I’ve no idea what’s up with the current fad for live-action adaptations of anime and manga these days, although I’m pretty excited about the feature-length effort of Solanin. The thing is, it’s so easy for me to imagine how well Inio Asano’s graphic novels can make the jump from paper to big screen since he has such a keen eye for scene composition and, to coin a hackneyed phrase, a finger on the pulse on what makes ordinary ‘real life’ people tick. He captures snapshots of everyday life events with the flair of a skilled photographer; What a Wonderful World! pre-dates it by several years but the intentions, and end results, are similar.

I have to admit though that WaWW feels like a rough draft of that because these same ideas and narrative techniques are present, but in a more fragmented and scattershot form. The kids in a rock band are growing up and adjusting to adult responsibilities while simultaneously leaving the carefree days behind; friends deal with the loss of one of their number while questioning where their own lives are heading; couples meet, live together, fight and reconcile. The signature style, that of a sensitive and quirky narrative approach reminiscent of Haruki Murakami told through grittily realistic artwork similar to that of Hiroki Endo, is quintessential Asano.

Because the story arcs are contained within their own chapters there isn’t room to develop them as far as those of Solanin so even the most powerful subplots are unable to gain much momentum. That’s not to say they aren’t moving – some had me laughing out loud (which gave me one or two funny looks from other occupants of the staff room) and some had me fighting back the tears (likewise, probably) – but I can only wonder how they could’ve panned out if given the opportunity.

This was I think intentional. This artist’s eye – as much like a filmmaker’s camera as images on a printed page  – studies the trials and absurdities long enough to give a grasp of what it means, then moves swiftly on to the next. They’re connected in that the events are occuring in the same town around the same time, but the overall impression is that of a whistle-stop guided tour through the worldview; read in quick succession, it certainly felt that way to me.

Some of the chapters really hit you during their short duration  – Syrup is concerned with an eccentric guy with a cough mixure addiction, but it’s only after a startling and tragic finale that we, and the characters, learn anything about what sort of person he really is. Another highlights the traumatic effects of schoolyard bullying, but goes further in examining the factors of cause and effect equally. My favourites are the romantic drama segments and those that deal with the trials of young adults looking for their place in the world. Asano never offers answers; rather, he merely sets out the situations and feelings but with exquisite, sometimes painful, clarity and leaves the reader to draw the conclusions.

Others didn’t really say much to me though. They were disposable in that the effect they left on me was short-lived and they didn’t stick in my mind like some of the others did. Perhaps this was an experiment on Asano’s part for later works such as Solanin or his mind-bending Nijigahara Holograph, or perhaps it was an attempt to get as broad an exhibition of the story’s general concepts as possible. These throwaway chapters often just show the nature of the state of affairs, and that’s it. They do however succeed in stirring up memories and emotions from the reader’s own life experiences in a way that’s almost Shinkai-esque.

Even the story arcs that don’t really *go* anywhere, or are merely absurd and surreal, offer little nuggets of truth about life in today’s world and draw a bit of beauty or profundity from simple, everyday things. Judging by his age I’m assuming Asano’s childhood was spent in Japan’s 1980s economic boom then he witnessed the more recent upheavals of the 90s as a young adult and struggling artist. His most striking hallmark then is that his stories have an autobiographical feel, which gives the dramatic moments much more weight than they would otherwise have.

In this uncertain age when people feel isolated and anxious about what the future will bring, it’s well nigh impossible to make sense of anything; a good place to start I guess is what’s right under your nose: family, friends and the town you live in. The locality of the town in What a Wonderful World has a few weird and wonderful elements to it but the majority is, from a distance, dull and ordinary. The skill in this manga is pulling meaning out of these ordinary moments, getting inside the heads of the people and making you identify with and care about them. In a rare moment of lucidity, the eccentric Syrup guy sums it all up: “there isn’t a right or wrong way to live your life.”

The legal alcohol drinking age in Japan is 20, so yeah. No thought-crimes committed on my part

There is indeed a lot of sauce in this, to the point at which the opening chapters give a false impression of where the story eventually chooses to go. The infamous ‘deceptive-ness of the first impression’ isn’t on the scale of Onani Master Kurosawa, but the effect it had on me was similar. It even manages to go some way towards justifying the sexual content, which is an achievement in itself; the clincher is that it pays attention to the characterisation and even makes a worthwhile attempt at a storyline. Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised.

