Spiraling

Uzumaki Vol. 1 & 2 (6 Points) 

Well, I'll start by saying that I don't think I'll ever look at snails the same way again. But what an incredibly horrifying read! To preface, I really enjoyed the two volumes overall and was very happy to be so utterly disturbed by graphic novel works. I had previously been recommended the volumes by many friends and colleagues before, but our deep dive into different horror novels gave me enough courage to dive into Ito's evocative works. I have no regrets after reading the series (besides regretting trying to eat during a few chapters) and found it to be a much more suspenseful and haunting read than A Wild Sheep's Chase.

There's a ton of things I'd like to touch on, but I'll try to maintain some brevity so whoever is reading this doesn't end up staying all day for it. To start, I want to consider the characters and the town. I felt a huge and obvious difference right off the bat in the sense of cultural traditions when it came to the town and its characters. If you were to transplant any of the events in this eastern setting in a western one, I feel like the horror would have somehow ended almost immediately as western cultures would have tried desperately to find a way to end the curse via one main hero protagonist. (Which is very overdone in some cases.) Instead, you have a slow and encroaching wave a horror that slowly consumes the town, and a community that either cannot or chooses not to fight against it as it is very hard to find the original source, and I enjoyed this element immensely. It highlighted both the differences in western and eastern communities but also showed how far the curse was able to reach and didn't discriminate when selecting its victims. 

Despite having very little moral lessons or the huge ambiguity of the spiral curse, I was always coming back to read the next chapter. I didn't want to know the ending or meaning of the story as much as I wanted to see how the curse would manifest next. What new concept could be contorted into a horrific new symbol of the spiral, and how would it affect the protagonists as well as the rest of the town? As grotesque and disgusting as some of the concepts were, it was an utter blast to be introduced to a new horror every chapter. I will say it felt like short stories more so than a full concrete plot, much in the way that animes sometimes feel more segmented and themed in each episode, which was also very refreshing compared to many western shows or film structures.

Though there were moments that I had to suspend my disbelief on the logistics of certain events or how the whole town didn't feel the first moment the spiral began to drive people to insanity, I was absolutely willing to in order to keep progressing with the story. As mentioned in class, I found the concepts of the loss of self-control and the absolute denial of horrific events incredibly intriguing psychologically. How could anyone human being try to suppress or avoid the horror of the town, to the point where they must accept that these events are occurring in frequency and still chose to continue living their lives? In order to try and preserve their sense of community and normalcy, these townspeople either willfully ignored or suppressed their concerns, and part of me also wondered if that was due to their own personal choice, their sense of communal duty, or if it was another aspect of the spiral eventually pulling these people into it's the slow and inevitable center. And to have the loss of control of yourself and over your own identity to be taken away so graphically and abruptly in many of the chapters, I found it absolutely thrilling and petrifying at the same time.

Incredibly glad to have read it, and look forward to tracking down the third novel to finish the series!