Junji Ito’s Uzumaki Anime Spirals Into Its Third Delay

The anime adaptation for Junji Ito’s critically acclaimed horror manga Uzumaki might be as cursed as its own fictional town of Kurouzu-cho because it’s been delayed for the third time.

Yesterday, the official Twitter account for the anime released a statement saying that the production team required additional time to recreate “the quality of the intricate designs and detailed line work” of Ito’s magnum opus.

“As much as we’d like to deliver this show to the public as soon as possible, we don’t want to compromise its quality by delivering a mediocre final product. We remain fully committed to pursuing the completion of this work at the highest caliber,” the Uzumaki anime production team said. “We’ll be back with a firm premiere date once we are confident this adaptation is as good as we know it can be.”

The four-episode mini series was originally scheduled to release on Toonami and premiere in Japan in 2020 before it was delayed to 2021, then pushed back to October of this year due to covid. It’s now received its third delay with no release date in sight. It’s currently unknown whether the anime will premiere in Japan ahead of its Toonami release.

Uzumaki’s story follows a high schooler named Kirie Goshima and her withdrawn boyfriend Shuichi Saito. The couple’s small coastal hometown is haunted by a mysteriously hypnotic spiral pattern that manifests in progressively horrific ways. According to Anime News Network, the anime adaptation is being co-produced by Production I.G. and Adult Swim with Colin Stetson, the composer for A24’s 2018 horror film Hereditary, composing its soundtrack.

If the new’s of Uzumaki’s anime three-peat delay has your depression spiraling into a frenzy like my own, don’t worry. Outside of the Uzumaki anime, Netflix is producing an anime series called Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre. The series will adapt 20 of Ito’s works, including his debut manga Tomie, Souichi, and The Hanging Balloons. The Netflix series is slated to release sometime in 2023. Let’s hope it won’t suffer the terror of an impending delay like Uzumaki has.