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I think Junji Ito might be cursed. Or at least, maybe his work is, because when it comes to animated adaptations of any of his manga, they just never seem to come out right. 2018 saw the release of the Junji Ito Collection, which was made up of a range of his stories, more anthological in nature, and it just didn’t have the sauce, that feeling of being unable to sleep because of one page that haunts your mind’s eye. So of course, when Uzumaki was announced to be in the works as an anime, hopes for a good adaptation were high considering it’s easily one of his most famous pieces.
Those hopes were well met with the first episode, a little over a week ago now, with its unsettling 3D look that you can’t really tell is actually 2D and rotoscoped or CG. It was a bit fast paced, sure, but I’ll take that if it means the following three episodes looked and felt as good as this one. And then, over the weekend… the second episode aired. I won’t beat around the bush: it was bad.
Where the first episode’s rapid pace was somewhat forgivable, here it felt even more crammed, except that wasn’t even the worst of it. No, the biggest issue comes from the fact that it really didn’t look very good. Characters that barely move and when they do it’s stiffer than a 100-year-old tree, cuts that feel nonsensical, and that 3D quality just simply disappeared. It’s a mess that can probably be attributed to the continued lack of care from higher ups towards the industry’s animators, though the specifics of the situation likely won’t be revealed (and I imagine that five year development time since it was announced for literally four episodes isn’t a good sign either).
The second episode was so bad that I’m honestly considering not bothering with the last two, why spend my time on something like that when the original manga is there to be enjoyed. That’s just it though, isn’t it? Why even go through the process of adapting something at all? This isn’t to say Ito’s works are unadaptable, I reckon if you let the first episode breath a bit more, split it into maybe two episodes, you could have something really special. I’m just not sure if we really need to adapt everything under the sun.
For a lot of people, the anime is the Final Thing, the Complete Edition of a given work because how could a lowly manga be something that can be picked up, read, enjoyed, and put down without the presence of moving pictures, voice acting, and music? I don’t really vibe with this stance – yes, I do love to see the ways a particular director might choose to adapt a manga, I just also think sometimes a comic can be a comic and that’s OK.
Ito’s work is obviously highly revered by many across the world, but it can feel like anime is this validating thing that makes a work legitimate, something he really doesn’t need, especially when the end result is Uzumaki’s second episode. Manga is just sometimes good as it is, particularly Ito whose work is all about the page turn, an effect that’s just really hard to capture in motion (no, a cut just isn’t the same, it’s the physical act you force yourself to do turning that page when you know something awful is coming that really sells his work).
Maybe one day there will be a take on Ito’s work that knocks it out of the park, but, there’s also just so much of his manga to read that I think I just don’t care if it does or not.