Uzumaki (3-in-1 Deluxe Edition) (Junji Ito)

An absolutely STUNNING edition of the classic title! The quality of the hardcover is spot on, and the paper used for the book is perfect! The artwork is done masterfully, and the storytelling makes this a must own for fans of the genre! Most who have an interest in this title know exactly what they’re getting into. If you do, and you wish to have a comprehensive collection of this title, look no further. This fits all your needs at a decent price for the quality! If it’s your first time reading this title, I can’t recommend this book enough! It’s creepy, compelling and “over-the-top” in the best way possible. If you’re not a fan of Uzumaki or the artist, Junji Ito, be prepared to be after you make this very reasonably priced purchase for a masterpiece! Now, for the uninitiated, this is a horror story that can be extremely graphic and deals with extraordinary dark themes. This is NOT a book for children! Please do appropriate research before purchasing for children of a certain age. However, for lovers of horror and the supernatural Uzumaki is Manga lover’s fever dream! It’s a classic for a reason! This collection is HIGHLY recommended! Great price, and an even better experience.

Kurouzo-Cho is a normal town unlike every other until spirals can be seen everywhere in plants, ashes coming for a crematorium, whirlpools, whirlwinds, and even the topography of the town itself. Uzumaki is an anthology of stories about this town with two main characters that connect all of the stories: Kirie Goshima and Shuichi Saito. These two are teens that are going to the local high school and dating each other until Shuichi's father becomes obsessed with spirals. He collects every object he can that is spiral shaped or has spirals on it. His wife becomes concerned by his behavior as he only stares at his objects, forgoing work and anything else not spiral related. She throws all of his things away and he opts to find spirals within himself leading to his grotesque death when he crushed his entire body into an elongated spiral. When he is cremated, his ashes take a spiral shape and fall into Dragonfly Lake. Much like Tomie, the stories told have that seed of obsession throughout on a bigger and bigger scale as the book goes on. Each story is related in some way to something that has happened. An artist gets clay from Dragonfly Lake and becomes obsessed with his pottery that comes out of the kiln with bizarre spirals with a much sinister origin. Shuichi's mother fears spirals with as much furvor as her husband loved them, even removing them from her own body in hair, her fingerprints, and eventually inside her ear. Kirei herself becomes effected as her hair spirals, growing larger and larger, and attacking her when she tries to cut it. Classmates and others flock to her hair's mesmerizing power until another classmate vows to be more popular than her. Azami, a Tomie-esque girl, entrances anyone she sets her eyes on. When Shuichi rejects her, she becomes obsessed with him. A lighthouse with no power lights up again and hynotizes people to go to it. People start turning into giant snails. Spiral cursed mosquitoes bite pregnant women with monstrous, disgusting results plus even more stories. These stories have transformations, murder, mayhem, and, beneath it all, a town that largely ignores every instance and goes back to some semblance of normal. During the last few stories, the curse of spirals amps up to completely isolate and change Kurouzo-Cho. The spiral curse is simply too big to ignore at this point since life has completely changed for its inhabitants and anyone unlucky enough to fight their way there. Six hurricanes (of course as giant spiral storms) surround the city along with deadly whirlpools in the ocean, keeping rescue away and keeping people from leaving. Inside the city, any sound above a whisper creates a twister that will tear through the city. Some people use this power liberally as a weapon while others prefer to live as peacefully as they can. As a result, the enture city is in shambles with the only true shelter being old row houses that were deemed as slums in more normal times. The row houses are rebuilt, but the curse doesn't spare them even where the whirlwinds can't enter. If people move too slow, they turn into giant snails, a source of food for the starving and less morally burdened. I didn't know how a story at this scale could end, much like Gyo kind of had a non-ending, but it eventually settles down until the next cycle (or spiral) who knows how many years later. Through all of this, Kirei goes about her life as normally as she can while Shuichi becomes a sullen, justifiably antisocial harbinger of the harm these spirals can do. However, they still remain in Kurouzo-Cho for no reason. In Tomie, the title character is the connective tissue for the stories, but this one doesn't quite work for me. If any normal person had seen a fraction of what they have, why would anyone stay in that one city? It's stated early that none of the surrounding cities are affected so they would have been safe if they moved even one town over. The only other thing I have a problem with is Ito's habit of characterizing the majority of the young women in his stories as completely vain and obsessed with popularity. It's a rehashing of the Tomie story which was proven to be much more than just a misogynistic stereotype. In these small moments, it seems more like that is the case and it's disappointing. Uzumaki is another successful horror anthology that serves up surrealistic horror, gut punching and grotesque surprises, and horrifically detailed art. Each story is more extreme than the last even when I think it can't go any further. While I see some storylines or concepts that Ito likes to return to, many of the stories are completely unique and go places I never expected horror to go. I especially enjoyed the Sunnydale vibe about the town that refuses to see what's really going on and eager to go back to normal as soon as possible. If you like Japanese horror films or Lovecraftian, surreal horror, I would highly recommend just about anything Junjo Ito produces.

