Uzumaki Review

okay so today we will be reviewing and discussing uzumaki by junji ito this is my first gingy e2 ito book and one of my first manga can i still say that i'm still really really new to this medium i'm traditionally a traditional book novel reader but i've recently started getting into manga and falling in love with the format so naturally this spooky season as i've been reading a lot of horror books specifically a lot of classic horror books i remembered that at least a year ago a subscriber sent me uh this classic horror manga i knew nothing about it but i wanted to read some classic horror manga this season so i grabbed it off of my bookshelf and oh my goodness was i not disappointed i'm gonna break this review up into a spoiler-free section and then a spoiler section and then some final thoughts so if you haven't read the book you can skip ahead to final thoughts um i'll have some time stamps in the description to make that easy for you if you have read it we have a lot to discuss so spoiler free discussion first i went into this manga knowing absolutely nothing about it except for what is on the back descript description that it takes place in a small coastal japanese town which is one of my favorite settings or probably my favorite setting for any horror story is a small creepy town where something isn't right so that instantly got me but then this small town is haunted not by a person not by an entity but by a force or rather a pattern the spiral that is everything that i needed to know to be very excited to read this so uzumaki is like i said it's about a small coastal town in japan this this small isolated town that in from the very first chapter it kicks off quickly from the very first chapter we see that the spiral that is in our everyday life in patterns in trees in clothing in hair in the shell of a snail you see it all over your daily life this pattern this swirl can get inside your mind it is a force of its own in some way and at first it's very vague and we don't understand in what capacity this spiral how how sentient it is or or how it is affecting people all we see is is in the first couple chapters we see people being drawn in by it becoming very obsessive over it it taking over their mental state and then taking over their bodies as well we get examples of people who embrace that and who become obsessed with it and then we also see people reject it but despite their their desperate desire to not let the spirals take them too they can't escape it then we go through in the different chapters we go through seeing how the spiral is affecting the town in different areas like how it affects the unique way in which it affects people in the hospital the unique way in which it affects people at the lighthouse or at the public housing there's so many different areas of this town that the spiral is affecting people in different ways and for a while there especially there in the middle of the book there was a section where it seems like each chapter for a good chunk of the book it seems like each chapter is exploring a different area in a very isolated manner and it started to feel like a series of short stories to me where the spiral affects people in this really unique way here and really unique way here and it almost felt disjointed and the only thing that felt consistent was our protagonist our protagonist kiri is in some way connected to each of these stories whether it be affecting somebody whether it be that the spiral is affecting somebody that she knows and cares about or if she just happens upon the scene where the spirals are taking over her boyfriend is also a very strong presence in this book he's one that very quickly accepts that the spiral is is taking over the town and is actively trying to prevent that and to protect carrie um but kiri is more of a stand-in of what a normal person would react to such a strange thing that's happening kind of rejecting it or questioning it not really wanting to accept this mythological force which is how i think a lot of people would respond in these situations kind of just rationalizing it away or pretending it isn't there uh but she of course eventually has to accept it too but really just following kiri through this town seemed to be the only consistent thing and these little short stories in each chapter felt a little bit disjointed to me i still really enjoyed it because each chapter unraveled a new horror but then there were some chapters that just really didn't land for me it felt almost more silly or too over the top but i will say i was not disappointed in the end because i was mistaken i as i said went into this knowing absolutely nothing about this book other than the back description i hadn't looked up any panels for it i didn't know anything about it so as i'm reading these little snapshots into town i'm thinking okay this either needs to feel more cohesive or these chapters need to be longer so that we can more deeply explore each of these horrors but instead i got something better by the time we got to a certain point in the novel i won't or in the book in the manga i won't i won't disclose where but at a certain point everything came together and it stopped feeling so much like a series of short stories and it instead i realized that we're just getting snapshots of the different ways in which the spiral is affecting different areas and different people but then it comes together when the town is in absolute disarray and we're in this very hopeless and desolate situation and it's taken over truly and then we kind of see all these little snapshots feel less like disjointed puzzle pieces and more like world building and now it's relevant and now i'm starting to see what causes this reaction and why this one reacts a little bit differently and and it's it flows together in such a satisfying way i was also so impressed and almost in the beginning it almost felt like these little snapshots were just whatever ito could come up with but instead it ended up coming together not only in a satisfying way but we ended up even exploring some really great themes i say all this to say if you decide to read it if you haven't read it and you decide to read it and it feels a little