#Netflix To Stream Uzumaki Anime in Asia

Netflix has announced that it will stream the recent anime adaptation of Junji Ito‘s Uzumaki in Asia. The show will debut on the platform sometime this year.

The four-episode Uzumaki anime was announced in 2019 but only premiered on Adult Swim and Max in September of this year, after suffering multiple delays. When it finally aired, the last three episodes became noted for their noticeably poor production quality. 

The credits also hinted at a messy behind-the-scenes situation. Series director Hiroshi Nagahama (Mushishi, The Flowers of Evil) lost that particular credit after the first episode (Yuji Moriyama was credited on Episode 2 and 3, while Episode 4 did not have the credit), and although it was originally reported that Drive would be the main animation production studio, the series was ultimately a Fugaku and Akatsuki co-production. The final episode had five names listed under the episode direction credits, and two of those belonged to studios.

In 2021, Nagahama said COVID-19 caused the team to “restructure” the production, and that the “way we are making this anime is requiring twice as much staff as we normally use.”

The Uzumaki manga was originally serialized from 1998 to 1999 in Shogakukan’s Big Comic Spirits and is collected into three tankoubon volumes. Viz Media describes the plot as: 

Kurouzu-cho, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but a pattern: UZUMAKI, the spiral—the hypnotic secret shape of the world. The bizarre masterpiece horror manga is now available all in a single volume. Fall into a whirlpool of terror!

Source: @NetflixAnime