The ending is extremely ambiguous, which may upset many. But I enjoyed reading through the early fast-paced horrific stories with the assumption that Junji Ito was building towards something huge. Some prefer the short bursts of slice of life horror in the first part of the series and resent the big shift towards survival themes. To some, this shift from small horrific stories to the book becoming a large survival event might be off-putting. But when it gets to the middle mark (of the deluxe edition), you begin to see that all of these stories have greater relevance to where the plot is taking you. At first it merely comes off as a series of strange short stories that are only connected through the eyes of Kirie and Shuici. Getting sucked into the weird stories that slowly build up to a grander series of events in the town of Kurouzu-cho.

And I thankfully gave in to that part of my brain. But there was something in the back of my mind that was itching to keep reading the story to see just how weird and twisted it would get. When I read the first chapter of Uzumaki, I found it so bizarre that I honestly thought about shelving it and not continuing. Things soon escalate to the point where the town of Kurouzu-cho will never be the same again.

Through various short stories, Uzumaki shows how the people of Kurouzu-cho are changed by the curse and the stories begin to directly affect the lives of Kirie and Shuichi. After a series of strange occurrences involving spirals in their town of Kurouzu-cho they begin to realize the town might be cursed. Uzumaki follows a high-school teenager, Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend Shuichi Saito. Uzumaki 3-in-1 Deluxe Edition | Buy on Amazon US | Buy on Amazon UK About Uzumaki

So while being stuck in-doors I decided it was finally time to purchase this twisted series. The Uzumaki 3-in-1 complete edition was a book that caught my eye many times while manga shopping in London (pre-pandemic). Horror isn’t always a genre of choice for me, but as my love for dark manga has expanded, I was open to trying something new.

Uzumaki manga