The opening chapters don’t really do the story as a whole justice because at times they feel like an excuse to show as much nudity and bedroom antics as possible, with the spiritual form of the female lead being a gimmick to set it apart from the competition. One of Kana’s tricks for instance is her ability to chill a can of beer by tucking it into her cleavage…a handy tip worth remembering if you’re with a ghost at a house party where there’s no working refrigerator. (¬_¬)

You wouldn’t want a warm one now, would you?

Little moments like this are in fact quite important additions because its premise could be quite downbeat and almost macabre. Kana can’t remember anything about her life with the exception of her final moments: a view of a sunset from her bedroom window during her act of suicide. Rather than wallowing in the tragedy, My Lovely Ghost Kana draws some positives from the situation, showing the heroine finding meaning in life after death through her (living) boyfriend, which in turn helps him overcome the hardships he had faced prior to their meeting.

Daikichi was left jobless and homeless (we don’t learn the details, sadly) so he’s understandably feeling like it’s the end of the road for him…at which point the resident ghost of the building he’s squatting in materialises and talks him round, what with her having first-hand experience of how meaningless The End Of The Road can be. Glad to be in the company of a cute girl (even if she’s no longer of this world) who understands him and likes having him around, they hang out and find mutual solace in each other. And have sex a lot.

Whether you have a problem with the amount of pages dedicated to showing what Daikichi and Kana get up to in bed depends a lot on where you draw the line on the label ‘gratuitous sex’ (a definition that begs to be discussed on its own now I’ve read this and the Type Moon VNs). The reality of Ghost Sex fortunately isn’t as weird or creepy as it sounds, and the portrayal of it doesn’t feel as needless as it could’ve been either because of the life-affirming nature of their relationship.

What I mean by this is that there’s a *point* to showing (in excessive detail perhaps, I admit) how much they value each other. Including even the most private moments of their time together actually gives a really balanced and frank overview of their relationship so, for a change, the ecchi doesn’t seem too out of place. It also gives some bits of comedy which, again unusually, had me genuinely laughing out loud.

One of my favourite comedy scenes is one in which Daikichi and Kana are at the local convenience store run by Goro Inagawa, a guy who has a fascination for the occult. As usual Kana is floating around and playing pranks on him but as Goro is gushing about how he wishes he could have contact with the spirit realm, Kana inadvertantly materialises just as he holds his hands out so he ends up accidentally groping her. It’s not often a boob-grab gag, or any ecchi slapstick for that matter, gets a LOL out of me but in this case it works.

The story is long enough to get a sentimental attachment to the two leads and introduce some interesting and likable supporting characters, but it wouldn’t be any worse from being a bit longer. Goro the shopkeeper, the old man tending to the grave of the local unidentified dead and especially Monou Utako, the girl who ends up moving into the same building as Daikichi and Kana, would benefit a lot from more background. The artwork is nothing extraordinary but character designs are great – they’re expressive and Tanaka’s knack of drawing attractive girls is almost up there with the likes of Ken Akamatsu to me.

What really sticks in my mind about this little-known serial is how Kana’s after-life touches those around her. The obvious one is Daikichi, but Goro realises his lifelong dream of communicating with a being of the supernatural realm, a complete stranger finds a bit of happiness through a case of mistaken identity and Monou begins to overcome her own problems (I just wish they’d been set out in more detail because she’s such a cool character) thanks to being around Kana.

The biggest of the gaps in the story’s background is Kana’s own past life, but I didn’t mind too much by the end. There’s a keen sense of trauma and loss from her gruesome and tragic end but the writing goes out of its way to show that Kana compensates for this by the way she brightens up the lives of those around her. With a potentially depressing premise and a storyline as flimsy as Kana’s own negligée, genuinely funny comedy and a feelgood iyashikei vibe were as unexpected as they were welcome.

A couple of years ago the single-volume manga adaptation was fairly easy to find but I’m assuming it had a limited print run because it’s a bit rare these days. I quite like the effort Tokyopop went to with the presentation though – the panels at the beginning of the opening chapter are reproduced in full-colour, which is a nice touch.

I don’t want to judge this too harshly just because the OAV means so much to me: Shinkai’s story achieved one hell of a lot in a short space of time and no solo project should be expected to look as good as it does. Even so, the narrative could benefit from being expanded on and it does look a bit lo-fi next to newer, higher-budget movies (including his own later ones). An in-print adaptation has the opportunities to flesh out the story and introduce new characters that the OAV never had, which is really the main reason why I’d recommend it.

