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| Alright I’m not even gonna bother discussing most of the chapters of this manga because I don’t feel like I have anything important to say, but regarding the ending, its dissapointing, I really like non happy endings in all terms of media but this is just not done right and nearly mediocre at times plot along with lack of true character developmet. The last chapters felt like some action, adventure movie that had nothing too much impressive to offer besides artstyle. So yeah regarding manga as a whole, it wasn’t done right, some spiral stuff are just dumped there without any proper build-up or some sort of element of surprise. The beautiful artstyle can’t just save overall final work that is this mess along with that dissapointing finale. So far not a good start for my horror manga reading expierence, I feel like the author has true talent of horror but it wasn’t properly displayed here at all |
| I wasn't a fan of the ending, stuff wasn't taken seriously (like someone turning into a snail would go into international news and shit like that) and some stuff wasn't explained. The plot and the art style were good tho so I'll give this a 7/10 *There are a total of 20 chapters not 19 |
| "he has it big as a cactus but he won't let go of my head and I puke on his cock bitch" - Boy by Fishball |
| Kinda entertaining reading all the posts complaining about the ending and the lack of an explanation. People are clearly oblivious to the author's main inspiration(Lovecraft) and the genre it created altogether(Lovecraftian/Cosmic Horror). I'm personally a big fan of Lovecraft and IMO Ito is probably one of the few "modern" authors(regardless of medium) that grasps his works, so naturally I really enjoyed this manga. I'd recommend it to the people complaining on this thread but they'd probably dislike it aswell.  H.P. Lovecraft portrait drawn by Ito |
Okamoto_Apr 4, 2022 4:02 AM
| "Just as time had sped up on the outskirts, in the center of the spiral it stood still". - What? No, it's the opposite, in the previous chapters time was moving faster the closer people were to the center. Either a mistranslation or the author got confused by his own rules. |
| I appreciate that Uzumaki's third volume has a single narrative. I think the manga's biggest weakness is the scattered stories that don't add up to much more than Kirie commenting "I can't explain it, but I know what I saw." Bringing the snail people back was a nice touch, although their fate became pretty horrifying pretty quickly. The art for the underground spiral world was stunning. I will accept an intricate rendition of an ominous, subterranean palace in place of a thorough explanation. It's scarier that way. |
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| After reading all of Junji Itou's collections, and finishing most of his work, excluding No Longer Human, Gyo, and The Liminal Zone. I decided to read his longest manga last, starting with The Spiral, which is praised as his best and most popular manga to date. I am somewhat shocked at how mediocre, overrated and extremely disappointing it was, and regret buying it instead of reading the non-high quality scanlation. Most, if not all of Itou's horror work are "great" in how they're fascinating, creative and intriguing with their concepts and how he displays the horror in his stories. Some better than others, while most are left inconclusive to the unknown in their finale. The mystery is often "disappointing" for wanting to fully comprehend the story, but most of his horror stays entertaining regardless. The problem that I dislike and is a legit flaw from The Spiral and possibly all of his long stories or rather bad works is how unstructured and awkward they can be. I'm a fan who's fondly enjoyed and continue to enjoy reading his work as I'm close to finishing all of his work, but unfortunately this one is one of the few bad ones. So far out of his series of long stories that I enjoyed are; Tomie, Souichi, Fashion Model, The Bizarre Hikizuri Siblings, The Intersection Boy and, Remina. None are perfect, and all are inconclusive... but at least they're intriguing and captivating, while Tomie has sense with good plots to its trope, unlike The Spiral. ... The Spiral is mostly boring, and underwhelming in its depiction from most of the plots of what exactly the Spiral is and why it creates these specific phenomenoms. The art and display of the horror is great as is common from Itou, while the characters even though critisized as unsophisticated from fans, serve their purpose well in displaying a realistic attitude and interaction of people which I think is an overlooked talent from Itou that most people don't realize, even if his characters aren't extraordinary. On the contrary, I think they're realistic in his own style, even if other mangaka have a different style of character interpretation that's arguably more realistic in other manners. Anyway. The timeline of events is somewhat interesting for the mystery of how the spiral affects the townspeople differently, but as a whole, the difference and lacking relation of sense to the phenomenoms together till the ending overall is unfulfilling and disappointing. The main plot of the town's dragonfly pond with a spiral figure under it causing these phenomena and somehow causing the town to loop into a spiral of time is awesome! Although, again, the events in relation to the main plot is underwhelming as a whole to the story. Shuichi's father's obsession is what starts the story, which introduces a decent intrigue to this upcoming obscure mystery. Which surprisingly is never revealed how he first became affected, but no matter. The bizarre attitude of his father