Deluxe Edition) - Includes vols. 1 - Uzumaki (3-in-1

TL;DR: Better than Goosebumps, but don't expect too much. It's like a Steven King novel that gets a little silly in some places; which still makes it almost on par with Steven King.

The stories have a monster-of-the-week teen-horror feel with small threads that run the length of the story. I enjoyed it for the most part and I can't point to one specific issue that lead to me not enjoying the whole thing. Maybe the evils of the world got a bit too ridiculous near the end; although those decisions led to an excellent tension building tool.

The story about a small city descending into a vortex of madness is nicely crafted, with haunting imagery. The story starts a bit slow with weird incidents here and there and then completely loses its s*** (in a good way) at the end as things gets worse. If you're looking for something unique but Lovecraftian, this is good. Suffice to say, the story does ask for some liberal suspension of disbelief (characters seem unfazed by traumatic experiences, no one gets treatment/help, etc.)

The book binding and quality are top notch.

Picked this up after reading some about the storyline in a book on Lovecraft-related cinema and we intrigued. Now I am delighted.

Not being a reader of Japanese comics before, I admit that it took me a bit to get used to reading this "backward," and I am not certain that a little something is lost in the translation of the text here and there, but these are very minor quibbles. Uzumaki is delightfully creepy, unsettling, occasionally over-the-top silly and a great joy to read and look at.

Since a few of the other reviewers here have given a cook's-tour of the basic plot, I'll not bore by going into it myself. I will say, though, that those interested in weird fiction, Lovecraftian cosmic horror, and the stiltedly bizarre will find much to like here. The artwork is as off-kilter as the plot and creates a wonderful sense of dread and "otherness", at its best looking somewhat like wood block prints from some alternate reality. The stylization adds to the overall creepiness factor, and the odd amateurish touches do as well. The strangely sunny disposition of the school-girl protagonist throughout only adds to the mix.

As a note to those, like myself, who come to this with only a vague knowledge of Japanese comic sensibility: there are no puzzling rape-by-tentacled-things or off-putting sex with schoolgirls riffs here. There is something deeper at work here - one might say, something ancient and unspeakable.

This is great good fun, unsettling in that entertaining way. Highly recommended to those with enough inkling to be reading these reviews.

For fans of the original runs (both the flipped earlier one and the later re-releases), beware: this volume is missing the famed "Enigma of Amigara Fault" short story and the other short stories that had been included previously!
The extra Uzumaki chapter omake is still included, though.

So really, if you're new to the story, you aren't missing anything, just the cool other works by Ito that had been offered before. Shame, but still a nice printing with that aside.

it was absolutely stunning. i prefer hardback over paperback, and it delivered very well with a soft paperback, and a glossiness over the title. i looked through the pages and everything is well printed and just amazing. i am very satisfied with this and reccomend it for anyone who is interested in reading the manga.

i got this book on a friend's recommendation without any previous exposure to junji ito's work. i usually don't go for horror type things so i didn't know if i'd like it or not but i found it really exciting and interesting! the artwork is really detailed but i did not get to enjoy it fully (on my first reading) because i was reading as fast as i could, since i couldn't wait to see what would happen next. i'm looking forward to re-reading it and spending a lot more time looking at the linework, etc...!
if you like manga at all and aren't bothered by blood, i'd say this is worth checking out!

Uzumaki is great, and this gorgeous hardcover collection is among my favorite books. It looks and feels as sexy as you would want a comic collection. All extra content from the previously released volumes are included. Sparse pages are beautifully painted in watercolor. I can't recommend it more than I would like to give it to you.

Book arrived in great condition/new.
As for the story itself...I liked it up until chapter 15, after that it just seems like they weren't sure what to add to stretch out the story. Overall, it's a pretty interesting story but honestly I don't think it's worth buying at the new price.

I don't read a lot of manga nowadays, but I wanted to give this a try because of its excellent reviews.

At the beginning the plot sounded very interesting. It's about some really weird things related to spirals happening in a small japanese town. But the characters are so incredibly awkward that I couldn't care less about them. For example, some school kids start to transform into giant snails, but NOBODY seems to look for cure or an answer. The book is plagued with this kind of things, s#%& happens and life goes on.

Although the art is superb (perhaps the best I've seen in any manga), the story is not nearly as great. But for the price ($18 for a 600+ pages book) and the great binding, I don't regret buying it.

Storyline is complete nonsense. Unrealistic dialogue, unimportant side-stories that have nothing to do with the overall plot, and an extremely nonsensical ending. Would NOT recommend purely based on the plot. That being said, the artwork is absolutely amazing. It almost makes up for the horrid storyline. Almost.

I have mixed feelings about this. Let’s start with the good.

The art is fantastic. I don’t care for most manga art, but I particularly enjoyed Ito’s work in this.
This book is packed with ideas (there are too many, really). Every story seems to bring something new to the table and I was entertained for the full 650 pages of this.
I like the fact that there’s kind of a main cast of characters. New characters are constantly being introduced, but the main characters are always there.
This is probably the creepiest of Ito’s world I’ve read, and I was particularly fond of all the body horror aspects of this.

Now for the bad.
While there were a ton of ideas that were interesting, I can help but feel that so many were wasted, as aside from the snails and spiral smoke, no other idea was really present throughout the entirety of the work. It was entertaining to see a bunch of different spiral-themed stuff play out, but I would have appreciated this work more if it were more consistent and revisited ideas from the beginning, (SPOILERS) like how one character’s dad turned himself into a spiral on purpose.
I felt this book struggled with tone towards the end when it introduced the idea that people can make tornadoes with their breath, which was super goofy and didn’t really go along with the semi-darkness of the rest of the book.
(END SPOILERS)
Overall I enjoyed this, but I think that Tomie is the better work by Ito.