Mizu Sahara, a.k.a. Sumomo Yumeka (who I’m sorry to say I’ve never heard of before) chose to include a supporting cast but otherwise it doesn’t stray far from the events that fans are familiar with. Shinkai’s version worked on the bare minimum with two leads but no other significant roles and that worked fine; I have to say that the appearances of Hisa, another tracer pilot who Mikako befriends and Miwa the superior officer, actually work okay too. Most importantly they don’t significantly lessen the impact of the Mikako/Noboru relationship but they do offer more opportunities to highlight the nature of the situation and build on themes that the OAV had too little time to address.

Miwa has left a close friend on Earth when flying on the mission as Mikako has so it’s easy to look upon her as an elder Mikako because their situations are, intentionally I suppose, seen to be very similar. Hisa adds a bit of drama when their mission becomes more dangerous and she has some pretty tense moments that were a complete surprise to me but didn’t feel out of place in the new storyline.

Similarly Noboru meets other people, most importantly Wakana, a would-be love interest who he spends time with at high school after Mikako leaves. These relationships actually fit very easily into the story, mainly because it stands to reason that Mikako and Noboru are still living their lives despite the separation so inevitably interact with others; in the same way that there are little love triangles and side-stories associated with the leads in Place Promised… and 5cm… the character dynamics are embellished a bit and the narrative is better for it.

It’s a relief that Sahara is so respectful of a story that is, fundamentally, a shining example of its type and doesn’t have any major flaws that need correcting. In addition to having the benefit of including these new characters in order to heighten the emotion and reiterate certain ideas, Sahara knew better than to tear up the script and carry out needless rewrites so merely lengthened the narrative to give the plot points more room to breathe. It’s a difficult thing to make additions to someone else’s work with the end result of making them feel like they were there all along, which she deserves credit for.

Artistically however, Sahara’s take on Hoshi no Koe isn’t anything special. Certain frames capture the feel of the OAV but the opportunity to polish up the character designs (one area that Shinkai’s style could be improved on, especially at this early stage in his career) was missed. Her weakest moments are probably in the combat scenes but in fairness it’s a tall order for anyone to capture the panoramic views and kinetic action seen from the point of view of Mikako’s Tracer cockpit with static images anyway. Instead the emphasis is on the dialogue-driven aspect, which plays to the strengths of the format and is probably within Sahara’s field of expertise too.

The criticisms I have for the graphic novel overall are fairly trivial: Mikako still wears her school uniform in space, which strikes me as a bit strange when you’d expect her to be issued some form of uniform or specialist clothing (the point where she and Hisa swapped uniforms struck me as a bit pointless too). If I were to dwell on that I could just as easily question other irrelevant quirks such as how the phone technology could work, or pick holes im the mechanics of the faster-than-light travel; they never mattered when I watched the animated version so aren’t detrimental to the graphic novel either.

The ending was one of the most heart-rending and bittersweet conclusions to any romance I’ve been fortunate enough to experience so I’m glad it pans out in pretty much the same way here. Sahara’s approach of building on pre-existing ideas and following them through more fully extends to this aspect too, but it isn’t as effective in this case. Taking the ‘what happened next’ thread a little further is no less powerful, but it isn’t more powerful either; we don’t learn anything we could’ve deduced for ourselves but because it’s explained at greater length that power is diluted a bit. Sahara’s take on the ending shouldn’t ruin it for you, but the novel as a whole wouldn’t have been any worse if she’d left the closing scenes as-is.

Looking back, Hoshi no Koe wasn’t just a marvel because of the technical details or its production process; it’s an effectively-told tale that resonates with the viewer on a fundamental level. This is why a manga adaptation is more than a cash-in or a legalised fanfic: it’s able to convey those same feelings of longing and introspection, except with a shifted emphasis. It can’t match the overwhelming, tearjerking sucker-punch of the original but the addition of new characters and exploration of existing concepts makes it a worthwhile companion piece if you enjoyed what the film has to offer.

As in all genres of popular culture, there are classics in the science fiction genre and their shadows loom over everything that follows them, but that should never deter newcomers from offering their own input. The biblical references and ambitious, post-apocalyptic premise suggest that Endo is indeed enamoured by Evangelion and similar iconic series but those ‘overflowing feelings’ he refers to provide a stable launchpad for the concepts behind Eden…. In the eighteen chapters I’ve read so far it encompasses the well-worn themes of eco-fable, philosophy, military thriller and hard sci-fi while still feeling fresh and gripping. It’s Relevant To My Interests on so many levels.

