Thursday, August 22, 2024

Uzumaki by Junji Ito

 

(hb; 1998-1999, 2013: manga omnibus)

 

From the back cover

“Kurouzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Suichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but a pattern: Uzumaki, the spiral—a hypnotic secret shape of the world. This bizarre masterpiece of horror manga is now available in a single volume. Fall into a whirlpool of terror!

 

Review

Narrated by Kirie Goshima, a schoolgirl who witnesses the escalating, increasingly grotesque spiral-centric horrors encapsulating her village (Kurouzu-cho), Uzumaki begins with her boyfriend Suichi Saito’s father becoming obsessed with circular patterns. After Saito’s father dies under seemingly near-impossible circumstances, the strangeness begins warping the emotional, psychic and physical fabric of reality for the people in the village bordering the mysterious Dragonfly Pond—and threatening to spread its cataclysmic ends to the world beyond it.

Each book-chapter of this omnibus is truly original in its tone, artistic and visual aspects, with a finish that, despite its holy-frak-that’s-wild elements and terrors, is masterfully personal.

Uzumaki is one of my favorite all-time manga, with its Lovecraftian though distinctive blend of crazy imagery, weirdness, ickiness, horror, romance, rural life and humor, a work that’s not for the faint of heart. Worth owning, this.

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