Review: Junji Ito's "Uzumaki"

Junji Ito, with Susan Daigle-Leach & Sam Elzway (Masumi Washington, ed.; Yuji Oniki, trans.), Uzumaki: Deluxe Edition, VIZ Media LLC., San Francisco CA, 2014.

As a seller of books, I am not a huge fan of manga. On the one hand, anything that gets the younger crowd to stick their nose into a book is great; on the other, because these things are pumped out in long series, few punters are willing to shell out for anything untried, and so, while the first volumes leap readily off the shelf, the subsequent tomes in any series languish unsold for unconscionably long periods of time. Many’s the time that a customer will ask “do you have issue number one?” and I grit my teeth while suggesting that they might start with number two and backtrack, all the while knowing that they absolutely won’t take that route. The other issue is that the readership is largely kids, and kids don’t have the ready cash to pay for an entire run of say, “Food Wars!”, or “Black Butler” – certainly not firsthand – and still, unlike a Marvel or DC trade paperback, will refuse to start a series without having read the first instalment. Finally, turnover in the world of manga is swift, and something that’s scorching hot one day, cools dramatically in a heartbeat. Grab your copies of “One Piece” while you can…

The other issue I have with these productions is a cultural one. In Japan, there is an understood commonality in place regarding who reads this material and how. Manga is largely targeted at young men; some manga is written for young women and other manga are intended for older readers: the idea is that every sector of the community has its specific ‘read’ and people tend to outgrow these pigeonholes as other necessities of life intrude. Of course, this is not written down as chapter and verse and is definitely not policed in any fashion, but there is an unspoken – and certainly unwritten – set of guidelines about how these “irresponsible pictures” proliferate throughout the Japanese-speaking world. Interest from outside of Japan has slowly changed how this material is disseminated and consumed, with the American market and its strategies affecting how manga is sold in the US, and European tastes influencing creation, translation and marketing in that global sector. The result is that overseas readers partake of things that are not “meant” to be read or evaluated by their age (or gender) group and such material is weighted inappropriately in those markets. Certainly, something like “Dragonball Z” was not to be considered high art, or lofty literature, but, amongst fans and collectors, it has almost attained this status. The Western equivalent is the prevailing notion that American comics are for children, when it is highly evident that only adults buy Marvel and DC comics and then discuss them in terms of university-level jargon.

So, in discussing Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki”, I feel that I’m not the target audience and that any kind of close dissection of the text is unwarranted and possibly unnecessary.

There are further wrinkles to all this. Because manga is pumped out in huge quantities as a disposable product for an endlessly thirsty readership, necessarily a bunch of tropes and other genre constructions start to become obvious after a short period of exposure. This is also visible in the field of anime – which developed from the manga substrate – and can be seen in other forms of Japanese popular entertainment as well. There is a type of cultural shorthand which permeates all of Japanese ‘pulp’, or ‘B-grade’ entertainment, and once you see it, it is very difficult to let go of it. Most of these notions can be seen in the way characters are established and constructed in relation to each other.

In most manga stories – and anime, and Japanese cinema – there is a girl and often there are two suitors for her affections. One of these suitors is level-headed, studious and determined while the other is generally excitable, dashing and “fun”. The female lead vacillates between the two trying to determine which is the best in terms of becoming a “life partner” and the narrative cut-and-thrust of this determination is what underscores everything else going on with the story. I say “most”, and it’s generally true throughout a majority of series, even when the purpose of the book is to undermine this trope, or to subvert narrative expectations: that is, when it’s not treading this path explicitly, it still references the guideline in some fashion. Whether it’s the original “Godzilla” movie, something goofy like “Project A-ko”, or horror fare like “Uzumaki”, this character template is readily apparent underneath the overt storyline.

For me, this lends a rubber stamp quality to most Japanese popular fare. It feels as though every “new” title has come into being partially pre-fabricated in some sense and that the bulk of the exercise is simply the ticking of boxes to an inevitable conclusion: here’s the girl; there’s the studious guy she feels sorry for; there’s the jock who’s determined to win her affections. It writes itself. For some series, this is deliberate: some titles are intended to go on indefinitely without resolving these interpersonal issues, since that’s the whole point of the exercise. In other titles, the set-up is abandoned after its inception and the narrative runs its own way to various conclusions. These hallmarks are quite clear in “Uzumaki” too.

What makes Junji Ito’s work a little different is that there is a creeping sense of dread that permeates the story. A golden rule of his oeuvre seems to be “don’t get attached”: characters get crunched down like corn chips at a roleplaying session, and “Uzumaki” is no exception. Still, the characters occupy certain set positions within the narrative format – potential boyfriend; rival in love; annoying unrequited crush – and lack a lot of depth or interiorality, the only difference is that here, they usually meet hideous ends.

