Uzumaki

Creator: Junji Ito

Publisher: Viz Media

Pages: 648

Great horror story, that follows a very classic way of doing horror, but is rich with interesting ideas and concepts which really carries the story through to the end.

Uzumaki means spiral, and that is exaclty what is haunting a small japanese village. firstly in minor ways with a man that becomes obssesed with spiral shaped objects, but soon it all turns into bodily horrors. As the story progresses you get the feeling that something bigger is going on, some ancient evil might be haunting the streets.

The book explores its core premise of spirals in so many interesting and varied ways, that you never know what kind of horrors comes next. And like a true classic horror story the characters are second to the creepy, horrifying stuff happening around them, and you do not get much of a character development or learn more about them throughout. They merely serve as the straight guy/girl to which the reader can relate and empathize with. They are the ones who act the most “normal”.

One of Ito’s trademark tools for scaring the reader is the use of the page turn. In Uzumaki he use that to great effect, setting the reader up for something terrifying and then making them turn the page to reveal the terrors, thus giving the reader time to wonder and fear what they are going to see when they choose to turn the pages. Here the magnificent artwork really comes into play, as much of the creepiness comes from the overly detailed and intricate drawings of all manner of horrific scenes. overall the artwork is really great but whenever such a scare comes up it goes further up a notch to make it even more life-like and realistic and thus also equally more terrifying.

The overall narrative is pretty weak, as there are parts which feels like isolated stories that have no impact on the characters future actions or the plot in general. Though still adding to a general sense of dread and uncertainty to the world.

Despite its flaws preventing it from being a narrative masterpiece it does what good horror is supposed to do and does it really well. so much so that you will be afraid to turn the pages, but still have that aching curiosity that drives you to do so anyway.

Pros:

• Unique concept done well
• Fitting artstyle
• Truly horrifying

Cons:

• Weak narrative
• Flat characters

9/10 Fantastic