Summary
- Animation quality severely declined, distracting viewers from the plot.
- Music and sound remain excellent, creating a terrifying atmosphere.
- Direction and adapted chapters in episode 2 disappointed fans, leading to a different tone from episode 1.
The anticipated anime adaptation of Junji Ito's Uzumaki had an excellent start last week, so expectations were high for the rest of the series. However, episode 2 has been met with mostly negative reactions from fans. While the music and sound are still excellent, and the direction is solid, there was an extreme downgrade in the animation.
The drop in quality was so severe that it actively distracted the viewer from the plot. How did the second entry of the Uzumaki anime fare against the first, excellent episode? The short answer is: not great.
Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror Gets Off to a Strong Start
The newest Junji Ito adaptation kicks off in a great, terrifying way
Animation, An Egregious Downgrade
Baffling Quality Change
While the first episode had great animation, it greatly enhanced the scary atmosphere of the story. But in this episode, the anime took a massive dive. Characters move awkwardly and clunky, and the art style is very inconsistent and lacks a lot of detail seen in the first episode. In several scenes, characters are seen seemingly running in place, or even sideways. The animation quality in general took a massive drop, and at times it is so jarring its distracting, completely undermining the impact of the events of the episode.
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Near the end of the episode, there are some better moments of animation. Kirie's facial expressions were done better, and the lighthouse center was done perfectly, but it didn't fix the bad taste in the mouth the rest of the episode leaves on the audience. One can only wonder what happened between episodes 1 and 2. The production faced several issues during development, including the COVID-19 pandemic that threw many productions into disarray. So that may be the explanation behind the drop in quality. Time will tell how the last two episodes will fare.
Music and Sound, The Saving Grace
It Remains Excellent
Colin Stetson's soundtrack remains one of the best aspects of the production. His eerie, subtle sounds continue to help create the atmosphere of the scenes. Stetson often uses a distorted and warped alarm siren sound. This motif paints the scenes as the characters or even the town itself warning them of the dangers of the curse, but the Spiral drowns out their cries for help, submerging them into the horrors of the curse.
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The sound design also greatly compliments the scenes. The snails are made with these slimy, uncomfortable sound effects that make sure you feel the bizarre, body horror intent of the snail people. The twisted couple's conclusion is helped by the bone-crushing, unnatural sound effects when the two coil up like snakes. The sound department in the Uzumaki anime continues to be the best part of the production.
Direction and Adaptation, Not the Expected Horror
Chapters that Didn't Need to be Included
While director Hiroshi Nagahama worked on episode 1, his name isn't present for this one besides storyboarding. This episode was directed by Yuuji Moriyama, and it shows. The narrative isn't as cohesive and well-structured as episode 1, and the overall delivery of the scenes didn't quite nail the feeling needed for the story that episode 1 did. The animation's drop in quality is explained when you look at the credits. This episode was not done by Studio Drive, but by Studio Akatsuki and Chinese studio Phoenix Animation Holdings. Overall, this episode was heavily outsourced, which explains the drastic change.
Then there's the matter of adapted chapters and how they're adapted. This episode adapts "The Snail", "Medusa", "Twisted Couple", "Jack in the Box" and "The Lighthouse". While the fast pacing in the first episode was a bit divisive but generally sat well with fans, this episode's pacing was far too chaotic and intense. The events don't get the chance to breathe they should, and apparently, horrors are happening around town constantly.
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Another issue is the adapted chapters themselves. Many fans feel Medusa, Twisted Couple, or Jack in the Box could not have been adapted at all, and nothing would have been lost. Medusa especially feels cartoony and goofy in comparison with the rest of the series. There's a big tone dissonance when you go from the first episode to this. The terrible animation paired with the goofy chapters adapted makes episode 2 feel like a completely different series to what we saw in episode 1.
Overall, episode 2 was massively disappointing. An extreme drop in animation and direction quality hurts the narrative immensely. While the music and sound are still top-notch, they can only do so much when accompanying the clunky and awkward animation and adapted storylines. Hopefully, episodes 3 and 4 will pick up the excellence seen in episode 1, but for now, this week was quite underwhelming for Uzumaki.
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror
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- 2024 - 2024-00-00
Uzumaki: Spiral into Horror is an adaptation of Junji Ito's acclaimed manga, directed by Hiroshi Nagahama. The series unfolds in the town of Kurôzu-cho where inexplicable events related to spirals plague the inhabitants, leading to terror and madness. Highlighting the psychological and supernatural, the show follows high school student Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend, Shuichi Saito, as they confront the spiraling horrors that engulf their town.