while creeping out the characters is fairly good; from his eyes seperately rolling, his tongue curling, and unnaturally curling his body inside a round box as he dies, later haunting his wife with spirals from his death, with his ashes smoking into a spiral figure in the clouds- which is all good. The issue afterwards is how random most of the events are with little to no logic to the spiral itself and its supposed meaning which I don't know what it is aside from a loop that enjoys to suck people in. The girl with the scar who's attracted any boy ever since she's had it, ending up being sucked in by her own spiral in her forehead. Shuichi's parents as spirits burning in Kirie's father's kiln... his father calling him to join him, while her mother screams to him for help, along with other spirit victims of the spiral who've died. The couple intertwining together like snakes against their enemy neighboring family who don't accept each other. Kirie's hair locks curling into spirals, with her friend gaining the same ability craving to show off and ending up dead by her living hair sucking out her life. The boy who has a crush on Kirie, attempting to prove his love by having a car stop in front of him, causing him to die with the car's spring in his spine as he was curled on the front wheel, to then his undead corpse springing into to her after Shuichi tried to kill him before reanimating. A classmate who comes to school turning into a snail from a spiral on his back which turns into his shell. The lighthouse's burnt dysfunctional light somehow causing fire to spread inside whenever it starts, with the stairs almost being an endless loop. Female mosquitoes biting pregnant women and causing them to become blood-suckers to feed their babies, with the babies having the ability to talk and want to return in their mother's womb, and their umbilical chord turning into a mushroom-like spiral. Typhoons, Whirlpools, Whirlwinds. A cursed house causing ones inside to gain horns throughout their body leading to death. The townspeople gaining the ability to cause mini gust of tornados with any impactful movement or sound, with some having the skill to fly through a self-made tornado. To finally people curling into themselves inside the built home extensions, curling together to the past of the town, eating snail people to survive, with time speeding for the main characters, and in the finale, the couple going down to the source of the spiral figure and intertwining together themselves after Kirie finds her parents turned into stone after years have passed seperate from their time together. ... There are kinda great plots and events in this story, but it's shamefully unstructured, illogical, and boring to some extent which is ultimately very disappointing. Shuichi's sense of danger as the sole character who's noticed since the beginning for attending school elsewhere is great as the only medium who's aware of the spiral. His wish to flea with his girlfriend together and constant failing to do so from her denial until its too late is well done. I was mostly entertained after Chapter 10's Mosquitoes for how the horror started becoming grander in creativity, which got better in some form after the characters were struggling to survive and the town went into chaos. I keep repeating myself, but even if some events are great individually, as a whole it just does not function. A lot of it is greatly entertaining, but... Azami, the girl with the scar spiral on her forehead arguably lacks explanation to her character's point of the story, exactly how and why she's the only one to get sucked in into herself, even though her demise of horror is fucking great. I think to the logic of the story, because (as Shuichi deduced) the spiral is in all of them, by becoming arrogant with ego to fail in charming Shuichi, the spiral sucked her in. Why though. Shuichi's spirits and the other deceased. How are they trapped from passing away peacefully. The Twisted Souls Chapter of the couple intertwining is self-explanatory and a good introduction to the foreshadowing of the townspeople intertwining together later, even though the spiral affecting their family with hate unlike the couple is left a mystery to me. Jack-in-the-Box is probably the stupidest event of the story. The boy's corpse reviving and springing to his crush Kirie was idiotic and meaningless to the story. The tornado being attracted to Kirie doesn't make sense at all either. The Snail People is great to an extent. The way it's used to induce the plot of people eating them to survive is interesting... but I don't exactly understand the logic of how being slow or whatever causes specific people to turn into slugs. The tranformation itself is also fascinating. The Black Lighthouse is bizarre in how it burns people to death, but, it's a decent introduction to travel having the occurence to be neverending causing one to be stuck in the same place. The Mosquitoes' concept alone is great, but babies having the ability to talk and yearning to go back to their mother's womb doesn't make sense to me even if I feel there's probably a sense of loop in relation to the spiral, but I don't fully understand it's probable hidden meaning. The cursed house is very random, and I don't understand why the old buildings are incable of being destroyed while stronger buildings are easily destroyed in comparison. The last quarter of the story is fairly entertaining. The way in which practically everything in town is destroyed, with people trying to survive, kids previously being tied up, blowing things to destruction, with gangs flying, survivors eating snails, others intertwining in the safe buildings, Kirie and Shuichi attempting to keep her little brother safe before the cannibals attempt to eat him as he escapes as a snail and is saddenly never reunited with his sister in the finale. That whole struggle, with others dying from being blown away by others is pretty good. The finale itself though isn't bad. The doom that it's a bad ending is good, with the fact that The Spiral is a neverending loop, but I don't understand how it's a loop that could cause them to somehow repeat this cycle, or how time works in and out of the spiral from being in the hill out of the town for them to continue to travel time while in town afterwards, or even why some townspeople are turned into stones in face of Thee Spiral. I guess it's because they're stuck in time, to eventually revive later... All in all... Flawed and Overrated. 