What concerns me though is that, as in Evangelion, the biblical allusions muddy the waters thanks to my Western background and lead me to pin meaning onto things that ought to mean something else. The names for instance are lifted from Gnostic mythology so I’m deliberately steering clear of looking them up and making connections that Endo didn’t intend; the overt anti-religious sentiment, presenting scientific theories to explain the relationship between humanity and nature, tries too hard and comes across as heavy-handed. Discrediting religious scripture with science like this is old news to me so doesn’t hit the spot as it might do with Japanese readers.

Hannah and Enoah are kids living in a former military research base with Layne, an old friend of Enoah’s parents, after a significant proportion of the world’s population had been wiped out by a viral epidemic and the resulting breakdown of the political structure. Layne is dying from the virus’ after-effects but the youngsters are among the lucky minority who are immune and survive as best they can. Their father, once a hero during the UN’s fall to the organisation Propater, has changed sides but is killed by Enoah as Propater attempts to destroy the facility, and Enoah ecapes with Hannah.

I found this to be fascinating: a hero who appears to betray his ideals, kill his best friend then in turn be unintentionally killed by his own son. The science is rock solid too: the technical jargon concerning the virus is convincing (I also felt smug at not needing many of the footnotes exlaining it!), the writing is intelligent and the characters are complex. The prologue chapter presents some musings on sin and morality in regards to humans’ impact on the planet we live on but the next chapter moves on two decades and introduces entirely new characters and issues. Surprisingly Enoah and Hannah are left on the sidelines afterwards: we never get to see their relationship develop because the story skips right on to their son Elijah when he is of the same age. It’s a smooth enough transition, but large enough to surprise me and make me wonder what Endo has in mind here.

What’s also interesting is how Enoah is portrayed as the young hero but in the new present-day he’s the leader of a drugs cartel – I’m glad that the characters are so morally ambiguous because it adds another level of satisfying maturity to the piece as a whole. Elijah is a spitting image of his father however so adds to the over-arcing theme of continuity and the circular nature of life as we see how successive generations follow, or decide not to follow, in their footsteps.

The ecological themes too are sidelined in favour of a political action-orientated story arc with Elijah teaming up with a band of mercenaries who are fighting against Propater. Since Hannah and Mana, one of Elijah’s sisters, were kidnapped by Propator thanks to the conflict against the grown-up Enoah it suggests to me that Elijah’s struggle is more than that of a kid learning how to get by in the post-apocalyptic wasteland. The trials and hardships he faces are clearly turning points in his development into a Real Man (how about making him use a weapons control system that relies on his eyes staying open throughout the battle?) but as long as it’s as gritty and realistic as this I’m all for it.

Gritty and realistic are two things that Eden… most definitely does well. It’s also unflinchingly gory and brutal: not in the manga-style superhuman feats and fountains of blood kind of way, but in a way that doesn’t pull its punches in showing how the ugly side of human nature is every bit as likely to resurface in a worldview like this. Bullets and bombs fly; bodies are broken and mutilated; innocent people suffer and then die. But for every pitiless moment of violence there’s a moment of reflection to give it meaning and for the most part prevent it feeling like violence for violence’s sake, which is a big plus.

The blend of philosophy and the fast-paced Shirow-esque action work well together because it’s putting a lot of hard-to-answer questions to the reader but moves things along briskly: I found myself thinking hard about the issues raised yet reading fast enough to get through eight chapters in the space of a lunch break but never felt bored. The way that high technology sits in a society partly pushed back to a less civilised state reminds me a lot of the Nausicaä graphic novel, which incidentally is my personal yardstick for futuristic eco-science fiction. Endo’s aeons, the humanoid weapons deployed by Propater, remind me a bit of Miyazaki’s heedra for instance.

The supporting cast at this point in the story are also universally excellent: tragic Kachua, haunted Wycliffe, sassy Helena and bad-ass Kenji all have tales to tell and stuck in my memory, even when some of them made their abrupt and violent ends. Sophia is the most fascinating for me at this point: she has transferred her consciousness into an adolescent girl’s cybernetic body, but still harbours the world-weary views of a forty-something woman. Her first encounter with Elijah is shortly after he inadvertantly buried one of her recently deceased children; her reaction is remarkably sentimental given Eden…‘s hard-boiled storytelling.

My guess is that her youthful physical form is an attempt to either recapture or hold onto what she lost with the onset of the virus’ symptoms and the loss of her own children, but the physical enhancements make for some rivetting scenes of electronic warfare during a combat arc that stretches across several chapters. Elijah is drafted in to fight along with the others, while Sophia sits back in an armoured truck with numerous cables and wires plugged into her in true cyberpunk style as she attempts to intercept a full-on missile attack. I remember thinking “Damn! That is so fuckin’ hardcore!”

