Aug 11
¤●°•Uzumaki Tomie•°●¤
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Argentina
seen from China
seen from Argentina
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from Brazil
seen from China
seen from Malaysia
seen from Uruguay
seen from United States
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Russia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Algeria
seen from United States
¤●°•Uzumaki Tomie•°●¤
"Peak power of the Nine-Tails! Witness this amazing moment and click the link to enjoy the full story."
Edit
Okay, I've read enough Junji Ito to know where this is going...
⚠️UZUMAKI AND THE SHINING SPOILERS!!!!⚠️
horror writing (junji ito) ramble
so my dad got a copy of Uzumaki recently and i had the absolute displeasure of reading it for myself. i hated every second of it. i wish i could read it for the first time again. his art style is incredible, the tone was perfect and, most notably, i absolutely DREADED turning every page more and more the further in i read. it takes a very particular kind of writer with a very particular reputation to make me feel that way. so i got sucked in and ended up watching all of Tales Of the Macabre (HORRIBLE IDEA) and i hated every second of it. i wish i could watch it all again for the first time.
and i noticed a pattern with the way he writes his stories that contrasts from any other horror media i've seen. take a horror classic like The Shining as a point of comparison to, let's say, Uzumaki. very fundamentally different stories, yes, but hear me out.
To preface; The Shining is a very influential and excessively popular piece of horror fiction, and rightfully so. It rules. So this is not to say it's inferior as a story to Uzumaki.
ANyway, most of its plot is spent conveying to the reader that there is something very wrong with the Overlook hotel to some astounding degree, be that via insane hallucinations, or Danny's insight into the hotel via his psychic abilities, or Jack slowly being driven insane just being on the premises. All of which are very inherently alien concepts and have very little grounding in reality to the average fan. Additionally the reason for the happenings is revealed to be due to the history of the hotel itself and the way it shines.
Meanwhile Uzumaki is similar in that the setting itself (Kurouzu-cho) is cursed and has very heavy psychological influence upon residents and those who even visit there. But this force is different from that in the Shining in that it has a consistent (albeit deceptively common) physical embodiment. Spirals. They're in every panel, they're on every character's fingertips, they're coils in their hair, they're on the shells of snails, they're swallowing you whole, they're the very foundation of the town. And again, unlike The Shining, you're never explicitly told why the Spiral drives people insane and/or kills them. The story just kind of ends and the cycle is implied to continue. However, the reader has a very baseline understanding of how it could be a force of evil as they see the effects of it upon the characters. And then they, in their own lives, may start to see spirals everywhere themselves.
Every spiral will remind them of Uzumaki and that's why it sticks with them. The horror is drawn from a very common thing to see and is amplified even more so by Junji ito's horrifying art style and storytelling prowess.
This is a very common root for a lot of his most effective works, actually. To use something very common and warp it.
Hanging Balloons; balloons. Can you really say for certain whether or not that shape you saw in the sky was just a regular old balloon some kid accidentally let go of?
Long Dream; long dreams. You living out whole separate lives at night? Touch any weird crystals recently? Say your goodbyes.
Dissolving Classroom; Runny nose? Know a guy who apologises too much? It's all over buddy.
I'm pretty sure this extends to a lot of other horror stories by other authors too so if youre reading this please let me know if you think of any!!
Uzumaki London :D
I really wanted to go since I was here in London!
The food was pretty good and I got a little luffy hat on the gear 5 drink (I stole it hehe) (not really).
It was also pretty reasonably priced, at least for the food I got.
I would totally recommend it for the experience plus the little gift shop they had!
Here are some photos <3
(Also some other places I saw):
Naruto…
Sasuke…