this is so interesting, i've never really thought about this, like not being able to look at the images long enough like you would with a manga/comic/graphic novel ends up not being as impactful, it's a simple concept yet you opened my eyes with this lol, thank you
@@airplanes_aren.t_real I don’t think that would have 100% worked because as BRoG said a big reason of why Ito’s mangas work so much is because of the self-determination you can put into their readings
I completely agree with you, Junji Ito's adaptations NEED tension. Along with his storytelling, the act of pausing and turning the page holds power that on-screen adaptions don't always convey. While the first episode of Uzumaki looks amazing, it has MAJOR pacing issues. There is little tension in between each event. It's even worse that there are only four episodes. I feel like an adaption is possible if the animation studios took the time to create tension, but they would need several episodes to do so. They refuse to take their time and want to only get to the punchline.
@@giversinner971 I agree, I should have phrased it differently but you get what I mean. They had five years, and it's too bad they had so much trouble behind the scenes
The description of it being so loyal but at the cost of not having the right impact is making me think of the sceond adaptation of The Shining Super loyal yes, but not the version people are going to think of since it feels lackluster
Another thing that concerned me is that they're adapting multiple chapters an episode when Uzumaki chapters don't really suit themselves to that type of adaptation. Each chapter is a slow build up to a big moment and then leaves the audience just... sitting in what they just read. I first read Uzumaki a few months ago and I learnt to never read multiple chapters of Ito's work in one sitting because I could tell the chilling effect of being left to linger on the story you just read was lost when I could flip to the next chapter right away (especially as Uzumaki chapters tend to just... brush past the last horrifying reveal) Also that line about how the adaptation is gorgeous and will continue to be so has dated this video so fast XD XD
Lovecraft is kind of similar in the sense that the description (or lack thereof) triggers a Rolodex of potential horrors in your imagination that just locks in your mind's eye. Ito is pure detailed visuals & creates an image that arguably is more disturbing than what your mind could come up with & you linger over it in horror, awe and reverence.
If you think zack snyder's watchmen is a faithful adaptation then your opinion is already suspect. This show could have been a faithful adaptation if they had doubled the episode count which would've allowed for better pacing to actually build up tension the way the manga does which is the big reason its so much more effective.
I have faith that an Uzumaki adaptation could work, and that this was a good way there, but like you say - it would have required more bold creative choices than what it's already going for. The director, Hiroshi Nagahama, has been involved in effective horror-adjacent adaptations before. Including anime that I love, like Mushishi and Flowers of Evil. But those feel like they have a more...fully realized vision, sometimes devisively so. That said, I do want to shout-out the music and soundscape in Uzumaki, which I think adds to the work more than people give it credit for. Just the way you can listen to everything swirl around is absolutely perfect. It may be a simple trick in hindsight, but it's necessary. Colin Stetson understood the assignment!
Very good point I think you make here. I'm a big baby that's only read his cat diary and the Frankenstein retelling he did, and even from that small pool of samples I get what you mean by being able to self-regulate how you engage with Junji Ito's imagery.
I am glad the anime exists though couse after episode one I immediately went and got the book with all the stories in it. Got introduced to something great!
I don’t know anything about the horror series Uzumaki all I know is, it probably will be better than anything else with the name Uzumaki,, Naruto, cough, Naruto
Passive vs active participation. Junji Ito's works builds tension and have jumpscares behind the page turn. You have to psych yourself up to turn each page. The anime is so boring that I had to put it on 2x speed to get through it. It's also why I find haunted houses/horror games so much more terrifying than horror movies.
I'll admit that my main exposure to Uzumaki is through Daniel Greene's fantastic video on the manga (was a great Halloween time watch), though I have seen some of Junji Ito's other works. I was actually a bit excited for this adaptation, even if I wasn't sure I wanted to actually see the manga in motion (partly because it was already freaky enough). The trailer looked fantastic, and I heard the first episode was, too, so I was a bit disappointed to hear that quality dropped for the other 3 episodes, but based on what I've heard about the circumstances (very little, outside of implications from a producer), I don't blame those who made this show - it looked like it was a labour of love and so much effort that just didn't get to bloom fully. Thank you for this great video, I hadn't fully considered the effect that adapting this manga would have on the imagery's impact on the reader/viewer, but it makes a lot of sense when outlined here.