Taking place in the small coastal town of Kurouzu-cho in Japan, Uzumaki mainly follows the characters Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend Shuichi Saito. Their town is a quiet place until some people begin acting crazy with a strange obsession over spirals. It is not long before these people's obsessions turn to complete madness until the spirals consume them and start to affect the entire town. This was the first Junji Ito work that I have ever read. I found that this book was quite enjoyable in several regards. The most notable part of this work is the art itself. I found that the artwork throughout was superb that is not only very detailed in everything, but also does a great job to tell this horror story. The characters are very expressive and distinct and the various settings and backgrounds are well detailed. The artwork really helped in the worldbuilding in this regard. This includes some of the more horror and fantastic elements of the story as people, and the town itself, descend into madness. I thought that the story was interesting as well. Ito is known for taking various inspirations from other authors such as the American writer H.P. Lovecraft. In Uzumaki, Ito constructs his own world of a Lovecraftian-type of horror. The premise of something like the shape of a spiral sounds difficult to take seriously at first glance, but Ito uses this premise excellently to tell his tale. It is an interesting take on how something so simple on its face can lead to some horrific consequences and the various twists and turns of the story as the reader discovers the extent of what is happening. My only criticism of this book would be that some of the chapters, especially the earlier ones, are a little too episodic without much continuity between them. It was a bit jarring, for example, to see Kirie go through some supernatural event in one chapter only to head off to school like very little is wrong in the next chapter. However, this is only a minor criticism that did not seriously affect my enjoyment of the story. I found this to be a fascinating read and I would recommend this to those that like horror stories.

This was an amazingly well done (and disturbing) manga. The story was incredibly well done, you can tell there is a heavy HP Lovecraft influence here. All of the Uzumaki story is included in this one large volume, which was awesome. I enjoyed this a ton and had trouble putting it down. The story is strangely engaging. I kept wanting to read chapters to see what bizarre new horror would overtake the town of Kurozu-cho. I was absolutely dying to know how it would all play out. The illustration is beautifully detailed and so interesting to look at. Ito-san much have taken a ton of time drawing this manga; it was amazing. The characters also have a lot of depth to them. You really feel for Shuichi; whose parents were taken by the spiral’s madness early on. He is smart and savvy, but also ends up struggling to stay engaged in day to day life after his ordeals. Kirie is an interesting character as well; she is almost strangely innocent and passive to the horrors that go on around her. Despite her innocence she has a keen sense of survival as well. Overall I would highly recommend to those who enjoy horror manga. This was an incredibly well done manga that obviously had a lot of time and thought put into both the story and the illustration. It is incredibly gory and disturbing so I would recommend to adult readers only (older teen would probably be okay too if they are really into horror). Highly recommended.

I've started my Junji Ito journey reading the Tomie collection and the Shivers and Tombs collection. I've heard Uzumaki was regarded as Ito's best work, and I think I have to agree. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. Every story became more twisted, more horrific than the last, until it unfold into a bittersweet conclusion. The artwork gets a lot of praise, as it should, since Uzumaki has some of the most beautifully horrific panels in manga history (like the famous panel of Azami and Shiuichi's dad's tongue/body). However the story itself was probably one of my favorite of Ito's. It stuck with me for a while, and genuinely freaked me out at times (the mosquito/pregnant women chapters were legitimately horrifying, along with the snails). I also really love Kirie and Shiuichi's relationship, it was beautiful and moving to see a relationship like theirs and how much they both truly cared for each other, even if Kirie didn't believe in the curse of the spiral in the beginning, she still cared for Shiuichi and seemed to be the only one to not write him off as being weird or dramatic. I had to go back and reread this after Gyo, since I found the couple in Gyo to be quite mediocre compared to Kirie and Shiuichi. Overall, if you're a Junji Ito fan or if you love weird horror, don't miss out on such a great classic. There's a reason why 27 years later this is still such a beloved work of art and beloved by Ito's fans.

I received the book today and from what I’ve read so far it seems very interesting and very cool I’m excited to read the rest of it and would recommend this to anyone interested in manga and horror.

It's hard to know what to make of this book. It has a reputation for being one of the better horror graphic novels, yet upon first hearing it described as the story of a town haunted by spiral patterns, one could easily be forgiven for dismissing the idea as ludicrous. However, though it doesn't end up delivering many real scares, it does make for a wonderfully bizarre read. Those of you who, like myself, aren't accustomed to reading manga will likely share my initial reluctance to read a book "backwards" and right to left. Once I got into it, though, I found that the pages were well-constructed enough that the flow from panel to panel became effortless. The story itself draws some clear inspiration from the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft. While Lovecraft's works are generally more successful as works of horror while this book doesn't really provide any good scares, the avid reader of weird fiction will nonetheless find a lot to enjoy in this graphic novel's excellent depictions of strange and horrifying scenes. If you're looking for linear storytelling, this might not be the book for you. While clearly interconnected, the book primarily focuses on a series of vignettes as the main characters face a variety of spiral-inspired terrors. By the end, the stories are woven together to create an overarching mythos which partly (but, thankfully, never completely) explains the events of the earlier chapters. On a note of criticism: the final story in this edition is a "lost chapter" entitled "Galaxies." The story of this particular chapter fits well with the assorted stories told throughout the book, but its inclusion at the end rather than its placement in the book's proper chronology is a bit disappointing and, if read immediately after the rest of the book, could detract from the impact of the "real" ending. The reader would be well-advised to let the book sit for a day or so before returning to read this final chapter. Overall, while I was hoping this book would scare me in a way that it never did, it exceeded my other expectations in terms of art and storytelling and is well worth a read.

I bought this book as a birthday gift for my sister, and she was so happy she cried. The book itself is full of well drawn images, a sturdy and beautiful cover, and interesting stories. She showed me the pages that carried the amazing artwork depicting the disturbing and grotesque horror that characterizes Junji Ito. Amazing purchase!