Uzumaki (3pts): How to Get Your Story to Spiral Out of Control

     Uzumaki is honestly one of the greatest mangas I've read yet. It's so compelling to see a town become swallowed by a shape- that being the spiral. It's also interesting to see how Junji Ito incorporates this unusual shape into the lives of the people of Kurouzu-cho, and how it drives them insane. That being said, I think my favorite story of the bunch is The Spiral Obsession, Part 2.

    The human body is a fascinating thing. It feels weird to see diagrams of the stuff inside us and know that all these parts help us function. That being said, in Uzumaki, Shuichi's mother takes this uneasiness with the human body to the next level, in the form of her fear of spirals. The imagery that Ito includes in this chapter is horrifying. Watching the woman cut off her own fingertips physically made my OWN fingertips tingle, as if something was touching them. What got me even worse, though, was watching her jab the scissors into her ear, because of the spiral that lies within. The most pain I've ever felt in my life was when I was at the doctor's office and an assistant sprayed a jetstream of water into my ear to clear it, and it hurt so bad. I was in literal tears in the office that day, so you could imagine how I felt when seeing Shuichi's mother cause trauma to her own ear.

    It honestly felt like a relief to know that she passed away. I certainly wouldn't be able to live the way she did- in constant fear of the phenomenon known as the spiral. And while the story was terrifying and tragic, it was also fascinating, in a twisted way. It made me realize that despite Ito using the spiral in multiple ways throughout the manga, the shape appears in way more places than I had thought at first. From whirlpools to pottery wheels to springs, I'll definitely be on the lookout for spirals in the future.

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