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There's numerous genres of manga I've read over the years. I'm a shoujo fan (magical girl fan? you betcha), occasional shonen, and I devour mystery manga like potato chips. But you'd think horror manga was also up there. Sadly, I'm fairly under-read in the horror department. Since I'm old school, I usually prefer to buy my manga rather than read online, and horror manga was sadly in short supply during the huge manga boom. I do own most if not all the Ringu manga series (based both on the novel and on the movie continuities), and I also own the One Missed Call manga (with parts 1 and 2). The Ju-On manga is one I don't tell many people, because I've read it once, and that single kitten scene (if you've read it, you know which I mean) was so horrifying to me that I shoved it in a drawer and never once read it again (maybe I should have put it in the ice box...).
While I have read bits of Ito's Tomie, I didn't really read enough to call myself a fan. I regret it since Tomie is fantastic, and I should have stuck with Ito so that
I wouldn't have missed the 3 volume tour de force that is Uzumaki. Published in 1998-1999 (original run) and released by Viz in 2002, then again (with these slick black covers that do nothing but ATTRACT AND TRAP FINGERPRINTS @_@) in 2007, Uzumaki--translated as "spiral" or "vortex"--tells of the unusual events that occur in the seaside town of Kurouzu-cho. Told through the viewpoint of student Kirie Goshima, each tale is separated by each chapter and weaves strange tales of how her town is infested by spirals...or so her beau Shuichi Saito claims.
Ito's artstyle, if you are familiar with his work on Tomie, has only gotten stronger. His faces are rendered with care (though sometimes the eyes are rendered with no definite focus, only detail). While tone is used, Ito also employs cross-hatching that not only creates senses of unease and detail, but really makes his shapes pop in 3 dimensions. Hatching on curves and the grotesque twisting faces or bodies only serves his story better. The lines are strong and full of movement, from Kirie's hair to the numerous spirals that slowly begin to appear everywhere--and I do mean everywhere, from the leaves on the grass to pattens in the clouds, even the folds in clothing. As the reader and Kirie will soon see, there's no getting away from the spirals.
The opening story is told through 2 chapters, "The Spiral Obsession" parts 1 and 2, where Shuichi tells Kirie that his father has become obsessed with the spiral shape, to the point that he's almost possessed by it. This sets the stage for the manga's tone as well as the style and pace. Things begin almost comically.
Even Kirie gets a giggle in about the strange story Shuichi insists is so true: that the spiral is tearing his father apart. I can tell you now, reading the synopis on the back or online of future events don't do the story justice. Babies seeking to return to the womb, possessed hair battles, snail people, hurricanes getting sucked into ponds. Yeah. It sounds utterly ridiculous, almost laughably so. A town haunted by a shape?? Get outta here!
But I can tell you, its NOT funny or ridiculous. In fact, most of this shit is INSANE. That's how each story sucks you in. There's a weird premise, or something that you couldn't possibly believe that begins, and then things take that roller coaster to its most illogical extent. Ito's genius is making something this laughable completly UN-laughable. In fact, to laugh at it is dangerous in of itself. By volume 2, you're ready for anything to hit you, and you'll believe all of it. Its the only way to reconcile the horror of this beyond human force pulling the strings of the people of Kurouzu-cho with the out and out strangeness that occurs everyday. You'd think, after volume 1 ends with Kirie nearly dying at the hair (no, not hands, hair) of a rival that she'd up and leave with Shuichi, as he'd been begging to do for the first couple chapters. To take a line from Cinematic Titanic's riff on Danger on Tiki Island: "Why is SHE screaming?? She grew up with this shit." But then where would our story be if she'd taken his advice? One part morbid curiosity, and 2 parts familial loyalty keep Kirie and the story right in the center of this mad spiral.
This scene here made me chuckle but I already was ready for anything in this scene. Humor and horror walk hand in hand down the crooked spiral of the story. I don't need to tell you that this will ultimately end with a mangled corpse chasing after our heroes, decomposition be damned. Its as Shuichi says: "Nothing's unbelievable in this town!" Its true: nothing is. Volume 2 takes its turn for the insane, but by volume 3, when each story goes barreling down the final stretch of the true horror that lurks beneath Kurouzu-cho. There's barely enough time to take a breath, and you'll be turning those pages so quickly, you might get friction paper cuts from the furious page turning to that dizzying climax.
I couldn't tell you how it ends up or even the real why it ends up where it does. Ito, who has numerous horror manga-ka to his inspirations, also draws influences from american horror writer and master of the inescapable, unspeakable terror: H.P. Lovecraft. In fact, the climax plays as a love letter to Lovecraft's overarching, beyond human comprehension Cthulhu Mythos, and no matter how hard one might try, a human can sometimes be almost crushed by those higher, darker powers that lurk in places we're not meant to see. Calling the spiral
infestation/curse an abstract concept with malevolent intents is the only way to reconcile it; there literally is no way to describe it other than that, and to try would be futile. The origin is beyond human comprehension, as is the intent of the spiral. Blowing your mind is only the first step to the madness, and if you're lucky, that's all it will do.
Following the success of the manga, a live-action movie was made in 2000 that covers most of the manga, condensing and sometimes following its own conclusions to the center of that mad spiral, a never-ending curse that one can never escape from. I personally haven't seen it, but the trailer looks promising. Bolstered by the usual Japanese cgi effects, and odd color filters as well as hard cuts a la Silent Hill, it looks like a fair shake at duplicating the same feeling of Ito's handiwork. Sadly the site for the movie has gone the way of the spiral.
So if you're looking for a new horror story to get into, and are looking for something darkly comical, but beautifully grotesque and deadly insane by the end, look no further than Ito's Uzumaki. Just don't blame me if you end up spotting those spirals everywhere; in the rings of trees, the sweep of patterns, in your hair, the whorls in your fingerprints, and in the lunatic whispers in that spiral of your cochlea.... The spiral is all around you; can you break free of its unending gravity?
HIGHLY recommended.
By Dio (10/10/12)
Story and art belong to Junji Ito, scans by me, movie caps from the official Uzumaki movie site.
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