Usually, and as opposed to horror movies, I am quite cynical of the power of comics to truly terrify the reader. Though there are good and bad works in every medium, I never really have found myself really creeped out when reading something of this genre. I have certainly found good stories with a creepy atmosphere, but nothing truly memorable. So when I purchased Junji Ito’s Uzumaki I didn’t really expect anything in particular, and certainly nothing memorable. Oh, how wrong I was. I had heard of the brilliance of this comic and Junji Ito, but I had never hoped to get to read something this good.

Whilst I didn’t find Uzumaki truly horrifying (though I rarely do, probably a side effect of having read too much of this genre), it was definitely a lot better than what I expected. It is creepy from start to finish, and not only that, is practically impossible to put down. It features a town that, rather than being haunted by a ghost as would typically be the case, is haunted by a pattern; mainly, that of spirals. It is bizarre, and though it has numerous characters it really follows Kirie Goshima and her boyfriend as they confront the many things caused by this haunting. From characters becoming obsessed with spirals to metamorphosis, ‘Uzumaki’ contains a lot of different stories featuring many different events. What is more impressive ist he way the theme of spirals makes its appearance in every chapter. Ito manages to pull through the idea of a pattern haunting a town amazingly well, and it manages to become incredibly creepy and understandable very fast. Spirals seem to be everywhere and affecting everything, and the characters are quite quick to catch on.

Though there is quite a wide cast of characters, most don’t seem to last more than a chapter (or one of the interrelated stories). Sadly, there isn’t much of a character development for the protagonists, and though they are well developed not much about them changes as the story progresses. They succeed in being interesting and empathisable – it is very hard to not root for them – and I found myself quickly invested in them as they had to confront the events happening in the town. There is a lot of death too, and it fits perfectly with the story and outright eerie feeling in all the comic.

The art itself, though not the best, is still good and portrays well the plot of the story. The art always seemed to excel in the most horrifying parts of the story, which also happened to be my favourite. Here, it was detailed and with the right level of gruesomeness, however the same thing can’t be said about the art in all of the comic. The black and white benefitted the story greatly, and did a great job at setting up the subdued mood of the story. It made the town and characters feel oppressed, prime to obsession and the supernatural. The art, in its own way, is certainly beautiful. It can’t be really compared to the art in other similar mangas, such as in Hideout, but still is a great addition to the story. The detail in the most gruesome parts is amazing and memorable, and adds a lot to the story itself. All in all, it isn’t really astonishing, but there is nothing bad about it either.

For this review I purchased the Deluxe edition of the comic (containing the tree published volumes in a single one), and it is absolutely beautiful. Whilst I normally don’t refer to the appearance of the thing in a review (and instead comment on the story and other elements), the hardback cover features spot gloss on the title and a blurb in the back cover. The colour endpapers and coloured manga pages are astounding. Everything about the volume seems gorgeous, and combined with the story elements of Uzumaki, I am really happy with having purchased this manga.

Uzumaki is, in conclusion, a brilliant piece, and absolutely memorable. It was both creepy and interesting, so much that even after I finished I found myself remembering the events in the manga for quite a long time. Though the art isn’t the best out there, this doesn’t harm the story in any way, which –perfectly executed – succeeding in being a brilliant example of the genre. Both an original and fascinating horror manga, Uzumaki deserves the highest rating. It is ‘awesometacular’ in all levels, and will not disappoint the reader. It probably one of the best horror stories I have been able to read.

Back in December when browsing Barnes & Noble I was browsing the manga section when the 3-in-1 edition of Uzumaki, the full series, caught my eye. I sat down and began reading it, getting a little over 1/10th into it before I had to go. This was, without a doubt, the most hooking manga I have read to date. I put in a request for it through my library shortly after so I could finish reading it.

The plot is so simple and yet so intriguing. A small town on the coast of Japan is curse by a spiral, or uzumaki, as the Japanese word is. It’s everywhere: whirlpools, seashells, tornados, a snail’s shell. Each chapter in Uzumaki is a different story about the spirals and how it’s affected someone. All of these stories are linked and tell a story as a whole. As everyone in Shuichi and Kirie’s town falls under the spiral’s curse, the two try their best to avoid it, but it’s everywhere.

The plot is extremely ominous and I love how each chapter dealt with a different spiral Kirie encountered. I never really realized just how common spirals are in everyday life until reading Uzumaki. Both the artwork and the stories about the spirals are morbid. The artwork is amazing, too.

It’s just all so creepy! I really couldn’t put this manga down. I wasn’t really sure how exactly the story was going to come to an end and if the curse of the spirals would ever be broken, as the story makes it kind of difficult to guess – and that’s a good thing! The ending came as a complete surprise and wasn’t what I expected since I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I loved Uzumaki so much that I plan on purchasing my own copy to own at some point. Uzumaki is also a movie too, inspired by the manga, which I will be checking out at some point.

I recall, many many years ago, catching a little bit of a Japanese film called Uzumaki. I wasn't terribly invested in it, and ended up turning it off for something else. That was my exposure to this tale for probably close to a decade. When I had read Junji Ito's name attached to Silent Hills, I knew it had rung a bell, and so I did some investigating. I realized he was the one who crafted the source material for that film I had passed over many years before. So, I started digging. I read into his biography and his works, my interest spiraling into a desire to feast on the work. So, I picked up Uzumaki.