4/10. Although, if I completely neglect how the story and events lack logic, arguably 5-6/10. |
waalex11Jul 24, 2023 2:51 PM
| Pretty lazy ending, but at least it had really nice looking spreadsheets. |
| I really liked the ending. |
| The village was freed from the curse, but Kirie and Shuuichi could no longer leave. The manga was very good, and there is definitely something I will not forget here: The spirals. |
| i really wanted to like it, but didn't. i thought the first few chapters were good though but probably from the lighthouse one onwards, i didn't like it. there's never even any explanation behind the spirals, like at least try bullshitting lmao and how kirie just keeps running into fucked situations - which is one of the reasons i liked Goosebumps, the cast always changed so it made sense. and the last arc with the spiral wind town, i didn't really like at all. the ending felt very lazy as well but i guess it's nice that they stayed together in the end. best chapter for me was probably the jack-in-the-box dude one, thought that image of him getting wrapped in the car's front wheels was actually scary and i love me a walk to the graveyard. most things weren't so scary as they were more repulsive. i guess i'm just not an itou junji fan, considering this is supposedly his best work. i like his art style a bit though. |
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| Fantastic art, creative for moments... but pretty lazy in terms of writing/overall execution. 5/10 - Extra chapter was kinda meh as well. |
| Cosmic horror is a hard thing to do, but Junji Ito nailed it. Uzumaki is the definitive horror manga. |
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| I'd have ever thought that a horror manga could literally send a chill down my spine, but here we are. It was great from the beginning till the very end. As for the ending itself, perhaps spirals are truly the perfect shape, after all they managed to unite underground a whole village of people who couldn't stop killing each other up above. |
| My favorite Manga (of the few I read lol). Just enjoyed it - way better than the anime which in comparison had a lot of stuff missing or rushed. Ironically it was the anime that got me interested in reading the manga. |
| I liked this ending. I knew they probably weren't going to escape, but at least Kirie and Shuichi get to spend eternity together now. The manga in all didn't make very much sense, then again it wasn't really supposed to. It's job was to scare me, and it worked. 9/10. |
| "Pirates are Evil? Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values. Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is a neutral ground! Justice will prevail you say? Of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!" -Donquixote Doflamingo |
| this was a great scary story wiath an amazing art the anime was far from this quality. i really enjoyed reading this manga. 8/10 |
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| Great opening chapters, strange and inconsistent middle chapters (with good, unsettling moments), and a cohesive ending in my opinion. I really liked the ending. That the Spiral remained unknown force beyond human comprehension and they were powerless in the end after putting up a lengthy, horrible struggle. Kirie came full circle for me with her decision to stay with Shuichi amidst the hopelessness, because I have come to the conclusion that Shuichi stayed and suffered for Kirie even if he could have seemingly easily left at the beginning of the story. A touching sequence that depicts love can last even amidst the bleak unknown. Though one could argue Kirie had nowhere else to go, I like how she made that conscious decision rather than losing herself to madness. Manga was a little overrated with all the hype surrounding it, but it was not a bad work by any means. Questionable story beats and character development aside, this read was overall enjoyable. |
| "ああ。俺はなる。巨人を一匹のこらず駆逐してやる！" |
| i had a feeling the manga would end with the couple, just not like that...? i thought they would escape. i think i read too much romance and happy endings. this was definitely a weird read for me |
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| After reading this my big takeaway is that Shuichi is such a fantastic guy, despite his despair and paranoia over the spirals he always stayed with Kirie and protected her, she definitely didn't deserve him. She felt really ungrateful until the end when she made the choice to stay with him, glad she realized how important he was at the end at least. Her attitude and frankly idiocy was my main complaint of this story, I enjoyed it overall. Do the two of them escape at some point in the future? Chapter 1 has her telling the story of what happened to the town which shouldn't be possible if she is still trapped down there. Suppose it might be plothole I'm supposed to ignore though. |
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