bit disjointed at the beginning stick with it because there's purpose and i at least was incredibly satisfied with the way it came together and with how great the ending was also i really really love as far as as far as themes go one thing that i can discuss spoiler free is that and it's probably already apparent with what i've said in this review is that there's a great emphasis on obsession in this book about the spirals getting inside your head and then not only do you see them everywhere but they just they get into your being and and the character's depiction of becoming obsessed with the spiral i loved i really really love when horror and obsession are are written together because i have an obsessive personality which is why i read an obsessive amount because try to channel it in a healthy way but it's something relatable to me it's something that i know it's something that i'm i'm very acquainted with and and this this focus on obsession and obsession taking over you and destroying you is something that feels familiar to me and i don't know if everybody could relate to that but i love that theme and that's a really strong theme here on people being so so obsessed with something that it that it becomes them oh sorry one more thing before i get into spoilers uh i should probably talk about the artwork because this is a manga i think that his artwork is absolutely stunning there are so many gorgeous gorgeous panels in this book but then you turn the page and you go straight from gorgeous to horrifying and that ability to kind of draw you into this this disturbing beauty because even even the panel i just showed you it's gorgeous but it's also very unsettling and then you turn the page and then you just get full blown what is happening here and i love that i love i love his ability to draw you in with this unsettling beauty and then turn the page into just horror it's wonderful okay i'm going to do spoilers now so if you haven't read the book go ahead and click the description go to final thoughts just jump straight there but for those of you who are interested in spoilers we have some things to discuss first i want to take you through some of my favorite and least favorite chapters just kind of mentioning the the bits that landed really well for me and the bits that didn't for me it's not me saying that certain chapters were bad it's just me saying that you know some of them i liked more than others and then we'll talk about it coming together the ending and also some of the themes i'd love to discuss a little bit as far as chapters that i didn't love i think the main ones were just the ones that seemed almost a little bit more silly than scary to me like for instance the hair chapter and the hair thing it definitely fits with the themes in that it's you know the the spiral calls for attention so they become obsessed with with needing attention and so the spiral does it through their hair um but i don't know it wasn't it didn't there was nothing disturbing about it it looked more silly than anything and then when they had a hair battle it really seemed silly although even even the short stories that don't fully work for me because they they don't they don't land in any kind of even mildly unsettling way for me there's still really good moments like i do like that the hair obsessively growing ended up sucking the life out of the person in order to continue the growth and then we're left with this image of this woman who or girl who is essentially a hanging corpse on on the telephone pole and the people aren't even acknowledging the hanging corpse they're looking up at the spirals and i really liked that that image of of them not even seeing the horrors right in front of them because they're so fixated on the thing that's taking the town over i really liked that so even the chapters that didn't land just right for me still i there's something to love about them i really loved the jack in the box uh chapter because i mean jack-in-the-boxes are they're supposed to be creepy they're constantly constantly they're they're used in horror not infrequently and this kid who's obsessed with our protagonists and who to the point of actually getting hit by a car and dying and then we go try to or then the jack-in-the-box the gift he gave her is haunting her and then we go try to like stake him because we don't know what we're doing here and and then the guy himself pops up from the grave and starts chasing them in his creepy jack-in-the-box away that's awesome the snail is another chapter that i didn't super love it just seemed too weird to me it didn't seem uh i don't know it didn't seem like something that could seep into my everyday life because even though i'll see a snail and i'll see the spiral i'm not worried about that having once been a person or about me turning into a snail it just seemed too abstract for me but it ended up tying into the end in a way that made me love that this chapter was here and that this was an element in the story so again this is what i'm saying this chapter didn't really do much for me but the way it tied in by the end i was like i'm so here for these snail people uh the lighthouse chapter was really great with it burning people up and and you know people being obsessed with going up the spiral of the staircase and the spirals being in it and then it burns people when dusk sets that's so great i loved the hospital section uh where her cousin wasn't yeah her cousin got bit by mosquito and then got sick because of it so she's in the hospital but now she's infected with this mosquito-like mentality of in order to feed my baby i must drink blood and you know that in and of itself is like okay whatever but the fact that they have these tools where they come in to people's rooms while they sleep and drill holes into them so that they can drink their blood to nourish their child is so grotesque and and and not only that but then you also have this kind of this haunting almost zom zombie-like demeanor that they have when they're hunting for blood and it's just wonderful that bleeding over into the next chapter with the babies and you know it i don't know i i definitely liked the one with the the chapter with the pregnant women more