Books: Uzumaki Vol. #1 (2nd Edition)

Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is the only horror manga I’ve read so far that had me doing double-takes at my surroundings for days after I was done with it. That reflects nicely on its ability to mess with people’s heads — which is, after all, what a good horror story does. Did it scare you? Good! If not, then it’s hardly much of a horror story.

What makes Uzumaki singularly unnerving is that it’s not about some easy bête noir like a killer with a machete, but about a pattern that compels obsession and madness among all those who fall under its spell. That makes it all the more impersonal, and in turn, all the more frightening: you can probably kill a monster, and you can certainly kill a man, but how do you stop something that has no inherent form, that can manifest in the most innocuous of places, and that causes its victims to be the agents of their own destruction?

Article originally written for AMN. Click here to read full text.