"Horror anime is saved" — Uzumaki anime's latest trailer gives Junji Ito's manga the justice it deserved

Modified Jul 27, 2024 14:30 GMT

"Horror anime is saved": Uzumaki anime — Uzumaki anime's latest trailer gives Junji Ito's manga the justice it deserved (Image via Drive & Akatsuki)

On July 27, 2024, Junji Ito's Uzumaki anime unveiled its release date with an extended trailer, raising the hopes of horror manga fans who have long awaited a decent horror anime. The trailer indicated that the source material would indeed be improvised, considering how a manga series can never be adapted faithfully.

Junji Ito is one of the popular horror manga artists, if not the most popular one, who started his manga career with the manga series Tomie. The manga series soon became the gateway for the author into the world of horror, as after that, he produced multiple horror manga projects like Gyo, No Longer Human, and many others.

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Junji Ito's Uzumaki anime trailer skyrockets the hopes of the possibility of a good horror anime

The spine-chilling trailer for Uzumaki anime was in monochrome, hinting that the anime series could be in the same filter. The trailer demonstrated that this choice was a wise one by featuring some of the most horror moments from the author's manga series.

These scenes included the beginning of Shuichi's father's obsession with spirals, the town being taken over by spirals, Shuichi's father dying by becoming a real-life spiral, and some others. The trailer also showcased the animation studio's CGI animation skills, hinting that the upcoming horror anime adaptation would feature CGI animation.

The Uzumaki anime will be animated by Studios Drive and Akatsuki, both of which are relatively new to the animation scene. Studio Drive was involved in the production of Konosuba season 3, but the production staff was the same as the previous studio for the series.

Reactions from the fandom

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After witnessing the aesthetic beauty of the trailer, the fandom couldn't contain their excitement for the revival of horror anime. While many fans expressed their joy over the anime adaptation finally getting a release date, some showed relief as the release date was finally announced after almost 4 years since the anime adaptation was announced.

Fans agreed that the work of Junji Ito deserved only such masterclass animation and prayed this anime adaptation to be the redemption for the adaptation of the author's other work, which is also one of the lowest-rated anime, Gyo. The anime featured a bad CGI animation followed by a mediocre execution of an anime adaptation, leading to one of the worst anime adaptations in history.

"YES!!!! FINALLY! IM SO EXCITED!!" a fan said.

"This how a ito junji work should be animated . Excited!" another fan claimed.

"Finally after all these years I've waited!" another fan said.

"Hopefully this will be a redemption for Gyo!" another one said.

Final thoughts

The obsession with spirals as seen in the trailer (Image via Drive and Akatsuki)

The reputation of horror in anime has not been the best one with anime adaptations of Junji Ito's previous works and other anime series like Yami Shibai and other projects. The reason was low standard CGI animation that made the adaptation look unappealing.

The choice of animation is the same in Uzumaki anime, but the difference is that the staff is very talented and knows how to improvise the source material such that the adaptation doesn't become disrespectful to the author and remains true to the true meaning of the source material.

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Edited by Shubham Soni