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← darkroom
[Spoilers] Uzumaki - Episode 2 Discussion
We getting Zombies in the Next Episode.
Everything feels so rushed. I’m not getting the same feeling I used to get from reading manga. They’ve mixed the entire story together, and everything is happening so fast that there’s no time to think about anything. Because of that, nothing seems extraordinary anymore.
Why they not making gore scenes more intense like manga
One reason why gore and horror fall flat in anime adaptations is the tendency to replicate manga panels too literally, without adding any own original visual storytelling. A good anime adaptation requires innovation—dynamic camera angles and framing, sharp transitions and editing, and good sound design. Instead, anime often mirrors the source material too closely, likely out of fear that deviating from it will alienate fans of the original. This approach leaves little room for the anime to creatively reinterpret the material, resulting in a more static, less impactful presentation.
Then there is sensory limitation while adapting horror: Manga and live action offer space for the reader or viewer to actively engage with the horror. In manga, readers fill in the blanks with their imagination, amplifying suspense in the process. In anime, the fixed, fully colored, and animated scenes give everything to the viewer with no room for imagination to run wild. When horror scenes are overly presented with no proper scene execution, tension is reduced, as imagination which is a key factor in horror, is removed. This lack of suspense and thrill limits the psychological impact and makes it less terrifying.
For a similar reason, some fights in manga feel immersive, but when translated to animation on screen, they feel lethargic. You might notice
The visuals ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ What happened? From a 10/10 visuals to mediocre with limited movement and PowerPoint usage. Also what the fuck? They fucked the whole story just to make it into 4 episodes.
I think that the idea of some of the manga chapters happening simultaneously works on paper - you have two or three events that take place at school, why not combine the location into one story?
The problem lies in the execution. What makes Junji Ito work so good is that he's a master of the page turn - that tense moment where you know you're about to see something horrific but you have to turn the page to get to it. Each chapter is a tense story. By combining them, it takes away the tension from one chapter and dilutes it across 3.Again, I think on paper it makes sense why they did it this way. But what I said above combined with the Berserk2016 walking cycles and stiff powerpoint transitions makes for a mediocre episode.
I hope they put more budget into the final episode because honestly I'm a little disappointed.
Thats what i mean really takes the soul of story away by doing this
yeah... i think this is the thing, yeah. and it honestly makes me respect Junji Ito's work even more to see this messy attempt to adapt it, in a way? i hadn't thought about it until i saw it in action. to create suspense onscreen, you need to stop and linger on stuff, you need to put people into that cycle of dread -> scare -> relief -> dread, and there's kind of nothing extraneous in his work to stretch out. there's very little character development and not really much going on outside of the horror and it's amazing how much suspense and terror he's able to put into his work with characters that in anything else would kinda be... like honestly, and i don't mean this in a derogatory way... cardboard stand-ups. he's tapping into something else entirely. you don't need to know them to be scared for them. it's like finding a scary video on the internet out of context. it's campfire ghost stories. and it's calculated for the page, and the adaptation just... couldn't do that math lol
They're rusting though the story to make it 4 episodes. The animation jumped off the cliff. Sad.
Yeah they're rushing, not quite my tempo
usually I try not to be too mean about production quality but five years for four 20 minute episodes and it still comes out looking like this? I'm genuinely curious to what happened here because Production IG is usually pretty good with the animation quality. Was this just a side project as they worked on their other shows and that's why it's come out so cheap looking? Not to speak of the clusterfuck that is the pacing as well. Things are happening because they happen in the manga, not because they are happening, if that makes sense. I don't mind the mixing of the stories but there's no leadup to a few of these. Very worried about how the last two episodes will go, especially since the entire final stretch of the story doesn't really fit the one episode it will likely have dedicated to it.
Here's a little bit of context :
What a shame.
Where is this claim that either ep 2 director was blacklisted from the industry coming from????
Not the source, but the original post.
Lists 3 tweets. Basically, the answer is: no source trust me bro
Fun fact: the rigatoni person (who is an ex-mutual of mine) is someone who has defended the super racist comments from one of the people who he works on a blog with together. It is funny how the sources don't actually agree with nearly anything in the post and how its almost made up whole cloth.
Taiki Nishimura (if this is the same Boruto and Ergo Proxy guy) wasn't blackLISTED, he was blackBALLED out of the industry because he sued, and was spilling industry dirty secrets (info). I think they just got confused about why no one wants him working on anime and assumed he was banned.
all the budget went to episode 1:/ Anyhow, the pacing is all over the places like damn. It's like combining all the urban legends about spirals with no coherent direction for the plot. I hope the animation won't get worse than this.
oh they dropped the ball HARD. i had thought that if we're getting only four 20-minute eps they would at least be consistently high quality animation-wise, but this is Junji Ito Collection adaptation level bad...
i was so optimistic after the magnificent first ep too. genuinely heartbreaking...
