Adult Swim’s Long-Awaited Uzumaki Anime Might Break the Junji Ito Adaptation Curse

Earlier today, Adult Swim unveiled the official trailer for its long-awaited anime adaptation of horror manga auteur Junji Ito‘s magnum opus, Uzumaki, and it looks like a terrifyingly good time.

Uzumaki, a four-episode anime by Ghost in the Shell studio Production I.G, follows high schooler Kirie Goshima’s harrowing misadventures as a mysterious spiral pattern population haunts her and her hometown. Although the spiral starts as an odd curiosity for the townsfolk, it soon becomes an all-encompassing obsession threatening to upend their lives in increasingly gruesome and macabre body horror-filled ways.

Famously, Uzumaki was initially slated to release on Toonami in 2020 before it spiraled into three delays. At the time, Production I.G. issued a statement on the anime’s official X/Twitter page saying it required more time to ensure the anime’s distinct black-and-white CG style recreated “the quality of the intricate designs and detailed line work” of Ito’s manga.

In a recent interview with Vulture, Uzumaki executive producer and Adult Swim senior vice president Jason DeMarco recounted the series’ many troublesome production woes, including how covid-19 halted work on the anime.

“The pandemic completely stopped production on the show for close to a year. It was the single biggest impact,”  DeMarco told Vulture. “Our crew was small, so having even a few members and their families getting deathly ill was a huge blow to both the production and our morale. It was very challenging to bring the show back from the dead.”

DeMarco also revealed that Flying Lotus, a long-time Adult Swim music collaborator, suggested making Uzumaki a black-and-white CG animation to deliver the page-turning horror of Ito’s manga panels.

“I thought that was an amazing idea and suggested it to [director Hiroshi] Nagahama in our first meeting about the show. He said he had actually been thinking about the same thing and that he was thrilled I suggested it,” DeMarco said.

“Nagahama’s idea was to use motion capture and build everything in CG, then re-draw all of it, which he felt would give the animators the ability to tackle Ito-sensei’s line work, which is incredibly detailed,” DeMarco continued. “The decision to produce the show in black and white ended up being a huge production issue, but obviously it looks terrific.” Adult Swim’s decision to make Uzumaki black and white plays in stark contrast to previous anime adaptations from Crunchyroll and Netflix—Junji Ito Collection and Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, respectively—both of which were in color, with middling results.

Closing out the interview, DeMarco says he and the folks at Adult Swim are glad to have finally exited the production nightmare spiral that was working on Uzumaki. However, he’s pretty sure the crew is dealing with a similar curse as Kirie.

“I still see spirals. Everyone who worked on the show does—millions and millions of them,” DeMarco said, adding that the production team visited a shrine to rid themselves of the supernatural. “It didn’t work! Without the slightest hyperbole, all of us on the staff truly believe the spiral cursed our project. It’s a miracle it got made and we all survived it.”

Uzumaki premieres on Adult Swim September 28, with a next-day streaming release on Max.

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