Books: Uzumaki Vol. #3

And now we come to the concluding volume of Uzumaki, which closes the series off with a boom and also gives us something remarkable for a horror story. It not only includes the usual generous amounts of terror and aghast incomprehension of the unknown (a staple item in horror from Poe to Lovecraft to Stephen King), but a certain amount of awe and fearsome wonder, too. That makes it at least one to two cuts above the usual horror story — including Junji Ito’s later work, Gyo, which started promisingly but petered out when it became clear Ito didn’t really have an ending in mind. (That didn’t make it any the less amazing to read, though.)

Uzumaki, though, comes to a very definite (if extremely grim) conclusion. In fact, the whole of the third volume almost works as a self-contained story, since much of what happens in it is set up directly in the first few pages. The “spiral curse” of the whole series is still pivotally important, but here it’s given an arena to play out in, one where the real significance of the curse doesn’t become clear — by design — until the last few pages.

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