Uzumaki, Volume 2 (2nd Edition) [Paperback]

Junji Ito (Author, Illustrator), Annette Roman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 18, 2007

KurÔzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. But the spirit which haunts it does not have a name or a body, only a shape: uzumaki the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It possessed the father of teenage Kirie's withdrawn boyfriend Shuichi, causing him to remake himself in its image before he died. It grows in ferns, in seashells, in curls of hair, and in the crooked folds of the human brain. Giant snails are sighted near the high school. An eerie glow shines from the abandoned lighthouse. Mosquitoes fly in drowsy curves and feed on blood. As more people are caught in the pattern, over the town of KurÔzu-cho hangs the spiral smoke of cremated corpses; because even in death, there is no escape...

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Junji Ito debuted as a horror manga artist in 1987 with the first story in his successful Tomie series. Uzumaki, drawn from 1998 to 1999, was adapted into a live-action movie, which has been released in America by Viz Films and Tidepoint Pictures. It's influences include the classic manga artists Kazuo Umezu and Hideshi Hino, as well as authors Yasutaka Tsutsui and H.P. Lovecraft.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 2 edition (December 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421513900
• ISBN-13: 978-1421513904
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #100 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Manga > By Publisher > Viz

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Upon a Ocean of Looping Shapes, October 12, 2002

By 

TastyBabySyndrome "Matthew Lewis, author of M... ("Daddy Dagon's Daycare" - Proud Sponsor of the Little Tendril Baseball Team, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Uzumaki, Volume 2 (v. 2) (Paperback)

In my opinion, Uzumaki has to be one of the most disturbing visual remedies I've used to quench the utter state of boredom I sometimes find myself immersed within. Its ocular metaphors, coupling the ingenuity of Junji Ito's mind with believably sculpted pictorials depicting horror after sometimes nameless horror, are something unique in the field of terror.

The concept (taken from the back of the book because of its wonderful description):
Kurozu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. But the spirit which haunts it does not have a name or a body, only a shape: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic shape of the world. It possessed the father of teenage Kirie's withdrawn boyfriend, causing him to remake himself in its image before he died. It grows in ferns, in seashells, in curls of hair, in the crooked folds of the human brain.... As more people are caught in the pattern, over the town of Kurozu-cho hangs the spiral of cremated corpses; because even in death, there is no escape.

In this installment:
In Chapter 7 through 12, more issues are fleshed out, leading us away from the strange occurances at Dragonfly Pond and our two mainstay characters, using them somewhat but still dancing in other venues of thought. Briefly, these are:
In Chapter 7, Jack-in-the-box, Kirie catches the eye of a seventh-grader named Mitsuru Yamaguchi, a boy they simply call Jack-in-the-box because of his habit of surprising people by springing out at them from anywhere he can conceal himself. He decides that he must have her because it will surprise people to see him with such an intoxicating vision, constantly dogging her every step as he tries to obtain her. This, of course, leads to an ill-fated accident that Kirie blames herself for, one that invites the horror of the spiral into a cryptically grave-unveiling manner. It also shows us the impact the recent events have been having on the town, with the introduction of burial once again taking place, something that people have deemed necessary after the black-spiral clouds that come from cremating a resident of the town anywhere, not just in the town itself.

In Chapter 8, The Snail, (one of my favorites in the series thusfar) it begins to rain, a signal that the slowest boy in class, Katayama, will be coming to school. In fact, it is the only time he comes to school, and he even does this in the most tardy of fashions. Because of the speed he operates at, he is constantly taunted by one of his peers, Tsumura, who actually strips him down after gym class one day and drags him out in the hall. That's when they notice it, the spiracle impression looming upon his back, one that grows and grows as the days progress. Soon its apparent that there is a change transpiring in Katayama, one that causes him to slink across the ground and elevates the impression upon his back. In this, he isn't alone, either.

In Chapter Nine, The Black Lighthouse, an abandoned old lighthouse begins emitting a strangely spiraled ray from within, one that begins to effect people within the town in many a strange fashion. This alarms many of the town's residents, and they demand a party be sent to check it out. There requests are heard and people are sent, and their fate remains a secret until Kirie's younger brother decides that he and his friends should explore this decrepit monument.

In Chapter Ten, Mosquitoes, the mosquitoes begin to fly drowsy circles that put people to sleep, feeding on blood irregularly, large amounts of it in fact, to the mystery of the doctors within the town. While this is going on, herds of pregnant women are being attacked and admitted into the hospital, plus the killing are elevating at even the hospital itself. Victims with holes bored into them are found within their beds, leading to a question of "what the" thast is answered in a most gruesome manner.
In Chapter Eleven, the umbilical Cord, the pregnant women deliver the most adorable, most behaved, babies ever seen. This, of course, can't be good, nor can't it be dwelt on by me for fear of giving something away.

And, lastly, in Chapter Twelve, The Storm, A hurricane comes aground, stopping over the town and simply hovering. It seems to want something, too, because in the night it can be heard calling out a name, one very familiar to the readers.

