English Dub Review: Uzumaki “Episode 2”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Hair twisting, bodies intertwining, spirals are developing all over the town.

My Take:

The first episode of Uzumaki sure did know how to make a good impression last week.  The narrative is enough to make my skin crawl, and the black-and-white presentation has greatly enhanced the unsettling imagery from the source material.  However, the only thing that matters is whether its remaining episodes could maintain that level of interest and haunting artistry to make it a bona fide hit in the anime department.  Based on its second episode, it’s starting to look like it has that chance, but it’s also definitely not for the faint of heart.

If you think Azami being devoured by the spiral was disturbing, you haven’t seen what this episode brought to the table.  In addition to making the people go insane, the curse affects people in many different yet distressingly bizarre ways.  Most notably, some people are mysteriously transformed into humanoid snails, including classmates Katayama and Sumora.  At first, I thought it was completely random, but then I immediately realized that the shells are spirals, too, so I guess that counts for something.  However, the weirdest part is Kirie’s hair, which starts forming spirals and hypnotizing people, angering the popular classmate Kyoko.  Finally, we have the black lighthouse, which is activated on its own, and with the curse attached to it, things will continue to look even more bleaker and disturbing by the minute.

There’s plenty of other discomforting stuff that happened in its second episode, including Yamaguchi sacrificing his life to prove his love for Kirie and Kazunori and Yoriko coiling each other due to their love for each other.  However, the other moments I mentioned were by far the most unsettling sequences I’ve seen in an anime.  I guess you can say that Dark Gathering has some competition in the genre.  Thankfully, the limited series continues to benefit from its stellar presentation, which makes its surreal imagery captivating and nightmarishly bleak.