I think a reasonably good counter-example to this is X-Men 97. It's not faithful. it's rough around the edges. But (being an ensemble show) they adapt multiple storylines at once to a stronger effect than a 1-1 adaptation (Storm loses her powers, Xavier is being treated by the Shi'ar, Jean is doing Jean things). A great example of a necessary change IMHO is the removal of the Scouring of the Shire from RoTK. I love it in the book, thematically *chef's kiss*. But at the end of an already three-hour-long epic, Saruman-of-Many-Colors would have seemed goofy. Or mean even.
When I first heard about Junji Ito I actually thought he was an artist and I was looking at images of his art and endlessly fascinated by them and had no idea it was actually from manga so this makes so much sense!
I haven't been able to watch, nor read Uzumaki or anything from that author, therefore I have no idea about anything. But commenting for the algorithm. This sounds like the perfect example for "The Medium is the Message". And I think Horror in general might be more affected by its medium than any other genre, and I think as you mentioned, the speed might be among the main culprits. Timing between the beats, the active nature of turning a page, but also implied movement of things in still images vs. actually seeing it move. Thinking about how the Alien (from Alien) is so much more effective the less we see it move, vs the Facehugger is so much worse when it moves due to its speed and likeness to spiders.
I'm reminded of Junji Ito Maniac: the horror anthlogy of Ito's work. its short adaptions but i think they tend to work animated. becuase its these short s=vinettes that are a bit like the twilight zone. Uzumaki is the frist episode was beautifully done and there is a of talented VAs and Seiyu's in the show.
You speak about staring at images and lingering. "Tales from the Loop" by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag and his later books. (highly recommend) The sci-fi images are haunting even. Transcending the commonplace with outside intruding realities, seem the norm. Launched a type tabletop genre that have adult play as youths and act as such. They even had tv Series which I thought was relatively good and had some of that creepy feel you find in the books. For me the 1st "Uzumaki" episode was like reliving a cthulhu story. Where the protagonist is slowly pulled into a world of weird happenstances that build to a terrifying crescendo emotionally. The literary cthulhu story is narrated through 1st person mostly, unlike the anime. At first I thought it was simply creating an atmosphere by using a Starry Night Sky by Van Gogh, concept. But in this anime I'm not sure what to make of the black and white gradients in the art, only to suggest that the is a world of good and evil implied. Or of empty souls. I'm not a big fan psychological preternatural horror anime. From tv series season 1&2 reminded me of lost but repainted in genre of Horror.
taking the words right out of my mouth. I've heard of Uzumaki and seen some of the famous images, but I've never read it and I felt the same offness that you did. The reasons I came up with were word-for-word how you described it in this video. And this was before the controversial 2nd episode aired.
Thats an interesting observation, I think the anime would probably be better off lingering too long rather than not long enough. From what I've heard of colin stetson's soundtrack his music could certainly carry the tension if the animators wanted to slow things down. 4 episodes is quite a crunch though and that may be part of the reason they had to keep things moving. Its unfortunate; im hearing that the animation quality dropped significantly in the second episode :(
Your points are pretty much exactly the same as the issues my son and I had after we watched it. We're both long time fans of Junji Ito and were excited for this adaptation after the horrid previous attempt. We thought this first episode nailed the aesthetic and the story, but failed with the pacing. The whole point of the show is to recreate the look and feel of Ito's work, especially his infamous page turns, yet they barely allowed any moments to breathe. There's little time to build tension, instead the breakneck pace gave me anxiety. Probably doesn't help that a lot of our attention was on reading the subtitles instead of focusing on the scene as a whole. Really wish they had done an anthology series around the short stories instead of a slow burn like Uzumaki, maybe that would have been better. But knowing Netflix, probably not.