The essential requirement for a horror tale is that it take place in an environment that is completely ordinary; the strangeness which the horror represents, therefore, is thrown into stark contrast, against the humdrum quality of the real world. Having “Uzumaki” spring from the standard manga set-up then, would seem to be a neat way of highlighting the horror to come. On balance, I would say that it’s a genius move on Ito’s part, except that it is the way that every manga narrative is established, which would seem to cut it off at the knees. As well, there is a fumbling quality to the way in which the series builds through its instalments that makes me wonder how completely planned the work was from the outset: as each episode falls into place, I had the sense that the story was being made up as it went along. There’s no doubt that the story had an endpoint predestined from its inception, but the steps along the way feel a bit clunky and bolted-on.

“Uzumaki” (“Spirals”) takes place in a seaside village which is nominally ‘cursed’. Our heroine is Kirie Goshima, the daughter of an artisanal potter, who is attending school in the village. Her best friend is Shuichi Saito, a scholar who lives at home with his parents and who attends a higher school in another village nearby: this commuter existence which he leads allows him to perceive that all is not quite well in their home village of Kurouzo-cho. After Shuichi’s parents both go mad and die horribly, after becoming obsessed by the idea of spiral formations manipulating the world around them, Shuichi comes to believe that spirals are the expression of the curse upon the place. As incident after incident unfolds, highlighted by the presence of spiralling phenomena, a trail of investigation leads our hapless pawns to the nightmare cosmic horror that dwells in caverns deep below the village pond. It ends messily. As I said: “don’t get attached”.

For most of the story, the manga framework guides the interactions of all the players: Kirie likes Shuichi, but he is focussed on his work and can’t afford to be distracted; Kirie attracts young male students keen for her attentions and she struggles to rebuff them without offending them; she encounters other girls, keen to steal Shuichi away from her. This is all textbook manga stuff and apart from the fact that Ito is ruthless in dealing out hideous comeuppance to the offending parties, it all goes rather by the numbers. On one hand, given that most characters in this tale end up in some kind of deadly body horror nightmare, it might be just as well that we don’t get to know the players better; on the other hand, we care less about what happens to characters that are broadly sketched on cardboard.

However, Ito is all about the horror. Some deeply unpleasant things take place between the covers of this book, and they are designed to make the reader feel as uncomfortable as possible. There are all flavours of nastiness here - body horror, splatterpunk, cosmic dread – and they all ratchet up to a fever pitch by the book’s conclusion. People turn into giant snails; people take sharp implements to themselves to extract offending organs; there are monstrous birth sequences of deeply unpleasant aspect; people are driven to cannibalism; others are transformed into boneless entities and forced to co-habit like spaghetti, packed into crude shelters. By the end of it all, it’s a relief to close the covers and walk away.

As I finished reading, I was left to wonder why all this was taking place. In terms of themes or larger concepts about the world at large, art speaking to nature, there seemed to be little on offer here. There’s a common Mythos thing associated with Hastur and Nyarlathotep whereby stuff happens, and people go mad, and it’s this going mad which seems to be the whole, singular point. What happens? People go mad! Ba-doom, tish! There’s no rationale or purpose and this – for some authors and their readers – is good enough. Not me. I want metaphor; I want internal logic; a universe with rules; a result that seems somehow deserved. It’s not the case here. Why is Kurouzo-cho cursed by spirals? Just ‘cause. What is “Uzumaki” trying to say? Nothing, and “Boo!”. Quite unsatisfying…

The upside to all of this – and its strongest aspect – is the artwork. The whole purpose of the comics medium is to interrogate reality and conjure vistas and visions which would be impossible to capture in any other medium. The scenery in this book is truly gobsmacking, especially by the end when the full cosmic nightmare is on display, and it does all the heavy lifting which the limping narrative structure fails to achieve. This is a case where the story is definitely flying on the coattails of the art, and it shows. I’m aware that more than a few people have had images of these panels tattooed upon their person and I get that: I don’t know personally that I’d enjoy having a image of a young girl with a hole spiralling through her head inked upon my bicep but then, what do I know?

In the final analysis, this is a good comics read propped up by the art which definitely delivers on the horror score, the various concepts leaving the reader alternately creeped-out, shocked, and awed. I was left feeling more than a little grubby by the conclusion. There is little in the way of characterisation and the set-ups and narrative beats are nothing new for readers of manga or fans of anime. There is too much dependence on there being no rationale for the mayhem (see also: “Ringu” and “Ju on: The Grudge” – there’s no explanation! Ooh! Spooky! Not.) which leaves the reader frustrated and which might just be the point – mileage will vary. For me, it’s not how I like my chills.

I’m giving this three-and-a-half Tentacled Horrors.