Clocking in at a petty hefty 600+ pages, it didn't take long to become entranced in the twisted tale about a small town and the obsession of spirals. Following one who was not swayed by the mysterious and gripping idea of spirals, we view many citizens who are consumed by the spirals. I kept flipping, page by page, needing to get to the next panel. I felt like one of the many citizens, entranced by what was on page. I had finished the story. I felt compelled to start again. And again. I cannot recommend it enough.

In a sleepy coastal town in Japan, all is not what it seems. Through the eyes of teenagers Kiriu and Shuichi, they bear witness to myriad horrific events, seemingly unconnected, except for one detail--the horror starts with a spiral. The Spiral can be anywhere at any time. Nobody is safe from its influence. All who are touched by it lose their minds, morality, and even humanity, long before losing their lives ultimately. And as the story goes on, things only progress into more sinister realms.

This manga is beautifully crafted by Junji Ito. Aside from a great Lovecraftian flavored tale of horror, his artwork perfectly captures the dread on each page. Possibly the only horror comic that could make you pause in alarm because the artwork can be disturbing.
A must own title.

Rating: 5/5

You know how we all fear in our life from things? Developing phobias or disgust towards certain things? I believe we each has this unexplainable terror when it comes to admitting we are afraid of something. Being afraid sometimes forced you to admit you are weak but in all honesty, I disagree. Its liberates you really, a weight off your shoulder cause then you know, you are not alone in this. Junji Ito in my opinion, takes simple things, objects, themes and dreams and spiral it (get it spiral? LOL) into a blood chilling tale of suspense.

Uzumaki aka Spiral is an ordinary simple story based in Kurozu-Cho, a small town in the off coast of Japan. It's a run of the mile place, people knows each other, nothing exciting happens here, it's a peaceful place to be. Well, that is until strange phenomenons start occurring. A fixation on spirals infects this town, causing mass panic, people going insane, monsters appearing, the weather changing here and there, nothing is ever the same...

I love horror stories, especially when its something like a small unremarkable town such as Kurzuo-Cho starts to go really bizarre. Junji Ito wastes no time by showing us in a collection of short series, each event is connected, how this town slowly sharpened into a spiral. No one is safe from it, except Kirie and Shuichi are main leads and we experience their struggles, their fear and not knowing what the hell is causing all of this. You right away invested for these two to be safe, to make it out alive, and all of the grotesque circumstances just keeps you glue to the pages, flipping one after another. It sorta reminds me of other works such as Silent Hill, Stranger Things, Dark but it's clearly done better.

Now what really makes Uzumaki stands up there as one of the all time manga that people should read is Junji Ito himself as an artist. His drawings, his details to his creations, from the eyes, the face, the grotesque it's all pretty. You can't stop appreciating it, and you just want to see more, you gotta get more, like a cup of good coffee or this sweet delicious cake you can't stop munching on and on and then you realize what you have done and you regret it. I mean look at this page!

I had never seen something so- I don't think I had the words. It's breathtaking really. I can just stare at that spiral tongue, over and over and over...
...

Oh my, I guess I too has fallen for the Uzumaki.

You should all join.

Come and join.

You'd like it here :D

Junji Ito's Uzumaki is the author/artist's claim to fame, and it's easy to see why. Despite being a horror mangaka for over a decade before Uzumaki, Ito didn't blow up internationally until this title.

The thing about Uzumaki is that it's about the horrors of one subject (spirals), but the variety and effectiveness to which Ito pushes that knows no bounds. Formatted as an ongoing story, but with different scenarios being explored from chapter to chapter, the series never slows down or tires out the "spiral curse" concept. It's consistently fresh from the first chapter all the way to the nineteenth.

The style of horror tackled in Uzumaki is primarily body horror, meaning characters' bodies are malformed and grotesquely affected by the curse. Personally, I enjoy body horror more than any other form of horror because of the uniqueness of it. There's a certain disgusting magic to movies like David Cronenberg's The Fly and John Carpenter's The Thing that really pinpoint a strange phobia that society has centered around the body. Junji Ito understands this fear well, and that's largely why he's so masterful at trying out these outrageous and hideous designs and situations in Uzumaki.

One notable shortcoming of Ito's is that he has a hard time concluding his stories as effectively as they begin. If you read several of his one-shots, or even the excellent Gyo, you'll see what I mean. As horrific and fascinating as the worlds he creates often are, they often fizzle out once the premise has been exhausted. But Uzumaki is a notable exception to this rule. While the series starts as a sort of "monster of the week," with different creatures and themes being explored from chapter to chapter, the last third of the story brings everything together in a whirlwind of chaos and horror that I found to be very satisfying. Everything culminates into a dark and thought-provoking end, just like you hope it will. This, to me, makes Uzumaki one of the most re-readable mangas, not only by Ito, but in general. It's a perfectly executed horror experience that entrances you with its world.

In short, if you're looking for the best and most unique horror Japan has to offer, Uzumaki is exactly what I'd prescribe. In addition, this beautiful hardcover collected edition makes experiencing the unique and horrific adventure easier and more affordable than ever. Highly recommended, all around.

I thoroughly enjoyed this manga. I am an extreme horror junkie. The visuals in this are just amazingly grostesque and horrid when need be. I found it almost refreshing how the Uzumaki, or spirals overtook the towns people in different ways. Each chapter was separate yet connected. At first it may seem silly but it draws you in just like the towns people of Kurouzu-cho are drawn in by the spirals. You find yourself hoping for the best up until the disutopian end.

