Uzumaki

Spiral into horror

Hardcover, 653 pages

English language

Published Oct. 15, 2013 by VIZ Media.

ISBN:
978-1-4215-6132-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
858008425

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (33 reviews)

Kurôzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It manifests itself in everything from seashells and whirlpools in water to the spiral marks on people's bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuichi's father and the voice from the cochlea in our inner ear. As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of Kurôzu-cho are pulled ever deeper into a whirlpool from which there is no return!

4 editions

Review of 'Uzumaki' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

4/5

This was the first visual novel/manga I’ve ever read and I really enjoyed it! I do think the first half of the book was much better than the later half, I just liked the individual strange stories more than when it all started converging together by the end. But overall it was solid.

There were some truly horrifying scenes in this book, like things that will probably haunt my dreams for a while. The art style really sold the atmosphere and feeling of dread throughout and the author did not hold back with all of the truly messed up ways people ended up dying. It was a great read and I might have to start picking up a few more visual novels in the future.

Review of Uzumaki

5 stars

What could I possibly say about Junji Ito’s works that have not already been said? He is a master at taking bizarre or mundane ideas and turning them into a creeping horror with his fantastic art style. This collection of stories about this doomed town and the people who live in it initially feels disconnected and disparate, but ultimately built up into a suitably Lovecraftian conclusion. If you are interested in horror manga and have not yet tried out this book, do yourself a favor and check it out.

Review of 'Uzumaki' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

An absolute gem of cosmic horror. Junji Ito manages spectacularily to hold the mood throughout the entire book. It starts weird and gets just weirder, presenting the reader with unsettling things one after another, without ever feeling stale or somehow forced. I really enjoyed the ending.

For any fans of H.P. Lovecraft, and I kinda found something similar here as in Strugatsky brothers' Roadside Picnic, which I completed just recently, in that regular people get caught in something inexplicable and alien, looking for answers and closure.

excellent. disturbing

5 stars

first off I'd strongly advise against reading this (or any of Junji Ito's works, probably) if body horror is a big problem for you. that said, Uzumaki is really good! the art is amazingly done, and the slow escalation from relatively self-contained (and occasionally kind of silly) spiral-based phenomena to... the stuff that happens at the end... is just fantastic.

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Subjects

  • Death
  • Spirals
  • Comic books, strips

Places

  • Japan

Lists