BEEP BEEP THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED COOL BEANS

Horror is not my sort of genre, to say the least. If I ever see a horror movie, I cover my eyes and ears, as moving images and intense music is the main contributing factor to the sense of horror. This means that horror manga is especially tough to pull off. Just static images and words. Now imagine how hard it is to make the monster of your story abstract, like an idea, or state of mind. What about a shape?

Junji Ito does exactly that in Uzumaki, a horror manga about a small seaside village in Japan called Kurozucho, and the town’s affiliation with a shape, namely, the spiral. The book follows Kirie, a high school girl who, with her boyfriend Shuichi, see the whole town collapse into madness over the simple shape of a spiral.

“But Isaac!” you may exclaim, “how can I be scared of a little shape such as a spiral? That makes as much sense as being scared of a squa-“ no shut it. You will fear spirals for days of end after reading this. It’s mortifying. You’re not scared yet? Wait until you see a body curved into a spiral. A whole body. Bones don’t matter. There is a body that is almost flat, and is curved into a spiral. Google it, it’s horrifying. If you have a copy of Uzumaki, it’s on page 40-41. Yes it’s a splash page because Ito hates everyone and wants the most horrifying image to be also the most detailed because he hates people. That’s the only explanation. By the way, notice how it’s on page 40. Out of a 600 page book. You’re not even an eighth of the way through the book. And it still remains to be the most horrifying image in the book. People turn into fucking snails, twist their backs so they turn into snakes, and pregnant women are now human mosquitos who fucking stab poplin order to give sustenance to their babies. There is literal dead bodies every fucking where at the end. Kirie is walking on a bunch of dead people like Smash Mouth is walking on the sun (that’s a good song by the way; Isaac’s recommendation of the week because I’m pretending that I update this series weekly) like it’s no fucking deal. I was going to try and not to swear on this review, but fuck it’s scary.

On a nicer note, the artwork and page layout is really nice. It’s all in black and white, except for a few watercolored pages which I’m not too big on. I prefer the black and white mainly because it reminds me of those old b-movie horror films that are just kind of funny to watch now. The black and white also shows the grittiness of it all, and really brings out Ito’s art, which is amazing. It’s very manga-y, which is probably for the best, as manga and anime have been known for being both silly and serious and experimental (more like experiMENTAL). My favourite thing about his art style is that when people are kind of crazy, their gaze is slightly off; their eyes point in different directions. 

The page layout is also fascinating as there's a heirarchy, with the most shocking panels taking up the most space, followed by the panels of normal stuff dialogue (of which there is barely any). Another trick that Ito does is that he shows a reaction before he shows what they’re reacting to. This is really good for horror genres, as it’s kind of up to the reader’s mind to conjure what could possibly be in the next panel. Ito does this to extremes, making the last panel the reaction and using the page turn to build up tension. Also, side note, can we appreciate that big boy Junji over here had to draw spirals over and over and over and over and over and over again? Like, spirals are really hard to draw.

Now I kind of want to give you things to look out for. As you guys who are reading this are on tapas.io at the moment, two snail boys put aside their differences to fall in gay snail love. Also, for all you jealous girls who hate the super popular hot girls who get all the boys, both of them (there’s two) die. Both by spirals.

There are, however, a few negatives. The coloured pages where unnecessary, and the ending’s like whaaaaaaaaaat. Also the fact that some stuff just kind of goes away is so weird, like spiky skin moles and sentient hurricanes. No, I’m not joking on that last one. Oh yeah, also SPIRALS.

So there you go. Next time you’re out on the street, you get some soft serve ice cream, you see a tuba, you see a tongue being curled, don’t be afraid…to have a panic attack. Just scream until you remember that you have spirals inside of you, like you cochlea, a thing inside your ear that allows you to hear. Have fun trying to live. I give Uzumaki by Junji Ito four out of five gails (gay snails but like a portmanteau).