I was looking for horror manga at a full price retail store. The price was $$. I should have checked the store first. My mistake.

Either way, you get you're money's worth! This deluxe edition in hardback includes all chapters & volumes in one place. I've read it through twice. No signs of pages coming out or binding breaking, even though it's really hefty in size.

The black & white art works well with the writing style (& plot) in this format.

"Uzumaki" encourages a kind of deep-seated discomfort, which grows exponentially as the story progresses. Things end up quite strange, indeed. And, you'll never look at spirals the same way ever again!

Highly recommended to those who enjoy slow-burn horrors.

-AvidReader

Note: Not for young kids.

Originally published in 3 volumes this 2010 Japanese horror manga is a twisted ride to read. I love the horror genre but have not sampled much of it in manga yet. If the field can be judged by this book alone, there must be some awesome stuff out there. This is an incredibly disturbing story. There is a bit of a plotting problem with the second volume as the boyfriend just seems to disappear until the end and the chapters become episodic rather than focusing on the goal of the plot. However that all comes back together with the third volume and all answers are revealed to the extent that they can be when the evil is the "power of the spiral". Characters are not developed enough to care about them and their reactions are totally not those of a normal person but perhaps the spiral has been working on them longer than we even realise. LOL These are the things that make me rate the book 4 stars, however, on pure adrenaline and horror shock value I had an incredible read. With each incident becoming more and more freakish and fantastic. This is not a blood and guts horror. There is a bit of blood but it's not from slashing, rather from the disturbing situations that occur. T+ seems a fair enough rating, some 13+ may be ok with it but the imagery is startling and unsettling. The artwork is absolutely brilliant. Overall, the art, imagery and ghoulishness of the story make up for any plotting problems and I fond this a deliciously disturbing Japanese horror story.

Back in December when browsing Barnes & Noble I was browsing the manga section when the 3-in-1 edition of Uzumaki, the full series, caught my eye. I sat down and began reading it, getting a little over 1/10th into it before I had to go. This was, without a doubt, the most hooking manga I have read to date. I put in a request for it through my library shortly after so I could finish reading it.

The plot is so simple and yet so intriguing. A small town on the coast of Japan is curse by a spiral, or uzumaki, as the Japanese word is. It’s everywhere: whirlpools, seashells, tornados, a snail’s shell. Each chapter in Uzumaki is a different story about the spirals and how it’s affected someone. All of these stories are linked and tell a story as a whole. As everyone in Shuichi and Kirie’s town falls under the spiral’s curse, the two try their best to avoid it, but it’s everywhere.

The plot is extremely ominous and I love how each chapter dealt with a different spiral Kirie encountered. I never really realized just how common spirals are in everyday life until reading Uzumaki. Both the artwork and the stories about the spirals are morbid. The artwork is amazing, too.

It’s just all so creepy! I really couldn’t put this manga down. I wasn’t really sure how exactly the story was going to come to an end and if the curse of the spirals would ever be broken, as the story makes it kind of difficult to guess – and that’s a good thing! The ending came as a complete surprise and wasn’t what I expected since I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I loved Uzumaki so much that I plan on purchasing my own copy to own at some point. Uzumaki is also a movie too, inspired by the manga, which I will be checking out at some point.

I recall, many many years ago, catching a little bit of a Japanese film called Uzumaki. I wasn't terribly invested in it, and ended up turning it off for something else. That was my exposure to this tale for probably close to a decade. When I had read Junji Ito's name attached to Silent Hills, I knew it had rung a bell, and so I did some investigating. I realized he was the one who crafted the source material for that film I had passed over many years before. So, I started digging. I read into his biography and his works, my interest spiraling into a desire to feast on the work. So, I picked up Uzumaki.

Clocking in at a petty hefty 600+ pages, it didn't take long to become entranced in the twisted tale about a small town and the obsession of spirals. Following one who was not swayed by the mysterious and gripping idea of spirals, we view many citizens who are consumed by the spirals. I kept flipping, page by page, needing to get to the next panel. I felt like one of the many citizens, entranced by what was on page. I had finished the story. I felt compelled to start again. And again. I cannot recommend it enough.

In a sleepy coastal town in Japan, all is not what it seems. Through the eyes of teenagers Kiriu and Shuichi, they bear witness to myriad horrific events, seemingly unconnected, except for one detail--the horror starts with a spiral. The Spiral can be anywhere at any time. Nobody is safe from its influence. All who are touched by it lose their minds, morality, and even humanity, long before losing their lives ultimately. And as the story goes on, things only progress into more sinister realms.

This manga is beautifully crafted by Junji Ito. Aside from a great Lovecraftian flavored tale of horror, his artwork perfectly captures the dread on each page. Possibly the only horror comic that could make you pause in alarm because the artwork can be disturbing.
A must own title.

Rating: 5/5

You know how we all fear in our life from things? Developing phobias or disgust towards certain things? I believe we each has this unexplainable terror when it comes to admitting we are afraid of something. Being afraid sometimes forced you to admit you are weak but in all honesty, I disagree. Its liberates you really, a weight off your shoulder cause then you know, you are not alone in this. Junji Ito in my opinion, takes simple things, objects, themes and dreams and spiral it (get it spiral? LOL) into a blood chilling tale of suspense.