Like with Watchmen I think it could work but to do so requires not a 1:1 recreation. You would need a director who creates video with imagery that evokes the feeling rather than recreates. I think someone like Perfect Blue era Satoshi Kon could give us that sort of feeling
I think it honestly could have worked if it was given more episodes and kept the same animation studio from episode 1 but sadly some major issues happened with the team and they had to make a decision to continue with less quality or just end it and they chose to continue out of respect for the hard work the others put in
It could have worked if they didnt compress it, kept it chapter to chapter and do the animation they did in the first episode, but work with tension, its possible the style was right visually (the first ep) but the tempo was wrong
I get what you’re saying. I’m a big fan of Ito’s work and Uzumaki, but I guess I still fundamentally disagree with some of what you’re saying at the same time. In a similar way that books and movies are different mediums and impact us different ways, that doesn’t mean one is inherently unadaptable into the other. Like, yes, it won’t have the same impact as the manga version, because nothing will. But that’s not the same as it not working, at least to me. Because not having the same impact doesn’t = having lesser impact or no impact. And obviously I’ve already read the story so I’m primed to understand it more than someone just watching the anime. But I think seeing something like that on screen - bigger, moving - can absolutely have a similar kind of impact on someone who is unfamiliar with the source material. Idk, that’s just me, and I do get what you’re saying.
Other than the second episode onward i think the biggest disappointment for me is the fact we didn’t get to see the dad do his spiral thing in motion. That could have been so unsettling done as a slow build with his box thing and that could have been the strength of the anime.
Have I ever even heard of the author? No. Do I intend to consume any of their work in any form? No. In fact less likely now, not into sitting with terror/horror intentionally! Am I still glad I spent 12 minutes listening to you discuss this? Yes! The premise of the discussion gives me new and interesting ways to interact with media I do choose to consume! Thank You!
I have somewhat halfway synthesized version of your main point. I think you bring up an important, "essence" to what makes a Junji Ito adaption very hard. But ultimately I don't think it's "impossible". Episode 1 showed us, in my opinion, the closest to someone getting that tension almost right. If episode 1 was 40 minutes, instead of 20, I think you could achieve that level of tension. I think about just *how much* they had to cut out just to make the first episode. There are moments with Shuichi's father where the mom throws out his spiral collection and he freaks out. A lot of Azami's story was cut, there were more moments that detailed how *obsessed* she was getting with Shuichi. Fleshing out these characters and the world they exist in would make up for the loss of tension that comes from a static image medium. I think what it ultimately comes down to is simply money and a studio that is willing to take the loss in producing this. It's unfortunate to see yet another example of the divide between capital and art. James Demarco said that the show was doomed after the first episode. Adult Swim fired the director and studio that did episode 1, for what he alluded to being cost and time spent. I feel like what the studio and director for episode 1 achieved with a shortened script, if they were given more script to work from, they would nail it.
Back when I was 12, I made the mistake of reading the first volume of Uzumaki at the library. I was full on into my misanthropic-bordering-on-nihilistic phase, pretending like nothing bothered me when I was really just a stack of emotional issues in a trenchcoat, and I thought, I've read the Claymore manga, I can handle this. .................The worst images are burned into my mind forever. 😱
I'm a big fan of junji ito, I've read uzumaki a handful of times and I personally disagree with people saying this is a loyal adaptation. The first episode was pretty loyal, a little jarring with the pacing as they had to cut stuff which happens and surprisingly the changed scenery worked really well so much so you need the manga to see these changes otherwise you'll miss it. However the second episode is not faithful at all, the chapters are completely jumbled, one chapter was reduced to a cheap jumpscare, and the stuff that ties each chapter together, the little in-between stuff, is gone. And that makes it come across like they've cut up chapters, threw them in a hat and said whatever chapter we pull from this hat, is what the next episode will be.
Junji Ito is a master of putting his most horrifying images after a page turn, so the fear and anticipation builds until you muster up the courage to face what's coming. The anime really isn't capturing that dread. I'm still enjoying it, but I'm not sure how that could be adapted. As to your point, it probably would have been better if the anime chose to linger on its horrible set pieces, to maximize viewer discomfort. Maybe get a little awkward with it, hold on it maybe too long. Alternatively, it could have spent more time on the reaction of the character witnessing the horror, before letting the viewer see. Junji Ito uses that trick a lot! We get to see how freaked out the protagonist gets upon seeing whatever wretched thing hides on the next page. If this had been made as an animated movie, rather than a mini series, maybe it would have been easier to build that sense of dread. Sorry about the essay! :)
I tried to watch it, but the first episode made me so nauseous. It is also very fast paced, so I’m not sure if anyone who hasn’t read the book is going to understand anything
But...I liked it. I don;t understand why so much hate? I read the manga and thought this was a good adaptation. Remember, they were only given 4 nights, they had to do the best they could, and I thought it was impressive.