than i liked the chapter with the babies but it was still i just i still loved this concept of like these these babies growing these mushrooms and then the doctor harvesting those or or placing them somewhere and then they grow up from where they were and then then they start feeding them to people is just like so disturbing to think about um the doctor naturally deciding to put the child back inside the mother was probably the most disturbing panel in in the manga anyway near the end it felt far less like a series of strange things that are happening around the town and far more of the culmination of everything that we just set up so as as the town is being taken over by the spiral by this chaos by death and madness it's becoming so desolate and we get this distinct shift when we switch briefly over to following some reporters that are coming in to report on the story to hopefully provide relief they end up in a car accident and and we're back to our protagonist um and and we see that this town has is essentially in ruins and corpses everywhere and so much desperation and this was where the manga really started i mean i enjoyed it from the first page all the way through even though there were some chapters that i was feeling a little bit uncertain about i enjoyed myself reading the whole thing but it wasn't until we got to this point that i was like oh my goodness i'm reading something truly masterful the absolute fear and desperation that that that junji ito yeah that junji ito captured in this book in this in this manga he captured it so holy and so well i felt as i was reading it i felt so hopeless in this town and so desperate and he captured that desperation and the many forms that it takes so well with with gangs forming and and just causing chaos and further destruction and and almost reveling in in the suffering that's happening around them as well as you know people huddled together and trying to find refuge among each other but at the same time also you know bickering amongst each other and and fighting and and every man for himself while also still trying to be protecting each other it was he oh it was so good but then the continuity and the purposefulness of it all coming together with people not wanting to create whirlwinds so they move slowly but then the slowness is what is what ends up taking them over with them turning into these snail people but then on top of that you also have um you also have themes being explored really heavily not only in in the different forms in which people respond to these desperate situations but then also with people feeling knowing that these snail creatures were once human are still in some capacity human but but telling yourself no they're not human because you're hungry and and you need to survive your survival mode is on and so your morality and your beliefs shift and so you have the people who are causing chaos and reveling in the chaos and thriving in the chaos you have them who are the first ones to start cooking and eating the snails and people are horrified by it even our protagonist is horrified by it uh but then even she eventually breaks down and eats snail too because what do you do in a survival situation do you keep your morals or do you keep your life and you just continue to see it it it crumble more and more with the people starting to grow into each other but still being obsessed with staying in these housing these houses so they continue to build them and they continue to to uh try to keep them and then whenever somebody dies they untangle themselves from the corpse and dispose of it and ask them to take it away for them or or with with the snail people you have people trying to find a way out we learn that this town that they're trapped there is no exit no matter how you you try to leave you will either end up in a terrible accident or you will simply end up in a circle and back into town there is no way out the town will not let you escape which i love but then also anybody that tries to come in all the relief teams that try to come in that try to help them they all end up trapped too and end up being victims to the spiral as well there is always a way in but never a way out the spiral will keep you here i love it but then you have people who are still searching for a way out still trying to find a way out yet have still lost a piece of their humanity in this survival mode that they're in so they have a person who's turning into a snail they have them tethered to a rope and they're bringing them along on this adventure to try to escape because hey they might get hungry at some point and you just see it getting into their mind more and seeing them lose themselves more and more the more time that they spend with the spiral to the point that now they're excited to eat the snail people raw they don't even want to cook them anymore they they revel in the act now back to kyrie because you also have i i i there were times where i was kind of frustrated with kyrie because because like her boyfriend is telling her all these things he's very he he quickly accepts that this force is on the town and and naturally the town doesn't accept it as a force they kind of write it off because that's what you would do in a situation like this but he's proven himself over and over and over again to be very knowledgeable to be very insightful to really understand this and yet carrie is regularly just saying you're overreacting or you're being ridiculous there at the beginning eventually she does accept it and she does you know really heed her her boyfriend's counsel i really think that she's a great contrast to him because of her persistence in maintaining hope so you know you have her still trying to escape the town despite knowing that there is no way out she and suici our her boyfriend are trying to get out together as well as her little brother but her brother is turning into a snail and her still trying to protect him still trying to carry him you know not wanting to leave him for dead not accepting that he uh that he is is sub-human as he that he's less than human as he's making this change despite having already eaten snail herself it just it was good um but then even her despite knowing that there's