Uzumaki aka Spiral is an ordinary simple story based in Kurozu-Cho, a small town in the off coast of Japan. It's a run of the mile place, people knows each other, nothing exciting happens here, it's a peaceful place to be. Well, that is until strange phenomenons start occurring. A fixation on spirals infects this town, causing mass panic, people going insane, monsters appearing, the weather changing here and there, nothing is ever the same...

I love horror stories, especially when its something like a small unremarkable town such as Kurzuo-Cho starts to go really bizarre. Junji Ito wastes no time by showing us in a collection of short series, each event is connected, how this town slowly sharpened into a spiral. No one is safe from it, except Kirie and Shuichi are main leads and we experience their struggles, their fear and not knowing what the hell is causing all of this. You right away invested for these two to be safe, to make it out alive, and all of the grotesque circumstances just keeps you glue to the pages, flipping one after another. It sorta reminds me of other works such as Silent Hill, Stranger Things, Dark but it's clearly done better.

Now what really makes Uzumaki stands up there as one of the all time manga that people should read is Junji Ito himself as an artist. His drawings, his details to his creations, from the eyes, the face, the grotesque it's all pretty. You can't stop appreciating it, and you just want to see more, you gotta get more, like a cup of good coffee or this sweet delicious cake you can't stop munching on and on and then you realize what you have done and you regret it. I mean look at this page!

I had never seen something so- I don't think I had the words. It's breathtaking really. I can just stare at that spiral tongue, over and over and over...
...

Oh my, I guess I too has fallen for the Uzumaki.

You should all join.

Come and join.

You'd like it here :D

Junji Ito's Uzumaki is the author/artist's claim to fame, and it's easy to see why. Despite being a horror mangaka for over a decade before Uzumaki, Ito didn't blow up internationally until this title.

The thing about Uzumaki is that it's about the horrors of one subject (spirals), but the variety and effectiveness to which Ito pushes that knows no bounds. Formatted as an ongoing story, but with different scenarios being explored from chapter to chapter, the series never slows down or tires out the "spiral curse" concept. It's consistently fresh from the first chapter all the way to the nineteenth.

The style of horror tackled in Uzumaki is primarily body horror, meaning characters' bodies are malformed and grotesquely affected by the curse. Personally, I enjoy body horror more than any other form of horror because of the uniqueness of it. There's a certain disgusting magic to movies like David Cronenberg's The Fly and John Carpenter's The Thing that really pinpoint a strange phobia that society has centered around the body. Junji Ito understands this fear well, and that's largely why he's so masterful at trying out these outrageous and hideous designs and situations in Uzumaki.

One notable shortcoming of Ito's is that he has a hard time concluding his stories as effectively as they begin. If you read several of his one-shots, or even the excellent Gyo, you'll see what I mean. As horrific and fascinating as the worlds he creates often are, they often fizzle out once the premise has been exhausted. But Uzumaki is a notable exception to this rule. While the series starts as a sort of "monster of the week," with different creatures and themes being explored from chapter to chapter, the last third of the story brings everything together in a whirlwind of chaos and horror that I found to be very satisfying. Everything culminates into a dark and thought-provoking end, just like you hope it will. This, to me, makes Uzumaki one of the most re-readable mangas, not only by Ito, but in general. It's a perfectly executed horror experience that entrances you with its world.

In short, if you're looking for the best and most unique horror Japan has to offer, Uzumaki is exactly what I'd prescribe. In addition, this beautiful hardcover collected edition makes experiencing the unique and horrific adventure easier and more affordable than ever. Highly recommended, all around.

I thoroughly enjoyed this manga. I am an extreme horror junkie. The visuals in this are just amazingly grostesque and horrid when need be. I found it almost refreshing how the Uzumaki, or spirals overtook the towns people in different ways. Each chapter was separate yet connected. At first it may seem silly but it draws you in just like the towns people of Kurouzu-cho are drawn in by the spirals. You find yourself hoping for the best up until the disutopian end.

I was looking for horror manga at a full price retail store. The price was $$. I should have checked the store first. My mistake.

Either way, you get you're money's worth! This deluxe edition in hardback includes all chapters & volumes in one place. I've read it through twice. No signs of pages coming out or binding breaking, even though it's really hefty in size.

The black & white art works well with the writing style (& plot) in this format.

"Uzumaki" encourages a kind of deep-seated discomfort, which grows exponentially as the story progresses. Things end up quite strange, indeed. And, you'll never look at spirals the same way ever again!

Highly recommended to those who enjoy slow-burn horrors.

-AvidReader

Note: Not for young kids.

Originally published in 3 volumes this 2010 Japanese horror manga is a twisted ride to read. I love the horror genre but have not sampled much of it in manga yet. If the field can be judged by this book alone, there must be some awesome stuff out there. This is an incredibly disturbing story. There is a bit of a plotting problem with the second volume as the boyfriend just seems to disappear until the end and the chapters become episodic rather than focusing on the goal of the plot. However that all comes back together with the third volume and all answers are revealed to the extent that they can be when the evil is the "power of the spiral". Characters are not developed enough to care about them and their reactions are totally not those of a normal person but perhaps the spiral has been working on them longer than we even realise. LOL These are the things that make me rate the book 4 stars, however, on pure adrenaline and horror shock value I had an incredible read. With each incident becoming more and more freakish and fantastic. This is not a blood and guts horror. There is a bit of blood but it's not from slashing, rather from the disturbing situations that occur. T+ seems a fair enough rating, some 13+ may be ok with it but the imagery is startling and unsettling. The artwork is absolutely brilliant. Overall, the art, imagery and ghoulishness of the story make up for any plotting problems and I fond this a deliciously disturbing Japanese horror story.

