Uzumaki Volume 1

Inventive and incredibly creepy, Junji Ito's horror manga classic Uzumaki is a series of short stories about a Japanese town's descent into madness. As each villager dies in a different bizarre and horrific way, their deaths all seem to have one thing in common: an obsession with spirals.

Ito's artwork is distinctive and compelling. His meticulous lines and shading sets a suspenseful mood that enhances the pace and tone of his storytelling. Uzumaki is a haunting story that leaves you guessing and wanting more.

What is the shape of insanity? According to Junji Ito, it's the spiral. In Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror, Ito spins a series of related short horror stories about a small town's descent into madness. Although each villager experiences a different kind of horrific fate, the one thing that ties the incidents together is spirals.

In Uzumaki Volume 1, we're introduced to our narrator, a teenage girl named Kirie. Through her eyes, we see the people around her succumb to the spiral obsession and witness the strange things that happen to them as a result.

What kind of strange things? A formerly straight-laced middle aged man becomes so fascinated by spirals, his obsession leads him to self-destruct in an unthinkable way. A young girl's hair curls into animated, Medusa-like spirals. A potter watches his vases and plates come out of the kiln with bizarre spiral patterns. This all sounds harmless enough, but when illustrated by Ito, these scenarios become tales of terror.

With this common theme uniting them, the short stories in Uzumaki can be read as stand-alone tales. However, they also work together to heighten the suspense and pique the readers' curiosity: How will the spiral madness manifest itself next?

Some stories are scarier than others, of course. The first two tales, "The Spiral Obsession, Part One and Two" are especially haunting and bizarre. "Medusa," on the other hand, is a simpler, oddly preachy fable about the perils of vanity.

Ito's distinctive, meticulously-rendered artwork and his inventiveness as a writer makes Uzumaki a compelling read. You never know what he has up his sleeve next. Some stories are more quirky than creepy, but overall, Uzumaki offers brilliant, original storytelling. Ito turns something ordinary and small into something that genuinely inspires fear.