The fall anime season had many highly anticipated anime, and Uzumaki: Spiral Into The Horror was one of the most highly anticipated anime of the year, especially for the legions of Junji Ito fans who couldn't wait to see the work of the master of horror adapted on the screen. With the series airing in the Halloween season and a dedicated fanbase excited to watch, it was bound to be popular, which it now is, but for all the wrong reasons.

Episode #2 had, to put it mildly, a disastrous reception. This is especially heartbreaking after the first episode was highly praised for its amazing aesthetics, fluid animation, and replicating the source material's iconic s. The anime seemed poised to be a great adaptation of Junji Ito's greatest work, but the second episode exposed the consequences of a messy and hasty change in production. Fans on social media have been heavily and rightfully criticizing the massive drop in quality, with many posts of frustrated fans going viral.

The Uzumaki Anime Shows a Drastic Drop in Quality After First Episode

Excitement Turned Into Disappointment In Just One Week

In a post by X @AwestruckVox, which got almost 6 million impressions and 46K likes, they expressed disappointment with the episode's quality and animation. The comments and quotes on the post echoed similar sentiments, expressing annoyance at the sudden change in quality. Additionally, numerous other posts gained viral attention due to the proliferation of memes related to the episode.

A common criticism of the episode was the incredible lack of detail in the animation, at least compared to episode 1. The dull shading, lack of detail in the facial and bodily features, and the awkward proportions as well were all pointed out by fans. The running sequences were very poorly animated, as were almost a lot of the scenes that involved character movement. The stark difference between the episodes suggests a breakdown in production, and that is exactly what happened as confirmed by a key staff member.

An Uzumaki Executive Producer Comes Out To Explain What Happened

A Change In Staff Is Behind the Drop in Quality

According to AnimeNewsNetwork, the episode featured new staff and a new studio, but the people who worked on the first were credited. The episode director, Nagahama, was replaced by Yuji Moriyama. It also revealed that most of the episode was outsourced to a Chinese studio, Phoenix Animation Holdings, which explains the difference in the episodes. Furthermore, Nagahama, while a storyboarder for both episodes, is only credited for animation in episode one, which more or less confirms that he left the project.

John Demarco, an executive producer on the show and a veteran in the industry who worked on FLCL: Grunge, Rick and Morty, and more, discussed on Bluesky the controversy behind episode #2 of Uzumaki. While he couldn't explain what happened or who was responsible, probably to avoid legal consequences, he said they were "screwed over" and this led to making the tough choice of airing all four episodes despite them being unfinished.

He then went on to clarify that fans' reactions were justified, and they had a right to be angry. Demarco then went on to praise the people who worked hard to make the episode, and this is what fans should . The ionate staff and cast are just as much the victims of bad management as the diehard fans who waited a long time for this, and if they had their way, they'd make it as good as possible, as demonstrated in episode #1.

Junji Ito's Manga Are Cursed With Mediocre Adaptations

Despite being one of the best manga of all time and a legend in the horror genre, Junji Ito has surprisingly never gotten a good and well-received adaptation of his work. Junji Ito Collection, released in 2018, lasted for 12 episodes and adapted many of Junji Ito's works, but unfortunately, the reception was not good. It was unable to convey the same fear and tension as the manga, but it was decent enough and is as good as any Junji Ito anime will ever get.

Junji Ito Maniac is another anime adaptation courtesy of Studio Deen and is available on Netflix. It adapted some of the mangaka's works, like The Hanging Balloons, Sōichi, and Tomie. The only main issue with this anime was the inconsistency, with the first episode being absolutely hated and others, like the one adapting The Hanging Balloons, being loved for how scary it was and how close it was to the source material.

Uzumaki Was Plagued With Production Issues From the Start

From Demarco's statements to the huge changes in the staff list, fans should expect that the next two episodes will be just as controversial as episode #2. There is very little hope for the rest of the episodes, and this week's episode was just a start. Unfortunately, with the incredibly long time that it took for the Uzumaki anime to come out, fans already knew that the production had major issues, and the low episode count only reinforced these fears.

Since Uzumaki was announced in 2019, the production studio has changed several times, including Drive, Adult Swim, and Production I.G. USA. Furthermore, while the first episode credits mentioned two animation directors ((Koichi Sato and Hiroshi Nagahama), the credits for the second mention no less than twenty-five directors. This could be a consequence of the outsourcing, and it's proof that Adult Swim has managed the production of the anime rather chaotically.

While episode #2 still had some really good visuals, the consistency simply wasn't there, making fans fear that Junji Ito's most popular and widely considered best work, Uzumaki, is receiving the worst anime adaptation yet. This is sad to see, given the amount of hype the series had and the number of delays fans had to endure.

Sources: AnimeNewsNetwork; @CNschedules (X); @AwestruckVox (X)