It’s been argued that there has never been a media adaption of Junji Ito’s horror manga that has ever managed to perfectly translate the chilling feel of it. Adult Swim is aiming to be the first, so much so that they would spend five whole years on just four episodes of Uzumaki.
First announced in 2019 and repeatedly delayed, we’re now just three weeks from the premiere of Ito’s Uzumaki. The full trailer appeared during Rick and Morty: The Anime last Thursday evening, and it confirms what all previous previews and screenshots have suggested: the goal was to change as little from Ito’s original pages as possible. They are adapting the manga verbatim to the point that all the visuals are black and white sketches.
If you just literally do what Ito did, you can’t go wrong, right? That’s the hope anyway.
Both a subtitled and a dub version of Uzumaki will be broadcast, but in a switch from how Rick and Morty: The Anime is being handled, the sub will air first. Each episode will first appear in Japanese at 12:20 AM on Toonami, and then encore in English the following Thursday on AS proper (the exact time hasn’t been mentioned yet, but we’re assuming midnight). Both versions will be available on Max the day after they premiere.
The English language cast of Uzumaki includes Abby Trott as Kirie Goshima, Robbie Daymond as Shuichi Saito, Cristina Vee as Azami Kurotani, Doug Stone as Kirie’s Dad, Aaron LaPlante as Shuichi’s Dad, Mona Marshall as Shuichi’s Mom and Max Mittleman as Katayama. All four episodes were produced by Production IG.
The trailer does look pretty impressive. If Adult Swim has truly pulled this off, it would finally provide validation for their home-grown anime venture after years of mostly dud material. Let’s hope Uzumaki can properly creep the pants off us when it starts airing September 28.