I...somehow expected a positive ending. I have learned my lesson.

I wasn't precisely scared reading this, but the word "horror" certainly applies. It was mostly a visual horror for me (no sudden fear of spirals), but it's a well-delivered visual horror. The artist works you up with little hints of the spirals throughout each story before delivering the final punch.

I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get more of an explanation of the origins of the spiral. Many readers will be fine with the notion that it's just some ancient horror that appears and reappears every so often, but I wanted something more. Ancient god, a sacrifice site, space anomaly, something.

Still, I can certainly see myself reading more by Junji Ito.

Ito knows how to freak people out. This is arguably his greatest advantage - the ability to write and draw terrible things that are far worse in your own imagination than in the book itself. You may not be too scared to sleep, but you will be too disturbed for pleasant dreams.

With Uzumaki, Ito takes the fears, obsessions, and body horror he invoked in Tomie to a different level. The artwork is cleaner than past efforts, which makes sense, but also allows Ito to pull off some seriously twisted visuals, which give the story the high octane boost it needs to really mess with the reader.

I read these books in paperback form several years ago, and kept returning over and over to them. After a long hiatus, I came back to them and found this hardcover version, compiling the whole run in a single fat volume. The physical presence of this book is somewhat daunting, but once you get started you will find yourself sucked in, staying up way past your bedtime to cram as much freakiness into your brain as you can. It's not so much one story as several, intertwined tales all revolving around the same town and central characters. You get a spiral-obsessed potter, an entire hospital ward of murderously psychotic pregnant women, a Romeo and Juliet tale with a deviantly surreal twist, and much more.

Uzumaki might be too weird and horrific for most people. But for those of us who get it, it is a fun, wild right with a sucker punch of an ending to really drive home the sense of foreboding and hopeless entrapment that the story weaves page by page. Definitely recommended, and for the price and format it's too good of a deal to pass up.

At $17 as of my writing this, you will NEVER get a deal like this again! I am an enormous fan of Mr. Junji's work. I first learned of his work through a YouTube reading of "The Enigma of Amigara Fault" and Instantly fell in love! When I learned that not only were there hard covers of his work on the store, but that they were full collections AND under $20 I was sold! This book is an enormous hardcover manga read from right to left in English, and has full color illustrations on the inside covers. This book is a STEAL as the listed price is $27.99 on the back cover. Get it, you won't be disappointed!

This was my first manga and the one that got me interested in the genre. This manga was recommended to me by a friend who thought I'd like Junji Ito's illustrations (because I'm a graphic design student and at the time I was interested in popular japanese illustration). I decided to purchase it through the store and after a few days it arrived. I was excited about reading something out of the ordinary and when I finally held the book in my hands and flipped through the pages I was blown away. The art of this manga is beautiful, every character, outfit and background is amazingly detailed and it features a few colored pages at the beginning of each volume (this is the 3-in-1 deluxe edition).

Now, on with the story:

Uzumaki is about a small town in Japan where, out of the blue, people start developing an obsession with spirals that makes them lose their minds. It spreads so fast that soon the whole town is cursed. The main character is a girl named Kirie who lives with her brother and parents, and has a boyfriend named Shuichi, who sometimes doesn't act like a boyfriend, he's gloomy all the time and Kirie is always trying to cheer him up.

The first half of the story revolves around single events involving spirals, so each chapter reads like a short story but then it all piles up to build a strong climax and you'll find yourself in a small town with no escape, surrounded by chaos. By that point there's no turning back, you won't be able to put down the book because you're already in a journey through survival with Kirie and her friends. Along the way you'll find a lot of wacky characters like snail people, pregnant zombies, tangled lovers, stalkers, and a lot of spirals so be prepared for a crazy ride!

The genre of this manga is "horror", but it isn't really scary, although it is pretty twisted and sometimes a little gory.

When I finished reading this manga I felt a little sad, because I had come to love every character.

It's been almost a year since I first read this amazing story and I still think about it. Since then I have read almost all of Junji Ito's works and I'm never disappointed, he's become one of my favorite mangakas, but from time to time I still go back and re-read Uzumaki because it'll always have a special place in my heart. I know it sounds sentimental but I fell in love with this manga; the characters, the plot, the gorgeous art, everything about it was perfect.

Thanks Junji Ito for creating such a masterpiece.

Mangaka Junji Ito is known for his horror manga series.

Best known for stories such as “Tomie” about an immortal girl who turns her admirers mad or “Gyo” about killer fish and spiders who develop legs and now want to turn humanity into monsters that they control, suffice to say, his stories are quite interesting because he leaves the reader feeling unsettled, because there is no closure, no happy endings and he’s not afraid of killing off major characters.

And it’s one of the reasons why his works are revered. A rebellious mangaka who does things his way, his style and not following the usual traditional manga ways of telling a story.

While “Uzumaki”, a three volume manga series written back in 1998-1999 for “Big Comic Spirits” was released by Viz Media in 2001 and again in 2007 and now re-released as a deluxe omnibus edition in Oct. 2013.

The manga series also led to a live film adaptation in 2000 but a different ending as the film was completed before the final manga volume was completed.

“Uzumaki” (which translates to “spiral”) is a story that takes place in Kurozu-cho, a small town on the coast of Japan. The story focuses on Kirie Goshima, a teenager attending Kurouzu High School and lives with her mom and dad and a young brother named Mitsuo. Her father is a potter and she is dating Shuichi Saito, who just started attending another high school in the next town.