Ngl personally uzumaki is pretty bad to me (the manga). I read it and was disappointed. Some parts were scary, then some things seemed to be so incredibly stupid that it must have been a comedy. Things like bandits riding on tornadoes and the stupid hair battle the mc has with some random character is so opposed to the mood of the manga it's crazy. It just feels disjointed af. It really took me out of the experience.
As for the opposite, the Dragon Ball franchise doesn’t work in live action. If you or anyone has seen Dragonball Evolution, that is so far away from the source material. I don’t know what it is about manga/anime but their adaptations always seem to go bad.
Is "work" just code for "objectively good by absolute fact"? I seen many reviewers say "this is just my opinion, don't take it as gospel" then as a means of weaseling around that say: "this could never work" implying an impossibly of it appealing people.
this is so interesting, i've never really thought about this, like not being able to look at the images long enough like you would with a manga/comic/graphic novel ends up not being as impactful, it's a simple concept yet you opened my eyes with this lol, thank you
Maybe letting some scenes simmer for a bit instead of quick cutting could fix that, as well as adding a bit of padding between the scenes?
@@airplanes_aren.t_real I don’t think that would have 100% worked because as BRoG said a big reason of why Ito’s mangas work so much is because of the self-determination you can put into their readings
I completely agree with you, Junji Ito's adaptations NEED tension. Along with his storytelling, the act of pausing and turning the page holds power that on-screen adaptions don't always convey. While the first episode of Uzumaki looks amazing, it has MAJOR pacing issues. There is little tension in between each event. It's even worse that there are only four episodes. I feel like an adaption is possible if the animation studios took the time to create tension, but they would need several episodes to do so. They refuse to take their time and want to only get to the punchline.
It’s not the animators making decisions like that. It’s execs and producers refusing to give animators time, episodes, and budgets that they need.
@@giversinner971 I agree, I should have phrased it differently but you get what I mean. They had five years, and it's too bad they had so much trouble behind the scenes
The description of it being so loyal but at the cost of not having the right impact is making me think of the sceond adaptation of The Shining
Super loyal yes, but not the version people are going to think of since it feels lackluster
Another thing that concerned me is that they're adapting multiple chapters an episode when Uzumaki chapters don't really suit themselves to that type of adaptation.
Each chapter is a slow build up to a big moment and then leaves the audience just... sitting in what they just read. I first read Uzumaki a few months ago and I learnt to never read multiple chapters of Ito's work in one sitting because I could tell the chilling effect of being left to linger on the story you just read was lost when I could flip to the next chapter right away (especially as Uzumaki chapters tend to just... brush past the last horrifying reveal)
Also that line about how the adaptation is gorgeous and will continue to be so has dated this video so fast XD XD
Some imagery loses its strength the more you want to adapt it. Namely Lovecraft.
Lovecraft is kind of similar in the sense that the description (or lack thereof) triggers a Rolodex of potential horrors in your imagination that just locks in your mind's eye.
Ito is pure detailed visuals & creates an image that arguably is more disturbing than what your mind could come up with & you linger over it in horror, awe and reverence.
If you think zack snyder's watchmen is a faithful adaptation then your opinion is already suspect. This show could have been a faithful adaptation if they had doubled the episode count which would've allowed for better pacing to actually build up tension the way the manga does which is the big reason its so much more effective.
Always a joy to see you talk manga related stuff.
Good points! I definitely see how 1 to 1 doesn't always create the same impact across mediums
I have faith that an Uzumaki adaptation could work, and that this was a good way there, but like you say - it would have required more bold creative choices than what it's already going for. The director, Hiroshi Nagahama, has been involved in effective horror-adjacent adaptations before. Including anime that I love, like Mushishi and Flowers of Evil. But those feel like they have a more...fully realized vision, sometimes devisively so.
