‘This is unreal’: Uzumaki fans furious after noticeable quality drop between episodes 1 and 2

Junji Ito is one of Japan’s most internationally beloved mangaka. He’s an absolute master of horror, and his work feels wildly unique. As such, many have tried to adapt Ito’s work into anime. Popular consensus has it that all have failed. So much so, the phenomenon is referred to as “the Junji Ito curse.” Fitting, considering the genre at hand.

Adult Swim’s adaptation of Ito’s master work, Uzumaki, promised to be different. By placing the work in black and white, and by affording incredible detail to the animation, the Uzumaki anime seemed able to finally approach the brilliance and creepiness of Ito’s original work.

Or, at least, the first episode did.

Episode two … what happened?

The reviews upon the release of episode one of Uzumaki were wildly positive. It was a real “they’ve finally done it!” moment. The so-called “Junji Ito curse” appeared to be lifted.

And then … episode two came out on Thursday, October 3. Fans—and even some critics who enjoyed episode one—flocked to social media to express their shock. Episode one was gorgeous. Episode two, by contrast, exhibited a very noticeable drop in animation quality.

See for yourself:

The basic style of episode two lacks the lusciousness in episode one, the line depth and attention to detail which made the black-and-white feel so intriguing. Additionally, in the second clip added above, there’s no depth to the punch at all. It feels like an actor’s bad attempt at a slap, where you can clearly see it didn’t connect.

The question on fans’ minds is: why? Why the huge drop in quality? Was the show’s entire budget on episode one or something? Could it be that Uzumaki‘s five-year production cycle—elongated because of the COVID pandemic—ultimately worked against it?

However, as animation account Catsuka points out, the art style of Uzumaki is strange and unique to begin with. It’s not hand-drawn, it uses a mix of CG and actual motion capture from actors. That doesn’t excuse any shots which might have exhibited a drop in quality, but it might help explain that—as different studios tackled such a unique technique during a pandemic—things might have gotten strange.

With two episodes of the Uzumaki adaptation left, we also don’t know whether the coming episodes will look more like episode one … or like episode two. But that’s definitely not a concern you want to have in the first place.