As a matter of fact it’s been a while since I’ve felt so pumped and overwhelmed with a desire to write about a graphic novel: considering how this is Endo’s first lengthy serial the pacing just about manages to hold together and the characterisation bears the weight of the narrative’s numerous Deep And Meaningful themes. Suffice to say my new keyboard is only partly responsible for the word count you’ve just sat through…

Click for the full size version

Make no mistake: this is a story with strong language and shows events and behaviour that are liable to offend some. It has some wonderful bits of humour though, including neat jabs at not only Death Note but Haruhi Suzumiya and Code Geass, but what makes this something I’d recommend so strongly is the fact that the superficial lulz accompany something more memorable and moving. If you excuse the pun, I never saw it coming.

The first half introduces the typical anti-hero; in this case a guy who is in no way extraordinary but has a filthy little pastime which he uses to attain comfort from the loneliness of Real Life. I’m not condemning the practice of self-pleasure BTW: everyone does it from time to time, and it even offers health benefits. Masturbation in of itself isn’t a bad thing, although doing it in the girls’ bathroom strikes me as a bit discourteous even when Kurosawa cleans up after himself. All in all though it’s harmless enough, if a little sad.

Misanthropic Kurosawa is hopeless with girls so seeks physical release from his isolation and frustrations through masturbating while fantasising about his classmates. His fantasies are pretty sordid but as long as he’s doing these things to them solely inside his own head, it’s a victimless crime if it’s a crime at all. A chance encounter in which he’s almost caught red-handed is the point where the story kicks off proper – this is when things get really interesting.

For Kurosawa to use his little hobby to dish out his own brand of justice on the class bullies suggested to me that, as twisted as he appears to be, he has some idea of right and wrong and would rather do something, even if it’s distasteful, to punish those who prey on the weak. There are moments, such as the time when Kurosawa backs down from one particular prank while on a school trip, that shows him at his most sentimental. He can’t bring himself to do the dirty deed for fear of breaking up the happy scene: Kurosawa, who has never experienced a relationship of his own, still can’t find it in himself to ruin someone else’s happiness.

Moments like this show Onani Master Kurosawa to be the insighful character study that it is, rather than the dark schoolroom comedy it appears to be initially. The turning point for me was the moment when Kurosawa’s true feelings for Takigawa surface: alongside the heady teenage lust there’s a more mature, deeper sense of affection which is totally outside of his experience. The ‘first crush’ thing is an all-consuming and sometimes painful experience that we can all relate to; the way in which this was portrayed dragged out a whole load of personal memories of angst and awkwardness that I’d rather not have been reminded of but for that I can’t fault its effectiveness.

Similarly, the pain of seeing the one you want dating your best friend is another thing that I’m sure many of us can identify with: again, I felt his anguish. It’s not really Nagaoka’s fault at all, mind: stepping back and seeing past Kurosawa’s biased viewpoint, that guy who’s irritating at first and goes on to get between Kurosawa and Takigawa is probably the best buddy Kurosawa could wish for. Better, even.

Kitahara one the other hand is pretty screwed up and I’m still undecided about how far my sympathy for her should go. Maybe she really is rotten to the core like she claims to be; her mistrust of others is understandable considering the bullying but there isn’t enough background for me to judge her one way or the other. I thought the narrative started to show a few cracks towards the end in that regard, but after reflecting on how her and Kurosawa’s predicaments were resolved I think it held itself together just enough to offer a satisfactory ending.

Sugawa seemed a bit of of an odd choice for the female interest in the latter chapters, but the open-ended nature of the relationship that she and Kurosawa share was still relevant. Kurosawa has developed a lot by this time and has certainly managed to shake off some of that Holden Caulfield antisocial attitude. I can’t stress enough that this is a story of redemption: he hits some heartwarming highs and has cringe-inducing lows but he learns a lot about himself and those around him.

He’s an unlikely champion for justice, which is where the boundary between hero and anti-hero cleverly blur. I can hardly admire someone like Kurosawa, nor can I condone his methods, but I admit part of me approved of the school bullies getting their just desserts. It was funny at first but soon it became clear that revenge doesn’t solve everything; ultimately you have to look within yourself for answers. While Light Yagami started off virtuous and lost his way, Kurosawa conversely attained salvation.