That said, I do want to shout-out the music and soundscape in Uzumaki, which I think adds to the work more than people give it credit for. Just the way you can listen to everything swirl around is absolutely perfect. It may be a simple trick in hindsight, but it's necessary. Colin Stetson understood the assignment!
Because companies never would have funded it enough for the quality we deserved. This happens with every high quality manga [berserk, uzumaki...]
Very good point I think you make here. I'm a big baby that's only read his cat diary and the Frankenstein retelling he did, and even from that small pool of samples I get what you mean by being able to self-regulate how you engage with Junji Ito's imagery.
I am glad the anime exists though couse after episode one I immediately went and got the book with all the stories in it. Got introduced to something great!
I don’t know anything about the horror series Uzumaki all I know is, it probably will be better than anything else with the name Uzumaki,, Naruto, cough, Naruto
Passive vs active participation. Junji Ito's works builds tension and have jumpscares behind the page turn. You have to psych yourself up to turn each page. The anime is so boring that I had to put it on 2x speed to get through it. It's also why I find haunted houses/horror games so much more terrifying than horror movies.
I'll admit that my main exposure to Uzumaki is through Daniel Greene's fantastic video on the manga (was a great Halloween time watch), though I have seen some of Junji Ito's other works. I was actually a bit excited for this adaptation, even if I wasn't sure I wanted to actually see the manga in motion (partly because it was already freaky enough). The trailer looked fantastic, and I heard the first episode was, too, so I was a bit disappointed to hear that quality dropped for the other 3 episodes, but based on what I've heard about the circumstances (very little, outside of implications from a producer), I don't blame those who made this show - it looked like it was a labour of love and so much effort that just didn't get to bloom fully.
Thank you for this great video, I hadn't fully considered the effect that adapting this manga would have on the imagery's impact on the reader/viewer, but it makes a lot of sense when outlined here.
I think a reasonably good counter-example to this is X-Men 97. It's not faithful. it's rough around the edges. But (being an ensemble show) they adapt multiple storylines at once to a stronger effect than a 1-1 adaptation (Storm loses her powers, Xavier is being treated by the Shi'ar, Jean is doing Jean things).
A great example of a necessary change IMHO is the removal of the Scouring of the Shire from RoTK. I love it in the book, thematically *chef's kiss*. But at the end of an already three-hour-long epic, Saruman-of-Many-Colors would have seemed goofy. Or mean even.
When I first heard about Junji Ito I actually thought he was an artist and I was looking at images of his art and endlessly fascinated by them and had no idea it was actually from manga so this makes so much sense!
I haven't been able to watch, nor read Uzumaki or anything from that author, therefore I have no idea about anything. But commenting for the algorithm. This sounds like the perfect example for "The Medium is the Message".
And I think Horror in general might be more affected by its medium than any other genre, and I think as you mentioned, the speed might be among the main culprits. Timing between the beats, the active nature of turning a page, but also implied movement of things in still images vs. actually seeing it move. Thinking about how the Alien (from Alien) is so much more effective the less we see it move, vs the Facehugger is so much worse when it moves due to its speed and likeness to spiders.
I'm reminded of Junji Ito Maniac: the horror anthlogy of Ito's work. its short adaptions but i think they tend to work animated. becuase its these short s=vinettes that are a bit like the twilight zone. Uzumaki is the frist episode was beautifully done and there is a of talented VAs and Seiyu's in the show.
You speak about staring at images and lingering. "Tales from the Loop" by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag and his later books. (highly recommend) The sci-fi images are haunting even. Transcending the commonplace with outside intruding realities, seem the norm. Launched a type tabletop genre that have adult play as youths and act as such. They even had tv Series which I thought was relatively good and had some of that creepy feel you find in the books.
For me the 1st "Uzumaki" episode was like reliving a cthulhu story. Where the protagonist is slowly pulled into a world of weird happenstances that build to a terrifying crescendo emotionally. The literary cthulhu story is narrated through 1st person mostly, unlike the anime. At first I thought it was simply creating an atmosphere by using a Starry Night Sky by Van Gogh, concept. But in this anime I'm not sure what to make of the black and white gradients in the art, only to suggest that the is a world of good and evil implied. Or of empty souls. I'm not a big fan psychological preternatural horror anime. From tv series season 1&2 reminded me of lost but repainted in genre of Horror.