One day, she notices a whirlwind in town and while walking home from school, she sees Shuichi’s father looking at a snail in the wall and so focused on it.

She sees Shuichi at the station and tells him that she saw his father. He tells her that he has been acting strange and has started collecting spirals and is obsessed by them.

Kirie notices that he has been depressed and he tells her that he wants to leave town with her and they both should leave because they will go crazy. And that everytime he comes back home at the station, he feels dizzy. Everything around Kurozu-cho looms over the area but most of all, the town is contaminated by spirals.

Meanwhile, Shuichi’s father goes to Kirie’s father to create a spiral ceramic. As Kirie and Shuichi arrive to his house, he hears their parents arguing and Shuichi’s mother has thrown away her father’s spiral collection. But then, Shuichi’s father begins to talk about how one can express a spiral through their own body and Kirie witnesses Shuichi’s father’s strange behavior as he tries to make his eyeball spiral and then his tongue, scaring her.

A few days later, Shuichi’s father is dead. The word was that he fell down from the stairs and died but in truth, he died making himself a spiral inside a tub. At the funeral, the smoke of Shuichi’s father’s cremation begins to shoot upward and the smoke has turned into a huge spiral. Shuichi’s mother thinks that she saw her husband in the smoke and starts screaming. She is taken to a hospital and everything spiral begins to haunt her. So bad to the point that shave her head, clipped the skin off her fingers to avoid any spiral fingerprints and trying to rid all spirals from her body. But a caterpillar (Shuichi’s father) has crawled inside his mother’s ear and tells him that there is a spiral inside her head and wanting to rid of all spirals, gets a scissor and rams it up her ear.

And slowly, weird situations begin affecting the town. People with spirals on their backs, turning into snails. People who live in a certain area, twisting and becoming spirals, people growing spirals in their forehead until they are consumed by it.

Something terrible is going wrong and it’s too late for Kirie and Shuichi to escape. They must endure the wave of unusual, strange and horrific experience that will hit the town of Kurozu-cho.

Will they survive or will they be consumed by the spiral?

JUDGMENT CALL:

In 2013, horror fans and fans of Junji Ito’s horror works, have been treated with a Blu-ray/DVD release of the anime OVA “Gyo” and now with the re-release of “Uzumaki” via a hardcover, deluxe omnibus format.

And while most people who are familiar with the name “Uzumaki” as the family name of Naruto and the spiral symbol on the back of the Leaf ninja’s vests, “Uzumaki” was released before “Naruto” and for Junji Ito, he has been creating creepy works since 1987 with “Tomie” and the majority of his work have been adapted for film and television.

And one thing that Junji Ito is known for is not giving a story any closure and endings that are often best interpreted by the viewer/reader.

As for “Uzumaki”, the storyline revolves around a small foggy town in the coast of Japan that has been consumed by spirals and through the eyes of Kirie Goshima, the readers witness how this young woman, along with her boyfriend Shuichi, have discovered unusual occurrences in their city as people have been twisted or consumed by spirals.

Every chapter is about how certain people have met their demise by a spiral and how people have died horrific deaths. And part of what keeps you glued to “Uzumaki” is seeing how people die but wondering if Kirie or Shuichi will survive the entire ordeal?

There are many crazy chapters and Junji Ito has come up with horrific ways for people to die. One crazy example is a group of women who suddenly became pregnant and are admitted to the hospital. At nights, the pregnant women become bloodsucking monsters and prey upon the sick in the hospital, for their blood in order to feed their baby. Kirie has seen it, as one of her cousins is among the women pregnant. But after giving birth to the babies, the doctor goes crazy and now wants to put the baby back into their mothers stomachs because the babies are telling him to do it.

Another crazy example features Kirie’s friend or rival who wants Shuichi. Seeing as Kirie is competition, the rival then begins to exhibit a spiral on her forehead, while Kirie’s long hair turns into a spiral and both begin attacking each other.

Each chapter is creepy but yet in an entertaining way, you feel that your obliged to read the book until completion. It’s that good!

But the artwork by Junji Ito is well-drawn but it’s when he gets creepy with the darkness under the eyes of an individual or those who have been possess by a spiral, he manages to capture the agony of these victims with horrifying efficacy.

Once again, I caution those who have never followed a Junji Ito work to know that he’s not a mangaka that creates happy ending stories, nor does he create manga caring for his main characters. Everyone is expendable.

And last, don’t expect any ending or conclusion…Ito doesn’t give closure to a story all that much. He just continues to show how horrifying things can happen to a person and he doesn’t stray away from those types of stories.

Overall, if you love horror or creepy manga, Junji Ito’s “Uzumaki Deluxe Edition – Hardcover Omnibus” is highly recommended!

I didnt purchase this book from the store, but I picked up the same edition from a local store. Ive never been much of a reader but since I opened this afternoon I read half the book in one sitting! This book is awesome and it really draws in your attention and fixates you much like the spiral pattern does in the story. If you havent read this book yet, buy it, and if you have, still buy it because the hard cover edition really well done.

I bought this book because of a certain videogame and the community talking about how it gets inspiration from this book along with others. I read/looked through it and it is quite horrifying. The imagery and buildup to the climax of the chapters are really well done. I am glad I got to read through it and want more.

