sense of horror or suspension of disbelief regarding the reality of this world. In this episode, that disastrous production collapse was married to some of Uzumaki’s weakest original material; neither the snail story nor the hair spiral story that dominated this episode were particularly effective even in the manga, making for an altogether underwhelming experience. Thankfully, the lighthouse story that concluded this episode at least led us out on a relatively high note, offering both the strongest horror story and most capable visual adaptation of the episode. Still, it is clear that dark clouds surround Uzumaki’s cursed production.
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