The brilliant Horror manga by Junji Ito have not had much luck as anime adaptations. None of the adaptations to date has been able to successfully transfer the sheer horror and disturbing drawings to the moving medium. This could now change with the ambitious anime adaptation of his masterpiece Uzumaki * change.
The crazy horror is already circling in the series trailer for Uzumaki:
Uzumaki – S01 Trailer (English Subs) HD
Uzumaki: Manga and soon anime horror under the spell of the spiral
In the 1998 manga, the inhabitants of a small Japanese town are treated in various ways haunted by the concept of the spiralSome are so obsessed with it that they twist themselves into the enigmatic shape, others are supernaturally mutated into snails and bizarre whirling creatures through body horror.
There is no escape from the spiral’s pull and soon one realizes that the mysterious form exists everywhere: in nature, in our fingerprints, our genes, as the shape of galaxies. The ultimate combination of cosmic horror and the oppressive terror of cyclical small-town life unfolds in episodes.
The revolutionary anime adaptation takes a very direct approach to Ito’s manga, essentially animating every panel as the master put it on paper. According to Anime News Network, Hiroshi Nagahama (Mushishi) is overseeing the project as a director under the umbrella of Studio Drive and Studio Akatsuki. It is produced by Production IG USA and the broadcaster Adult Swim.
A highly stylized live-action adaptation appeared as early as 2000 with the Japanese film Uzumaki – Out of the World by filmmaker Higuchinsky, who presented his TV adaptation of Junji Ito’s short story The Long Dream in the same year.
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When is the Uzumaki anime finally coming out?
The four-part adaptation of Uzumaki is a long time coming and was actually supposed to be released in 2020. After several postponements (partly due to Corona), it is now finally scheduled to be released on the night of 29 September 2024 as part of the Adult Swim programming block Toonami. In Germany, the series could land in the Adult Swim block on Warner TV Comedy, but this has not yet been confirmed.
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