Here’s everything we know about the upcoming Adult Swim adaptation of Junji Ito’s famed horror comic Uzumaki. Junji Ito is a manga artist and writer who has created some of the most terrifying works in the previous 30 years. He has an incredible ability to conjure up frightening, repulsive, or even oddly beautiful visuals. Gyo or Tomie are two of his most well-known stories, and though his plots don’t always make sense, that only contributes to the odd, nightmare atmosphere he’s after. However, even the best Junji Ito stories have resulted in dismal live-action or anime adaptations, despite his ongoing popularity.
Adult Swim is adapting Junji Ito’s most renowned horror manga, Uzumaki, into an animated series and here’s when fans can expect it.
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In 2000, Uzumaki was adapted into a live-action film, which was regarded as one of the better Ito adaptations. Adult Swim is attempting to revive the manga with an animated miniseries, and here’s what we know so far.
Uzumaki is set in a small Japanese hamlet where the population become almost supernaturally fixated with spiral patterns, similar to Junji Ito’s original manga. As the inmates are actually twisted out of shape, the story shifts to some unsettling body horror and Ito’s signature ability for weaving tales with a dense air of dread. The four-episode miniseries will be produced by Toonami and Production IG (Ghost In The Shell). Hiroshi Nagahama is directing and Colin Stetson is scoring the series, which will be shot in black and white like the original manga.
The COVID-19 pandemic slowed production and it’s been a long wait for Junji Ito fans since the first teaser for Uzumaki was released in late 2019. Adult Swim recently produced a video announcing that it will be postponed until October 2022, so they will have to wait another year. The video includes a brief preview of the show’s visual style. Uzumaki on Adult Swim appears to be capturing the tense dread of Ito’s source work.