Personally, I'm gonna rate the first episode as its own thing, and the whole series aside. The quality drop is just too abrupt...
taking the words right out of my mouth. I've heard of Uzumaki and seen some of the famous images, but I've never read it and I felt the same offness that you did. The reasons I came up with were word-for-word how you described it in this video. And this was before the controversial 2nd episode aired.
Thats an interesting observation, I think the anime would probably be better off lingering too long rather than not long enough. From what I've heard of colin stetson's soundtrack his music could certainly carry the tension if the animators wanted to slow things down. 4 episodes is quite a crunch though and that may be part of the reason they had to keep things moving. Its unfortunate; im hearing that the animation quality dropped significantly in the second episode :(
Your points are pretty much exactly the same as the issues my son and I had after we watched it. We're both long time fans of Junji Ito and were excited for this adaptation after the horrid previous attempt. We thought this first episode nailed the aesthetic and the story, but failed with the pacing. The whole point of the show is to recreate the look and feel of Ito's work, especially his infamous page turns, yet they barely allowed any moments to breathe. There's little time to build tension, instead the breakneck pace gave me anxiety. Probably doesn't help that a lot of our attention was on reading the subtitles instead of focusing on the scene as a whole. Really wish they had done an anthology series around the short stories instead of a slow burn like Uzumaki, maybe that would have been better. But knowing Netflix, probably not.
Like with Watchmen I think it could work but to do so requires not a 1:1 recreation. You would need a director who creates video with imagery that evokes the feeling rather than recreates. I think someone like Perfect Blue era Satoshi Kon could give us that sort of feeling
Or watch mitch jenkins and alan moore’s the show
This prequel season of Naruto is weird.
I think it honestly could have worked if it was given more episodes and kept the same animation studio from episode 1 but sadly some major issues happened with the team and they had to make a decision to continue with less quality or just end it and they chose to continue out of respect for the hard work the others put in
It could have worked if they didnt compress it, kept it chapter to chapter and do the animation they did in the first episode, but work with tension, its possible the style was right visually (the first ep) but the tempo was wrong
I get what you’re saying. I’m a big fan of Ito’s work and Uzumaki, but I guess I still fundamentally disagree with some of what you’re saying at the same time. In a similar way that books and movies are different mediums and impact us different ways, that doesn’t mean one is inherently unadaptable into the other. Like, yes, it won’t have the same impact as the manga version, because nothing will. But that’s not the same as it not working, at least to me. Because not having the same impact doesn’t = having lesser impact or no impact. And obviously I’ve already read the story so I’m primed to understand it more than someone just watching the anime. But I think seeing something like that on screen - bigger, moving - can absolutely have a similar kind of impact on someone who is unfamiliar with the source material. Idk, that’s just me, and I do get what you’re saying.
The ability to choose your own pacing is one major reason I prefer the manga over the adapted anime almost every time.
Other than the second episode onward i think the biggest disappointment for me is the fact we didn’t get to see the dad do his spiral thing in motion. That could have been so unsettling done as a slow build with his box thing and that could have been the strength of the anime.
Have I ever even heard of the author? No. Do I intend to consume any of their work in any form? No. In fact less likely now, not into sitting with terror/horror intentionally! Am I still glad I spent 12 minutes listening to you discuss this? Yes! The premise of the discussion gives me new and interesting ways to interact with media I do choose to consume! Thank You!
I have somewhat halfway synthesized version of your main point. I think you bring up an important, "essence" to what makes a Junji Ito adaption very hard. But ultimately I don't think it's "impossible". Episode 1 showed us, in my opinion, the closest to someone getting that tension almost right. If episode 1 was 40 minutes, instead of 20, I think you could achieve that level of tension. I think about just *how much* they had to cut out just to make the first episode. There are moments with Shuichi's father where the mom throws out his spiral collection and he freaks out. A lot of Azami's story was cut, there were more moments that detailed how *obsessed* she was getting with Shuichi. Fleshing out these characters and the world they exist in would make up for the loss of tension that comes from a static image medium. I think what it ultimately comes down to is simply money and a studio that is willing to take the loss in producing this. It's unfortunate to see yet another example of the divide between capital and art. James Demarco said that the show was doomed after the first episode. Adult Swim fired the director and studio that did episode 1, for what he alluded to being cost and time spent. I feel like what the studio and director for episode 1 achieved with a shortened script, if they were given more script to work from, they would nail it.
