Uzumaki Anime Controversy: Episode 2 Quality Drop Explained

Fans of Junji Ito were super hyped for the Uzumaki anime adaptation! After a long wait, the release had a major hiccup that had everyone talking.

Uzumaki: The Controversy

The anime Uzumaki, based on Junji Ito's famous manga, was highly anticipated. However, the release of episode 2 caused a huge stir. Many noticed a significant drop in animation quality. Jason DeMarco, co-founder of Toonami, even posted (now-deleted) comments on Bluesky about it!

Also Read: Uzumaki: Junji Ito's Masterpiece of Horror Manga

The Quality Drop

An enormous, grinning head-shaped balloon with a noose for a string swings down to stop two fleeing girls in Junji Ito Maniac. Image

DeMarco's comments hinted at behind-the-scenes production problems. He mentioned that "one or two people" hampered things, without going into detail. The poor animation in scenes like the lighthouse stairwell and the "Twisted Souls" sequence was really noticeable and many couldn't ignore it!

His comments pretty much summed it up as "we were screwed over." The team's choices boiled down to:

Don't release anything.
Only release episode 1.
Release all four episodes, flaws and all.

They went with option C because the people working on it had put in a lot of effort, despite major issues and production setbacks.

Also Read: Uzumaki Anime: Release Date, Trailer, and Everything You Need to Know

Fan Reactions

Shuichi Staring to the Left While His Father Stirs His Soup Vigorously with Chopsticks Image

Fans were understandably upset. After waiting so long, the quality was quite disappointing. Many felt it was a case of overpromising and underdelivering and compared this drop to previous series' drops in quality, notably Ninja Kamui and The Promised Neverland season 2.

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Uzumaki Compared To Other Ito Adaptations

Junji Ito's manga is incredible, but its Anime adaptations have a mixed record. Many feel they often don't do justice to the source material.

Uzumaki is an example! The stunning visuals of the manga and the story are pretty difficult to recreate perfectly and it makes you wonder how that's even possible.

Here's how previous Anime adaptations compared:

Junji Ito Collection (2018) suffered from animation problems.
Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre also faced criticism for similar reasons. The animations never quite seemed to be as impressive and fans did not appreciate how much the adaptations strayed from their original work.

Uzumaki started strong, with a good episode 1, but episode 2 really soured things! Some amazing, memorable scenes just missed the mark in subsequent adaptations, such as "Ice Cream Bus".

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Uzumaki's Legacy

Despite the animation issues, Uzumaki is still considered the best adaptation of Junji Ito's work due to the quality of the first episode!

But, overall, many agree it highlights why adapting certain manga, like Berserk and Vagabond to anime is difficult! This type of quality is practically made to be successful on the page rather than on the screen!

It's unfortunate what happened. It's a good reminder that not everything comes easy. Maybe we need better techniques to be able to capture such compelling elements to a different form of media!