this is the voice of re:mote induction.Saturday, December 27, 2003
uzumaki - junji ito - uzumaki translates from japanese as something like vortex, and the serial of uzumaki is about the obsession and curse of the vortex. as quickly becomes clear uzumaki was originally published as a serial in japan, which gives it a quite episodic feeling. original american publication was through the pulp magazine, pulp being an imprint of the american manga company viz. to some degree the episodic nature is the work's greatest weakness - leading to a level of repetition - it feels like something new happens every episode that is weird, and the girl tells her boyfriend, he says its the spiral, and they should leave town. this is one of the things the film adaptation of uzumaki manages to address, mixing the episodes up more, so that it feels like it is also coming together and creates more of a gravity and tension. though the scope of the three collected books goes beyond the film, and certainly by book 3 things have pretty much flipped out into pure madness.
kirie goshima is the main character/narrator, and things start to go wrong in the town of kurozu-cho when she finds her boyfirend shuichi saito's father entranced in a dark alley by a snail. through this first chapter saito's father's obsession with the vortex escalates, and shuichi warns kirie that it is this town, begging her to run away with him. with the death of saito's father the uzumakiphilia flips, so that his mother becomes an uzumakiphobe - every spiral an opportunity for her dead husband to talk to her, to mess with her mind, she starts to become terrified of spirals. sheering off her hair, her finger prints, and going into screaming fits any time she is confronted with a spiral.
from there each chapter adds the latest manifestation of the vortex. some of which are included to various degrees in the film adaptation, others are skipped over entirely. granted any adaptation can only do so much with the original material, but there are things from these graphic novels that really should have been included. though its not like the film wasn't mad enough without neglecting some of the items here.
where the film uzumaki stops kind of abruptly, the book has ideas fleshed out - like the boy who jumped out to scare kirie, kirie's father's extraction of mud from the town pond, development of the medusa hair. and most crucially the snails, the twisting of people and the hurricanes - which lead to the devastation of the town and the real horrific conclusion that awaits.
junji ito writes and illustrates these books, providing a striking detail, some of the best material i've seen from manga. an art form which i find very hit and miss, there are only a handful of artists that really make their works vivid and alive. ito is clearly one of those, there are things he does here which are disturbing, and probably only work as seamlessly in this medium. which is likely one of the reasons why certain things were neglected from the film adaptation, things that would have been difficult to pull off, and if they had pulled them off would most likely have messed with people's heads more than the results already did. one of the big reasons the book works better than the film though is the amount of more human detail that is worked in, everything has more to it in the original. so that it makes a lot more sense, but is also easier to relate to - the school bullies, the obsessions, desires for mystery and adventure, or just for attention.
kirie goshima is the main character/narrator, and things start to go wrong in the town of kurozu-cho when she finds her boyfirend shuichi saito's father entranced in a dark alley by a snail. through this first chapter saito's father's obsession with the vortex escalates, and shuichi warns kirie that it is this town, begging her to run away with him. with the death of saito's father the uzumakiphilia flips, so that his mother becomes an uzumakiphobe - every spiral an opportunity for her dead husband to talk to her, to mess with her mind, she starts to become terrified of spirals. sheering off her hair, her finger prints, and going into screaming fits any time she is confronted with a spiral.
from there each chapter adds the latest manifestation of the vortex. some of which are included to various degrees in the film adaptation, others are skipped over entirely. granted any adaptation can only do so much with the original material, but there are things from these graphic novels that really should have been included. though its not like the film wasn't mad enough without neglecting some of the items here.
where the film uzumaki stops kind of abruptly, the book has ideas fleshed out - like the boy who jumped out to scare kirie, kirie's father's extraction of mud from the town pond, development of the medusa hair. and most crucially the snails, the twisting of people and the hurricanes - which lead to the devastation of the town and the real horrific conclusion that awaits.
junji ito writes and illustrates these books, providing a striking detail, some of the best material i've seen from manga. an art form which i find very hit and miss, there are only a handful of artists that really make their works vivid and alive. ito is clearly one of those, there are things he does here which are disturbing, and probably only work as seamlessly in this medium. which is likely one of the reasons why certain things were neglected from the film adaptation, things that would have been difficult to pull off, and if they had pulled them off would most likely have messed with people's heads more than the results already did. one of the big reasons the book works better than the film though is the amount of more human detail that is worked in, everything has more to it in the original. so that it makes a lot more sense, but is also easier to relate to - the school bullies, the obsessions, desires for mystery and adventure, or just for attention.
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