▪	RELEASED BY:		VIZ MEDIA
		▪	AUTHOR / ART:		JUNJI ITO
		▪	FORMAT:		JAPANESE / B&W
		▪	PAGES:		202
		▪	RATING:		M
		▪	RELEASE DATE:		10/16/2007
		▪	REVIEW DATE:		10/15/2007
		▪	REVIEWED BY:		SCOTT CAMPBELL

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 According to Shuichi Saito, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Kirie Goshima, their town is haunted not by a person or being - but by a pattern: Uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the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, and 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.

Uzumaki is an excellent horror story because it goes with the always entertaining route of telling us an actual story, instead of just hoping that a bucket of blood and guts will scare us. This manga focuses in on the psychological aspects of what frightens people, and how what we allow ourselves to think can cause us to act in an unbelievable manner – sometimes to the point of murder or suicide. The story here all comes back to “spirals” – the odd shape that twirls round and around. The pacing of the story allows this book to slowly bring to the light that these otherwise harmless shapes are causing some of the town’s residents to go quite insane. Their slow decent into odd behaviour, obsession, and eventual deaths, etc. are chilling to watch happen as you read the book, and really forces you to read on quicker and quicker to know just what the answers are for the questions that keep coming to the surface. This book is scary, and this book promotes a comfortable amount of thinking – a perfect recipe for some entertaining horror, no doubt.

The art itself is dark and arresting. Very normal characters quickly turn into real frights as they lose their minds, and they way they are drawn, exaggerated, and show emotion begs you to pay close attention to the visuals cues and foreshadowing. It’s really kind of neat to see a character change visually as the story progresses, becoming less and less someone that you would be pleased to meet in a dark alley. The details, and especially facial expressions of stress and insanity, are very convincing. Characters and emotions like the ones artfully supplied here make a story like this almost believable in a way, and it’s entertaining to be convinced by a frightening story, if only while you read it. Who knows, maybe a fear of spirals could come out of reading this? As for flow and readability, this book is great. Test is of a good size, and the visual flow of the book is easy to understand and follow. One frame to the next is a simple maneuver, as the artist has gone for a less complicated format – no need for crazy extravagancies to make this involving work stand out.

IN SUMMARY: 
Uzumaki is a perfect example of smart horror writing, and the ability of a book like this to delve into the psychological unraveling of numerous doomed characters. A total page turner with well-planned pacing, you’ll have a hard time waiting to read the next installment.