All in all, I would say that this is wonderful installment, wetting the appetite for the final portion of the storyline. It does a lot to build on the first Uzumaki book, keeping the proverbial ball rolling without making it a boring spectacle. It isn't for the weak of heart of mind, however, and would only be recommended as bedtime reading to your children after you initially dose them with heaping helpings of horror movies and storylines to harden their soft pallets. O, and its in black and white, for those that think color is the only venue producing meritable works.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Further down the spiral, or, a day in Kurozu-cho, March 27, 2004

By 

Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Uzumaki, Volume 2 (v. 2) (Paperback)

First of all, if you haven't read Uzumaki Vol. 1, then run out and pick it up first before reading about Vol. 2.

In Vol. 2, Spiral Into Horror, we see the further infestation of the little seaside town of Kurozu-cho. Stranger and stranger things begin to happen, proving to Kirie Goshima that her boyfriend Shuichi Saito is right about the town; it is infected with spirals.

With the chapters being a little more separated in this second volume, we have some very distinct adventures to wade through. First is a boy named Mitsuru who likes to "pop up" unexpectedly, earning him the nickname of Jack-In-The-Box. He develops a crush on Kirie, and goes out of his way to prove his love for her...and directly into the way of an oncoming car. He must really care for her, for even death cannot stop him from popping up to surprise Kirie.

In "The Snail" (my favorite story) a terminally slow boy comes to school only when it rains, and proves that if you are too slow, the spiral will catch up to you.

"The Black Lighthouse" tells of the sudden re-occurrence of light issuing forth from the previously abandoned lighthouse, but this is no ordinary light. Brighter and burning hot, it blazes out from the lighthouse in a twisted spiral of intense illumination.

"The Mosquitoes" and "The Umbilical Cord" do pretty much flow together. When Kirie is hospitalized after her incident at the lighthouse, she discovers the hypnotic effects of the lazily swirling mosquitoes that are infesting the town, and the odd behavior of the pregnant women who emulate them, including her cousin Keiko. When the babies are born, odd mushrooms and a strange doctor come into play, along with some of Junji Ito's more graphic illustrations.

The last piece, "The Storm", tells of a hurricane that sweeps over Kurozu-cho...and then sticks around for awhile. This chapter was particularly creepy in illustrating the extent to which this storm stretches itself in its search for none other than Kirie herself. Very weird.

Also mentionable is a funny "Afterward" depicting Ito's search for the secret of the spiral.

A great, and definitely more graphic, sequel to Vol. 1, Spiral Into Horror is a fast and absorbing read for even those who do not normally delve into Japanese Animation or graphic novels. Enjoy!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovecraft's Japanese heir, February 10, 2003

By 

Devlin Tay (Adelaide, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Uzumaki, Volume 2 (v. 2) (Paperback)

I saw Uzumaki Vol. 1 and 2 in a comic shop here in Perth, Australia, and grabbed them right away. I had read Junji Ito's Tomie Vol. 1 and 2 just weeks before, and I knew I could expect to feel the same spine-tingling thrill from reading this new collection of disturbingly weird and eerie images from Ito's twisted imagination.

Uzumaki is a collection of tales about a small coastal town haunted not by a ghost or a demon but by a shape - one of the most common and natural of shapes, the spiral. The mere idea of a shape exerting its deadly influence on the innocent folks of a small town is positively Lovecraftian in scope, and Ito does not disappoint.

Vol. 1 opens with the tale of a man who collects anything spiral-shaped and then spends hours staring at them, becoming increasingly unhinged as the tale unfolds. Next, in the most disturbing story in Vol. 1, a woman with an acute phobia of anything spiral-shaped shaves her head and snips off her finger-tips in an effort to get rid of all traces of spirals on her body. The panic on her son's face when he realises that an anatomy chart in her doctor's office displays the spiral-shaped inner ear sucked me right into Ito's tale of fear, dread, paranoia and mounting hysteria. The other stories in Vol. 1 are interesting enough to read, i.e. competent but do not quite reach the heights of the first two stories.

Vol. 2 ups the ante by presenting even more disturbing tales. The first story, appropriately entitled "Jack in the Box", has some of the most gruesome images I've ever seen in any medium, involving the disintegrating corpse of a dead boy intent on seeking vengeance from a girl who rejected him while he was still alive. And even if you are tired of vampire stories, "Mosquitoes" and "The Umbilical Cord" will still manage to give you a couple of sleepless nights, make you look at pregnant women and babies differently, and possibly give you a life-long phobia of maternity wards. Ito manages to give the old vampire angle a very frightening twist by linking pregnant women to mosquitoes - biologists would know what I'm talking about.

For any horror fans, I cannot recommend Uzumaki Vol. 2 enough. I hope Vol. 3 comes out soon, I cannot wait to find out what happens to Kirie, the pretty young heroine of the series, and her boyfriend, when the mother of all spirals - a hurricane - strikes their small town.