Uzumaki

Uzumaki was written and illustrated by Junji Ito, one of Japan's most celebrated horror manga artists. It was originally serialized in the manga magazine Big Comic Spirits, published by Shogakukan, beginning in 1998. The complete work was collected into three tankōbon volumes.

"Uzumaki" (Japanese for "spiral") tells the story of the fictional coastal town of Kurōzu-cho, which becomes cursed by an unnatural obsession with spiral patterns. The curse manifests in increasingly grotesque and surreal ways, from people's bodies contorting into spirals to entire buildings and natural formations deforming. The protagonist, Kirie Goshima, narrates the town's descent into madness.

Yes, a live-action Japanese film adaptation was released in 2000, directed by Higuchinsky. The film condensed the manga's sprawling story into a single feature and received a mixed reception. An anime television adaptation produced by Adult Swim and Production I.G premiered in 2024, presented in black and white to match the manga's aesthetic.

Uzumaki was originally collected into three volumes in Japan by Shogakukan. In English, Viz Media has published the work in both a three-volume edition and a single hardcover omnibus. The complete story runs approximately 600 pages in the omnibus format.