no way out despite having these people following them being obsessed with the snare with with with the spiral wanting to eat her brother despite the fact that he's fully changed into stale snail now her hope really doesn't dissipate um to the point that she shepherds her brother off or down the mountain and says you know just just stay well i'll come back for you i promise and it's like how where do you get this hope like this idea that you can come back to him uh this this idea that you can offer him any kind of resolution any kind of hope of getting out of here or somehow turning him back to a full human how but it doesn't end there either when when they do end up following the houses and the housing turns into a spiral itself because they keep building it and connecting it and then they finally find the end and it's at the dragonfly pond that has been referenced all throughout this book and that it seems everything horrible is coming from they finally get there and they find this spiraling staircase to get to the bottom so they start walking because she just wants to find her parents and me and my cynical self i'm like consider them dead assume them dead you can't find them in the town everybody in the town is dying assume them dead don't go into the depths don't go into the belly of the beast what are you doing you fool but at the same time it also still feels so consistent with her character because she is the embodiment of hope in this desolate situation where people are digressing into these terrible things she isn't and i think that's a big part of why the spirals are all around her and affecting her but never taking her over is because she's not giving in to them she's maintaining this hope all throughout the story and and and her hope i think is what's protecting her from the spiral so while her descending into the belly of the beast in order to maybe hopefully possibly find her parents is foolish and i'm at the page saying consider them dead leave go find somewhere else to be not that there's anywhere else she can be but anyway she goes and once she gets down there and you know finds all the corpses that have essentially turned to stone finds what is in this beast and realizes she and her boyfriend realize that this thing has been going on for who knows how long that this town is essentially stuck in a loop where it it descends into the spiral the spiral takes over the town and takes over the people and destroys it and then and then once that is complete then it kind of almost i i interpreted it as it almost hibernates while the town builds itself back up new people come in and it becomes a town again and then however long later the spiral takes over again and it just keeps doing it again and again with new victims each time but it was in realizing this i think and seeing her parents dead and knowing that her brother is off somewhere as a snail and knowing that now her boyfriend too can't go on that she finally lies down and embraces the spiral and that is when it ends that is when it says so the curse was over the same moment it began the endless frozen moment i spent in suici's arms and it will be the same moment when it ends again when the next town is built amidst the ruins of the old one when the eternal spiral awakens once more oh what an ending what an ending it was when she finally gave up she was the last straw it was when she finally gave up that it was over because she was the last one that the spiral hadn't gotten yet oh i loved it i loved it anyway this has been long so i'll i'll i'll leave it i'll leave it there but what a book okay we're in final thoughts now uh so if you're spoiler free hopefully you're still here you've come back to me um my final thoughts are that this book was extraordinary this manga was extraordinary sorry i'm still very new to reviewing manga so if i'm doing a poor job please forgive me maybe i'll get better i think that this was so great it was such a it was such a mixture of of things that that that will get into your mind you know i see spirals everywhere now since since i started reading this book and it's fun for me um i would say i'm not easily scared so when i see a spiral i'm like ha that's great it reminds me of uzumaki um so i see him everywhere and and i'm reminded constantly of these images that i've seen and of of this this town that is horrifying i'm reminded of these characters that i think were actually quite well fleshed out and and and had a lot to them i loved the genuine horror of this book but i also loved the continuity that it ended up being having um as well as a lot of the things that i feel like i feel like we're in there to make us reflect on a little bit more i definitely recommend this if you're easily scared probably no but if you aren't and you really like feeling very uncomfortable you should read this because i loved it and it's also it's if it's thick sorry there it's thick but it's also very um fast to read because there's actually there's not a ton of text on it it's very visually led so it's a super fast read super uncomfortable read super addictive read which i also love because it's so focused on obsession and yet i really felt like this book i couldn't stop reading it i kind of became obsessed with turning the pages which is just just a great added bonus i really enjoyed it i also think that if you're relatively new to manga like i am it is a really good starting point if you like this sort of terrifying horrible thing but anyway i would love to continue discussing it with you in the comments i've already bought another one of junji ito's books so i will be reading more of him go ahead and recommend if you've read more of his stuff than this go ahead and recommend what you have enjoyed if you have read it if you plan to read it chat with me about it in the comments if you're going to discuss spoilers please do the spoiler space-based space so that we don't spoil people that are here spoiler free i post videos every tuesday through friday i'll see you again soon bye [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Merphy Napier

Views: 95,953

Keywords:

Id: byxz5yNtGn0

Length: 28min 32sec (1712 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 21 2021