Back when I was 12, I made the mistake of reading the first volume of Uzumaki at the library. I was full on into my misanthropic-bordering-on-nihilistic phase, pretending like nothing bothered me when I was really just a stack of emotional issues in a trenchcoat, and I thought, I've read the Claymore manga, I can handle this.
.................The worst images are burned into my mind forever. 😱
Specially if the pacing is going at a breakneck pace so you can't even sit with any one thing at a time.
I'm a big fan of junji ito, I've read uzumaki a handful of times and I personally disagree with people saying this is a loyal adaptation. The first episode was pretty loyal, a little jarring with the pacing as they had to cut stuff which happens and surprisingly the changed scenery worked really well so much so you need the manga to see these changes otherwise you'll miss it. However the second episode is not faithful at all, the chapters are completely jumbled, one chapter was reduced to a cheap jumpscare, and the stuff that ties each chapter together, the little in-between stuff, is gone. And that makes it come across like they've cut up chapters, threw them in a hat and said whatever chapter we pull from this hat, is what the next episode will be.
Keep in mind, I shot this based on the first episode only.
Engagement for the engagement god!
Theres also a film live action adaptation
Yeah but I haven't seen that.
Junji Ito is a master of putting his most horrifying images after a page turn, so the fear and anticipation builds until you muster up the courage to face what's coming. The anime really isn't capturing that dread. I'm still enjoying it, but I'm not sure how that could be adapted. As to your point, it probably would have been better if the anime chose to linger on its horrible set pieces, to maximize viewer discomfort. Maybe get a little awkward with it, hold on it maybe too long. Alternatively, it could have spent more time on the reaction of the character witnessing the horror, before letting the viewer see. Junji Ito uses that trick a lot! We get to see how freaked out the protagonist gets upon seeing whatever wretched thing hides on the next page. If this had been made as an animated movie, rather than a mini series, maybe it would have been easier to build that sense of dread.
Sorry about the essay! :)
I tried to watch it, but the first episode made me so nauseous. It is also very fast paced, so I’m not sure if anyone who hasn’t read the book is going to understand anything
But...I liked it.
I don;t understand why so much hate? I read the manga and thought this was a good adaptation. Remember, they were only given 4 nights, they had to do the best they could, and I thought it was impressive.
Yeah, this was an odd one O.o
Alan Moore’s point all along
Yeah, his work is all about the turning of the page. You can't really get that with animation.
Guess ~my~ reaction to you review.
A one piece animator blamed it on the western producers who don’t want to wait for a polished product 😊
Polish would not have helped the problem I'm describing.
@@BreakRoomofGeekscap nothing can’t be solved with polishing
Ngl personally uzumaki is pretty bad to me (the manga). I read it and was disappointed. Some parts were scary, then some things seemed to be so incredibly stupid that it must have been a comedy. Things like bandits riding on tornadoes and the stupid hair battle the mc has with some random character is so opposed to the mood of the manga it's crazy. It just feels disjointed af. It really took me out of the experience.
As for the opposite, the Dragon Ball franchise doesn’t work in live action. If you or anyone has seen Dragonball Evolution, that is so far away from the source material. I don’t know what it is about manga/anime but their adaptations always seem to go bad.
Are there spoilers? I was gonna watch it after it's done.
This is spoiler free.
@@BreakRoomofGeeksyay! Thank you Vera! ñ.ñ ❤
Thanks @@BreakRoomofGeeks
Nice, rainbow nails.
The movie is worse. This was great for original story.
Hard disagree. Anything Ito is good.
Is "work" just code for "objectively good by absolute fact"? I seen many reviewers say "this is just my opinion, don't take it as gospel" then as a means of weaseling around that say: "this could never work" implying an impossibly of it appealing people.