It is these characters that we get to see succumb to the lure of the spiral in excitingly gruesome and richly detailed ways. Where the main characters rarely differ and act as the main through line between each story, the supporting cast from each story are who arguably make this book stand up as the horror masterpiece that it is often referred to as. This whirling tale is essentially a series of connected short stories. Partly inspired by a time in Ito’s childhood in which he himself became obsessive over spiral patterns, we follow main protagonist Kirie Goshima, as she gets drawn deeper into this pattern that is seemingly haunting the town.
Uzumaki takes place in the small coastal town of Kurouzu-cho, a town that slowly becomes more and more obsessed by spirals. Junji Ito is often cited as the master of horror manga, and after reading Uzumaki, my first from this creator and my first manga experience, it is easy to see why! As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of Kurouzu-cho are pulled ever deeper into a whirlpool from which there is no return! It manifests itself in everything from seashells and whirlpools in water to the spiral marks on people’s bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuichi’s father and the voice from the cochlea in our inner ear. According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: Uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world.
Kurouzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed.
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