Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I announce with some degree of trepidation that we are returning to Uzumaki, the recent adaptation of Junji Ito’s famed horror manga. Though the first episode of this adaptation was actually phenomenal, there were apparently some catastrophic production breakdowns in the course of this series’ oft-delayed genesis. As a result, this second episode no longer boasts direction by Hiroshi Nagahama, the horror maestro whose uncanny application of rotoscoped animation and fastidious attention to sound design detail made the first episode such a wonder.

The reasons for this breakdown are both obscure and predictable; I don’t have exact knowledge of who pulled the plug, but it seems obvious that someone on the American side of this production got cold feet regarding the time and labor required for Nagahama’s approach, and instead tossed the production to a director who is renowned for putting in slipshod, subpar work at presumably cheaper rates. This is of a piece with American producers’ general lack of respect for the work that goes into anime production, and with Adult Swim in particular’s conflation of nostalgia with artistic value. Shows like the FLCL sequels embody Henry Ford’s maxim of “if I asked the people what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses” – it is up to great artists to show people what they could never have imagined wanting, and a philosophy born of “I want to recreate the exact conditions of when I first saw Cowboy Bebop at 1 AM on Adult Swim” will never produce such new ideas.

Thus we journey onward, into the consequences of high-level producers demanding swift, affordable results from a process whose fruits they could never measure or understand. With the spiral closing in around Uzumaki itself, we return to the field!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re checking out a new production, as we explore the long-awaited adaptation of horror mangaka Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, or “Spiral.” The acclaimed manga centers on the town of Kurouzu-cho, where some sort of spiral-oriented curse is steadily infecting the townsfolk and the landscape around them. In classic Ito fashion, Uzumaki wavers between eerie body horror and high-concept farce, treading the uncertain line dividing horror from comedy, and ultimately building a profound sense of entrapment and dread across its spiral-centered vignettes.

Whether Ito’s work can be translated to effective animation is another question entirely, and one that has been afforded some worrying precedent through prior adaptations like Gyo and the recent Junji Ito Collection. Conveying horror through the inherently affected medium of animation is extremely difficult; horror generally demands a sense of vulnerability, and an audience’s awareness that they are watching lines drawn on a page tends to undercut any aspirations in that direction. It is additionally the inherent wobbling nature of Ito’s linework, as if he’s scratching with the charcoals of a ritual fire, that often affords his stories such profound emotive power. Stack all that with his work’s tendency to strain suspension of disbelief even in its original medium, and you’ve got a mammoth task facing any prospective adaptation.

Fortunately, director Hiroshi Nagahama is an absolute master of tone, and has already proven through both his Mushishi and Flowers of Evil adaptations that he is literally the best horror director working in animation. If anyone can manage it, Nagahama can, and I’m certainly eager to see him try. Let’s get to it!

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