For a 600+ page, 20 chapter manga $15 is a steal. However, Uzumaki was a real letdown as far as a story. Each chapter seems like an individual story and the plot within each is never really resolved. I kept up hope with each chapter that the ending would tie together all these truly frightening plots, however the ending seemed much like a cop out and left me yearning for a more satisfying answer. The characters received such little development that as the story (although I shutter to call it that) progressed I found them more irritating and one dimensional, rather than feeling sorry and empathizing with their plight. The true horror of this manga is how these terrifying things are happening and yet for the majority of the manga the characters do nothing about it. Also, a main character's realization and awareness throughout the story is never explained despite him being the only with it. A plus is that the art is great, although the horror elements are presented more as jump scares than anything else. (Although that speaks again more to the failure of the story telling.) Uzamaki's concept of spirals plaguing a town is both interesting and hilarious. The utter absurdity of it is entertaining in it's individual chapters, but fails as a satisfying story overall.

This was my first Junji Ito book and I gotta say "I love this book." The plot is very macabre and the art style can be anything from beautiful to horrifying to madness incarnate. The book itself is very gorgeous and well constructed as well, and a hard cover is always appreciated. I recommend this to any comic book, manga, or horror fan

THIS IS THE MOST COOLEST MANGA I KNOW OF. I LOVED THE CREEPY MORBID STORY LINE AND GRAPHICS. I BELIEVE THE SECOND BOOK IS THE CREEPYEST BUT THEIR FUNNY TOO ! FOR INSTANCE IN THE FIRST BOOK THERE IS A CREEPY STALKER WHO KEEPS POPPING OUT ON THE GIRL SURPRISING HER, WELL TRYING TOO AND THE LOOKS ON HIS FACE IS PRICE LESS FUNNY. ALSO THE FIRST BOOK WAS TURNED INTO A MOVIE, SO IF YOU DONT KNOW ABOUT THAT PLEASE CHECK THAT OUT! ITS STRAIGHT UP CALLED UZUMAKI , NOT SURE THE WRITER OR DIRECTOR, BUT YOU SHOULD HAVE NO PROBLEMS FINDING THAT. ENJOY.

One of the weirdest manga and horror stories I have ever read- dreamlike in its progression and unlike anything I have ever seen in 50+ years reading comics.
Yet totally accessible and a good read.

I highly recommend it

Manga itself is pretty good. It was a pleasant surprise that I got it more than a week earlier. Though the package wasn't that good and the cover was a bit damaged (not clearly seen, so it's no big deal just a note to everyone). Overall I'm happy about the manga, good seller.

Quite possibly the dumbest manga I've ever read. The artist/author likes to doodle spirals, and this is supposedly the path to ultimate horror. Well, it's difficult to see the horror as the events are so goofy that you wonder at the entire premise. People start seeing spiral patterns in everyday things, and this drives them to madness which then opens the door for something supernatural to emerge and start pulling people into spirals (or snails or stitched-together corpses, the horror is unclear).

What was supremely unbelievable to me was that while all this is going on, people continue going to school, working, shopping, and going about their business in this town like it's all perfectly normal. No one ever goes to the police or the city council and says "OMG, this guy just twisted himself into a spiral, get a biological hazmat team to town ASAP!". Instead, everyone just stands around gaping, remarking on how "It got Kenny!" every few pages. For the ENTIRE book.

Clearly a weekly manga strip where the author is just making it up as he goes along, the "story" progresses from the danger of seeing spirals to having undead corpses coming to life, to people turning into snails, to people joyfully riding tornadoes around town (without suffering motion sickness). The artwork is quite pleasing and really draws you in as a reader, which I give a two star rating for. But the plot makes the whole endeavor really pointless, other than just allowing the author to draw people drawn, streched, or pushed into weird shapes.

Incredible that this "3-in-1 Deluxe Edition" had absolutely no plot in any of the three parts to speak of. The most common scene in this manga is of someone standing around with their mouth hanging open, yelling about something. These slack-jawed morons are just asking for supernatural powers to enter their bodies and corrupt their minds. Obviously the evil enters through the mouth, as everyone just stands around open-mouthed while noting the horror but doing zero to either battle it or flee the area. So instead of feeling sympathy at their horror, you should be rooting for the evil force as these people deserve to suffer as they die. They are literally too stupid to live. So the spirals are performing a public service by eliminating the terminally stupid that populate that town.

I commend the author for managing to make a living turning doodles of spirals into a "bizarre masterpiece of horror manga", as the back cover exudes. Okay. If you say so. Could not find a scrap of a plot on a single page of this doodling exercise. The entire book was summed up by a scene where a teenage boy and girl are twisted into snakes, forced to entwine each other, and then they get blasted off into another dimension, like the villains of Team Rocket from Pokemon. Unlike the reader, they got to escape!

More or less a bunch of one off strange happenings in a town haunted by spirals as told in the view of one of the protagonists. It's suppose to be horror, but it's too absurd to be the least bit scary. Basically, many of the stories involve someone (or more than one person) becoming obsessed with spirals and then something strange happening to them, the rest just have horror events that somehow relate to spirals (sometimes even tangentially so: jack in the box for example). There's additionally little to no character development despite there being a few protagonists so you really can't bring yourself to care about them or what is happening to them. Toward the end (vol 3), the chapters become more linked leading to a climactic end (it's not really climatic, it's essentially that the author didn't know how to end it so you get the typical everyone dies and events become overly absurd type of cliche (even more so than the initial absurd stories)). I believe the reason this is so highly rated is that the author took a mundane topic -- spirals -- and made it into horror so in that sense it is unique from most other things in the genre. The problem is, it's not really executed well. I suppose that how it was executed makes sense when viewed from the angle that it was initially one-off serialized stories collected into volumes at a later date.