Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, believes that his town is haunted by the uzumaki, a spiral, hypnotic secret shape of the world that manifests itself in various ways and causes madness among the inhabitants. - (Baker & Taylor)
Kurôzu-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 According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It manifests itself in small ways: seashells, ferns, whirlpools in water, whirlwinds in air. And in large ways: the spiral marks on people's bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuichi's father, the voice from the cochlea in your inner ear. As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of Kurôzu-cho are pulled ever deeper, as if into a whirlpool from which there is no return... - (Simon and Schuster)
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.
- (Simon and Schuster)
Booklist Reviews
Kirie lives in a small coastal town in Japan where the townspeople are slowly losing their minds. Her boyfriend Shuichi says that the town is being contaminated by spirals, which are the secret shape of the world. As darkness overtakes the town, Kirie and Shuichi struggle to survive against a force beyond their control. Rather than being terribly bloody, the scares are spooky, unsettling, and suspenseful, and Ito's pictures are disturbing but not overly graphic. The pacing is slow, but for readers who like horror filled with foreshadowing and thought-provoking images, this first volume of Ito's series is a good choice. Copyright 2006 Booklist Reviews.