Uzumaki
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This page is about the manga; for the movie based on it see Uzumaki (film). For the Naruto character, see Naruto Uzumaki.
| Uzumaki
<tr><td colspan="2" style="background: #ccf; text-align: center;">うずまき</td></tr> | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Horror |
| Manga: Uzumaki | |
| Authored by | Junji Ito |
| Publisher | Image:Flag of Japan (bordered).svg Shogakukan Image:Flag of Brazil.svg Conrad Editora Image:Flag of the United States.svg Viz Media |
| Serialized in | Image:Flag of Japan (bordered).svg Big Comic Spirits Image:Flag of Japan (bordered).svg Afternoon Image:Flag of the United States.svg PULP |
| Original run | – |
| No. of volumes | 3 |
| Movie: Uzumaki | |
| Directed by | Higuchinsky |
| Studio | Lighthouse Pictures |
| Released | 2000 |
| Runtime | 90 min. |
Uzumaki is a horror manga by Junji Ito. The manga is published in English by Viz Communications.
With a beautiful highschool girl as the protagonist, the people of a small town in Japan become variously fascinated with, terrified of, and consumed by the countless occurrences of natural and artificial spirals.
The obsession with spirals is accompanied by the townspeople's extreme obsession with various things, such as an artist's obsession with perfect forms and a youngster with the ability to attract eyeballs. The result of this obsession is often slow transformation into something other than human, leading to a gruesome, realistically-depicted death.
It has been made into a movie with a simpler story line.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
[edit] Vol. 1
Kirie Goshima, a girl who goes to Kurozu-cho High, one day, notices her boyfriend's (Suichi's) father watching a snail intently. He starts to collect anything involving a spiral pattern, eventually creating spirals through his own body. Eventually he commits suicide by curling himself into a tight spiral in a large tub. He is cremated, and the ashes form a spiral shape in the sky. Suichi's mother, haunted by any images of spirals, attempts to rid her body of spirals, by cutting off the tips of her fingers and shaving her head. She eventually finds out that there are spirals in the cochlea, or the inner ear. She rams a pair of scissors into her ears, rendering her in a constant state of dizzy vertigo. She eventually dies, and her cremated ashes form a spiral in the sky and fall into Dragonfly Pond. Since both of his parents are dead, Suichi quits school. At school, Kirie's friend Azami doesn't get "no" for an answer from a boy when she asks him out since she got a crescent-shaped scar on her that supposedly helps her with getting dates. Suichi says no, however, and Azami's scar turns into spiral and completely devours her. Kirie's father is fired from his job as a potter, because his bowls, pots and vases are turning into hideous failures with spiral patterns and faces and are unusable. A Romeo and Julietesque moment with two people turns into a hideous spiral of horror. Also, girl grows her hair into thousands of spirals.
[edit] Volume 2
Kirie is being stalked by a boy named Mitsuru. He likes to jump out and surprise people, They refer to him as Jack-in-the-Box. Until one day when Kirie gets a big surprise, horror and disappointment. Mitsuru is hit by a speeding car. He is buried because the town no longer cremates. His dead body jumps from a grave and scares her, His body was lodged in the front wheel and is twisted in such a way as for him to turn into a spiral. Later, Kirie's brother Mitsuo and co. go into strange light house. He and Kirie come out with burns from an extremely hot light, that burns a spiral motif into your eyes, causing you to walk in uncontrollable spirals. Then, after discovering a pregnant woman drained of blood and dead, Kirie's cousin Keiko moves into her room in the hospital after suffering an attack from a swarm of mosquitoes. Keiko is pregnant. That night, Kirie hears strange noises. She sees other pregnant women drilling holes in people and drinking their blood, like mosquitoes feeding their babies with blood. Keiko and the other women then go into labor, bearing the most adorable babies. Until Keiko gets hers sewn back into the womb. When Kirie is released from the hospital, she notices a typhoon is falling in love with her, and it will stop at nothing to be with her.
[edit] Volume 3
The hurricane does a lot of damage and infects the town with spirals. No one is safe. The introduction of a newspaper reporter and spirals are involved. Pretty self-explanatory, with spirals being involved. More people are gullible for the spirals and no help comes from the snail people. Kirie and Suichi try to escape the spirals, but all roads mysteriously lead back to the village. All the buildings of the town have ended up as one giant spiral. In the middle a spiraling staircase downwards appears from nowhere. At the bottom of the staircase is an abandoned, enormous, ancient Lovecraftian underground city. The twisted corpses of the village people have turned into stone and are making up the floor of the cave. Kirie and Suichi finally accept their fate, and become part of the spiral that has already consumed the entire town. (Suichi couldn't escape, and Kirie willingly joins him. They become entwined together, in a permanent embrace.) The staircase closes up again and the curse of the spiral leaves the now lifeless village for another thousand years.pt:Uzumaki