For all those homage and parody moments, this manga shines because it has so much to offer on its own. The pacing and dialogue are excellent, and I really love the art style too: it has the sketchy home-grown doujin look but the lo-fi pencil drawings are brimming with life and expression. So simple, yet so effective. While I could lament on little details that were left hanging, what really struck me by the end was how Kurosawa found his own way out of the figurative locked cubicle. Sure, his friends helped but the bottom line is that he chose his path through his own resolve.

Junji Ito’s graphic novels really fall into the former category: that of horror that goes for the gut rather than the brain. His two-parter Gyo was a freaky, sickening exercise in graphic shocks that were inventive, disgusting and quite a fun read. In terms of sophistication though, it didn’t score as highly: the concept was original, bizarre but not something to be taken altogether seriously (“Fish with legs! Fish with legs! Fish with leeegs!”). His slightly longer effort Uzamaki is a more clever and ultimately more satisfying affair that is more effective in scaring the living crap out of the reader.

The concept is one of those “Why didn’t anyone think of this before?” types in that a simple idea makes for a string of whacked-out and repulsive tales that build into a terrifying finale that is unpredictable and surprisingly effective. Basically Ito makes spirals scary. Scary as in, you see spirals everywhere after you’ve finished reading and they bring back memories of what you’ve just read. After finishing the final volume I made myself a cup of coffee and after stirring the milk in I looked absentmindedly into the mug and thought “Whoah, a spiral!” Never before has a horror story worked its way into my subconscious like this one did.

Spirals are indeed everywhere but Ito deserves kudos for noticing a fact that’s so obvious that many of us, ironically, probably don’t even notice. The premise involves taking something innocuous and widespread – like Daphne de Maurier did with The Birds and Ring did with television sets and VCRs – and making it threatening and creepy. As ubiquitous as the spiral shape is in the natural and man-made world it is unique, hypnotic and fascinating; something that Uzumaki plays up to the full.

Each stand-alone story focuses on the town of Kurôzu-cho and how various inhabitants are becoming obsessed with spirals in a variety of ways; it’s obvious that something is fundamentally amiss with the place and this nameless, faceless something is screwing with people’s minds in a very literal sense. Kire Goshima and her boyfriend Shuichi Saito are especially worried about how this spiral obsession is affecting the behaviour of their families and friends, as the spirals that are found in so many aspects of everyday life begin to reach out and take away their sanity.

The separate story arcs appear to be unrelated but all offer a facet of the town’s spiral obsession and offer some genuine shocks of their own. Ito’s art style is of the detailed seinen school like Inio Asano in that both the backgrounds and character designs are lifelike and not stylised in the classic saucer-eyed manga style. It goes without saying that this greatly enhances the “urgh!” factor when things get messy since the people involved and the world they live in look so real, increasing the juxtaposition between normal and horrific even further.

That is to say that the disfigurements and transformations (the phrase “I want to be a spiral!” is even more chilling when you see Ito’s depictions of it) are thoroughly disgusting yet believable. I found the snail-people in particular to be especially repulsive, although the concept of the spiral allows for minds and bodies alike to be literally twisted and distorted in a variety of ways whose extent is only evident after reading through to the end.

I must admit that some of the stories were a bit on the daft side – with subject matter like this Ito treads a fine line between terrifying and ridiculous so it’s inevitable that some work better than others. Nevertheless the final arc does have what it takes to deliver on the finale and explain things, if only in a vague way; it eventually becomes clear that the stand-alone stories were building up the tension and suspense for the final revelation – a slow wind-up is itself like a spiral actually.

In terms of gross-out shocks Uzumaki is a rival for Gyo but it wins out in terms of delivering slightly more than visceral instances of shock and disgust. Almost all of the arcs revolve (sic) around the concept of spirals but human traits such as pride, obsession, vanity and prejudice feel like catalysts for the Spiral Into Horror; the underlying cause of the chaos, be it supernatural, metaphysical or what have you, is in the shadows but the manifestations are partly due to human nature. This makes it more frightening than a simple horror tale for me, in the same way that the unnatural origins of Gyo‘s Fish With Legs did. There’s a bit of social commentary and character study at work here, which make it a more well-rounded story.

Horror manga isn’t for everyone and some people’s tolerance levels for outrageous premises might be a bit stretched by seeing people going insane over a geometric shape. More so than the idea of Fish With Legs however, Uzumaki and its spirals worked better for me than I expected; if nothing else every plot development took me by surprise, which is no mean feat in a genre that often seems to have already been exhausted long ago. It goes without saying that this not for the squeamish, right?