Uzumaki is a masterpiece of horror manga, available as this deluxe hardcover edition. It appears as a collection of short stories rather than a book chapters, though each of these stories follow the same, main characters, dealing with horror in their town, Kurôzu-cho. The story follows two teenagers, Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend Shuichi Saito, trying to escape the town after it is being haunted not by some creature or ghosts but by spiral pattern that manifest itself into everything- from the seashells, whirpools, chimney smoke, hair, even umbilical cord, bringing people to the edge of the existence where they either end up their own life or turn into spiral themselves.

The beginning of the story starts with Kirie overlooking the town, thinking about the future when she realizes it is becoming late and she needs to hurry down if she wants to meet her boyfriend, Shuichi. On the way to his house she finds Shuichi's father, Mr.Saito, being preoccupied with a spiral-shaped shell. She tries to talk to him but he doesn't pay any attention to her which she finds strange. After meeting Shuichi at the station, they walk to Kirie's house together while Shuichi rants about how much he hates the town. Shuichi claims in an absent mutter that the town is "contaminated by the spiral." to Kirie's confusion. Shuichi explains that his father has developed an unhealthy obsession with spirals that has lead him to stop going to work and, impliedly, become abusive towards Shuichi's mother, Yukie. Kirie brushes this off, claiming that "there are people who collect much stranger things, like cigarette butts," though Mr Saito's obsession with spirals ultimately leads him to a gruesome suicide by turning his body into a spiral. Later, Yukie develops a phobia of spirals that causes her to shave her head, and cut the skin from her fingertips. Kirie comes to visit on a few occasions, until eventually Yukie kills herself by stabbing herself in the ears after she is deluded into believing there are spirals in them. After this, a black spiral of smoke rises above Kurôzu-Cho from the burning of Yukie's ashes. Shuichi refuses to go to school or leave his house and Kirie is still unconvinced of the existence of a spiral curse.

As the story reveals more horrific events, after Kirie's parents die from the same cause, she realizes the town is completely overtaken by spiral and that she needs to find the way out, to save herself and Shuichi.

For good scares and lovers of horror art.

I found illustrations to be awesomely done. This is my first manga book I bought and that I have ever read and I'm very satisfied with how it's done. This hardcover edition even have the afterword and few colored pages which can't be found in regular soft cover comic strips. As much as the story itself is a unique piece of horror writing that much the art inside is simply amazing.

Maybe the only thing that bothered me is because characters weren't developed too much before they got killed. Like I mentioned above, Uzumaki appears as a collection of short stories and each story has its own characters and setting which usually finish dead before we even get to know them well. It was still satisfying reading though.

Since I don't usually read manga, this book awoke my interest, especially about Junji Ito's books. I will probably buy the other two hardcover editions available on Amazon- Tomie, and Gyo.

I was quite disturbed after I was done with reading. I'm horror junkie and I'm not easily to be scared or disturbed but this book is like perfection of how I imagine horror to be like. I was glad that after so much time of watching different movies, reading different horror writing I finally found something with taste.

Junji Ito debuted as a horror manga artist in 1987 with the first story in his successful Tomie series. Uzumaki, drawn from 1998 to 1999, was adapted into a live-action movie, which has been released in America by Viz Films and Tidepoint Pictures. It's influences include the classic manga artists Kazuo Umezu and Hideshi Hino, as well as authors Yasutaka Tsutsui and H.P. Lovecraft.

It is one of those books that you want to read in one take to see what will happen at the end. There are 648 pages of it, I finished with reading in two days since manga isn't like regular novels, it doesn't have a lot of words. I spent a lot of time admiring the art though, otherwise I'd probably be done with it sooner.

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Created Oct 13, 2017 at 2:09pm • Submit your own review...