The spiral is everywhere. It’s in the shell of a snail, the iris of an eye, and for decades, it has been the central nightmare of Junji Ito’s magnum opus. When Adult Swim and Production I.G. first teased a Junji Ito Uzumaki anime back in 2019, the collective hype from the horror community was deafening. We finally had a team that seemed to "get" it—the black-and-white aesthetic, the haunting score by Colin Stetson, and a commitment to capturing the cosmic dread of Kurouzu-cho. But then came the delays. Years of them.
Then it actually arrived.
Honestly, the release of this adaptation turned into one of the most fascinating case studies in modern animation. It started as a masterpiece and ended as a meme, yet it somehow remains essential viewing for anyone who loves the genre. You’ve probably seen the screenshots of the wonky animation from the later episodes. People were ruthless. But to understand why the Junji Ito Uzumaki anime matters, you have to look past the production meltdowns and see the sheer ambition of what Director Hiroshi Nagahama was trying to achieve.
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The Impossible Task of Animating the Spiral
Junji Ito’s art is notoriously difficult to translate to the screen. His work relies on "the page turn"—that moment of physical suspense where you move from a normal scene to a double-page spread of sheer, detailed body horror. Most anime adaptations fail because they try to clean up his lines. They make it look like "normal" anime, which completely misses the point. The Junji Ito Uzumaki anime took a different path.
The first episode was a revelation. It used a technique that felt hand-drawn, capturing every cross-hatch and jagged line from the original manga. It looked like the ink was still wet. It didn't just move; it breathed. By using a motion-capture-heavy process, the team managed to give characters like Kirie Goshima and Shuichi Saito a weight that felt eerily human. This wasn't just another seasonal show. It felt like an art house project that accidentally got a massive budget.
Why episode one was a fluke
For about twenty minutes, we all thought we were witnessing the greatest horror anime ever made. The pacing was brisk, maybe a bit too fast for some, but the atmosphere was suffocating. Then, the production reality set in. Rumors began circulating about the immense pressure the staff was under. Making an anime that looks like a moving woodblock print is expensive. It’s slow. And apparently, it’s nearly impossible to sustain over a full production cycle when you're dealing with a global pandemic and shifting studio priorities.
The Visual Decline and the "Akura" Incident
If you’ve spent any time on social media, you’ve seen the "quality drop." By episode two, and specifically episode three, the Junji Ito Uzumaki anime looked like a completely different show. The fluid, rotoscoped movement was gone, replaced by stiff, sometimes unintentionally hilarious character models.
One specific scene featuring a chase in a hospital became the face of the backlash. Characters looked like they were sliding across the background. Proportions were out of whack. It was a heartbreaking sight for fans who had waited five years. Jason DeMarco, the executive producer, eventually addressed the situation on social media, basically admitting that they had a choice: release the show as it was, unfinished and flawed, or never release it at all. They were "screwed," to put it bluntly.
"We knew it was going to happen," essentially became the unofficial mantra of the production team behind the scenes.
But here is the weird thing: even when the animation stumbled, the direction didn't. Nagahama’s framing remained top-tier. The way the camera lingers on the unsettling geometry of the town still works. It proves that even "bad" animation can't fully kill a strong vision, though it certainly tries its best.
Why Uzumaki Still Matters in 2026
Despite the technical hiccups, this adaptation did something no other Ito project has. It stayed true to the tone. Previous attempts, like the Junji Ito Collection or the Netflix Maniac series, felt cheap. They were colorful, flat, and lacked the oppressive darkness of the source material.
The Junji Ito Uzumaki anime used sound design to fill the gaps where the visuals failed. Colin Stetson’s score is a masterpiece of dread. It’s all screeching woodwinds and low, vibrating hums that make your skin crawl before you even see a monster. It’s the kind of audio experience that demands headphones. Without that score, the animation issues would have been fatal. With it, the show remains a fever dream.
The narrative compression problem
Ito's manga is a series of episodic nightmares that slowly braid together into a grand finale. The anime tries to cram those 600+ pages into four episodes. It's a sprint. You lose some of the "slow burn" of Shuichi’s father becoming obsessed with the spiral. In the manga, his descent feels like a tragic, inevitable slide into madness. In the anime, it happens so fast you barely have time to process the first coil.
- The "Snail" segments were trimmed.
- The "Black Lighthouse" was haunting but brief.
- The "Hospital" arc suffered the most from the visual shifts.
Acknowledging the Artist’s Intent
It's easy to blame the studios (Drive and Production I.G.), but we have to talk about what this means for the industry. The Junji Ito Uzumaki anime is a warning. It shows that the "Ito style" might be genuinely un-animatable on a standard TV schedule. To do it right, you need a movie-level budget for every single minute of footage.
When you look at the work of experts like Henry Thurlow or other high-profile animators who have discussed this project, there is a sense of respect for the attempt. They tried to do something "uncommercial." They tried to make an anime that looked like fine art. The fact that they fell short shouldn't overshadow the fact that for one glorious episode, they actually did it.
How to Experience the Story Properly
If you're new to the world of Kurouzu-cho, don't make the anime your only stop. It’s a companion piece, not a replacement.
- Read the Manga First: You need to see the original ink work. There is a detail in the "Mosquitoes" chapter that no animation could ever replicate.
- Watch Episode One for the Vibes: Treat it like a short film. It is the purest distillation of Ito's aesthetic ever put to screen.
- Listen to the Soundtrack Separately: Seriously. It’s one of the best horror scores of the last decade.
- Forgive the Flaws: If you go in expecting Demon Slayer levels of polish, you’ll be miserable. If you go in expecting a weird, experimental, and troubled piece of art, you might find something to love.
The Junji Ito Uzumaki anime is a beautiful disaster. It's a testament to the fact that horror isn't always about being "perfect." Sometimes, the distortion, the jagged edges, and the feeling that something is fundamentally "wrong" with the medium itself actually adds to the experience. It’s messy, frustrating, and haunting. Just like a spiral.
To get the most out of your dive into the spiral, start by tracking down the Deluxe Edition of the manga published by VIZ Media. Once you have the visual language of the page burned into your brain, watch the anime with the volume turned up high. Pay attention to the background art—even in the weaker episodes, the environmental storytelling is surprisingly deep. Don't look for perfection; look for the dread.