It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about Adult Swim’s adaptation of the Junji Ito classic. But amidst all the bustle and excitement of E3, the publisher and director Hiroshi Nagahama provided a first look and a new release date.
The anime was first announced in 2019, but naturally COVID pushed production back. However, it wasn’t just the pandemic that was the problem. In an update below, Nagahama explained that the visual style of the Adult Swim miniseries has complicated things further.
The Uzumaki adaptation is trying to echo the monochromatic style of the original manga, and Nagahama said Uzumaki needed “twice as many staff as we normally use”. He explained that the Japanese anime industry was hit especially hard by COVID, although the Uzumaki production has gotten back on track.
The last update on the Uzumaki four-part miniseries was in 2019. It featured about as much footage as the video above, although we got more of a landscape scene in motion, and a greater dose of Colin Steson’s musical treatment for the horror manga.
To this day, Uzumaki is still one of the most unsettling manga or comics you can read. It’s unabashedly brilliant, to be absolutely sure. But if the team keeps nailing the visual style, and the adaptation continues to adhere pretty closely to the original story, then Adult Swim might easily have the most pants-shitting series of 2022 on their hands.
The Adult Swim Uzumaki anime is targeting a October 2022 release date. Until then, you’ll have to make do with the original manga. I hope you like body horror!
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