I like the vibe but its not scary, its like Jojo with anxiety inducing music
During the hair standoff scene my inner monologue was like “DIO!”
Did they dump the whole budget on the first episode? Oooooof.
I think I can bring a little clarity to what happened here, at least visually speaking:
Episode 1 was directed by Nagahama Hiroshi (not just episode directing, but full directing). Additionally, he also did major assistance on key animations AND in-betweens alike. His artistic fingerprints are therefore all over the first episode, which make it consistent visually. While they're also the primary scriptwriter for this series and one can say that the first episode wasn't paced well (I don't happen to agree with that, but that's not the point), it initially seemed like every episode would be given the same treatment aesthetically with Nagahama as the one running the ship.
For episode 2, there are over THIRTY separate credits for animation direction, which is more often than not an indicator of absolute pandemonium behind the scenes. I'd therefore surmise that this is less a budget problem and more trying to find consistency / running into problems with each cut requiring heavy corrections / 2nd key animations. In lots of anime with supposedly "bad budgets," it more tends to come down to allocation of forces rather than money, and how much emphasis is placed on what and when. As a result, what likely happened is that it was an executive decision to go this route for episode 2, leaving Moriyama Yuuji (episode 2's director, who has done plenty of character design and has also directed several OVA episodes before) to have to pick up the pieces and try to make something out of it, and the animation producers to try and find people willing to work on this.
At least, that's my interpretation of what happened here.
Something noticeable is that Nagahama didn't direct this episode, wasn't one of the 24 animation directors this episode either (which is an insane increase from the last episode's 2)l, he didn't do any inbetweening, or any key animation.
Given the amount of animation directors, for whatever reason production was rushed, and there was likely chaos behind the scenes. I don't know if it took so long in an attempt to correct some of it, or if there were other underlying reasons, but I still hold some hope that the following episodes will be better(animation-wise, I actually don't mind the pacing much).
I'd also like to note, that I don't think it's as bad as I've heard. I think the first episode showcased amazing animation, and that the second was just mediocre.
Wow that was goofy, episode 1 could capture some uncomfy atmosphere, but this one just made me laugh, it's a drop for me I'mma read the manga someday.
there are just 10 chapters left to animate, maybe its time to read the manga since the next hospital arc is something which shouldn't be risked as its the peak of junji ito imo
Currently reading the manga and I prefer how it's structured, the anime just went to mix everything up and it's going way too fast
did they use the entirety of their budget and time to ep1 just because they wanted to use clips from ep1 as teasers/trailers?
As you say here, feels like it, as later events are in episode 1 and looked good
the anime just went to mix everything up
yeah, they merged all the school events into one episode with the snake merger and lighthouse as well, obviously it wasn't gonna work, although I understand they did this to fit everything into 4 eps, but that means the entire final saga would be in the last single ep, what a waste. adapting 18chaps into 4eps was never a good idea to begin with
that's the whole point, Ito adds comedic value to his stories so they are like bizarre and unsettling at the same time
wym "that's the whole point" like this episode's shortcomings aren't purely a result of the production hell the show went through lmfao
im not talking about the show, im talking about Ito's mangas, he is known to add a touch of funny with his creepy stuff
Really disappointed with episode two. The pacing, quality, and animation dropped off so bad after the first episode. The whole thing felt rushed. Really looks like the whole budget went into episode one but I'm seeing some people say that episode two had different directors, actually a lot of them. I don't have much hope for episode three and four but I pray this doesn't turn out like Ito's other adaptations.
agreed, it should've been 6-7 eps instead of 4 to adapt 18 chapters
did they use the entirety of their budget and time to ep1 just because they wanted to use clips from ep1 as teasers/trailers?
wow my praises for episode one aged like milk way fast
basically everything that was so good about the first episode is gone. the beautiful, always moving rotoscoping is completely gone, with rotoscoping being visibly and memorably used maybe twice
honestly, the first episode was so good, i actually hoped one of ito's works would finally be done justice, but maybe studios just need to give up on trying to adapt his work
It's not over but we are halway through and now I can confirm they absolutely made the worst decitions possible. Animation is bad, composition is worse, direction is atrocious. Even voice acting seems that was done withouth taking animation into account. You just can't toss a manga like it was drawn and expect it to work as an anime. This is terrible.
I don't know how people didn't see this coming.
Yeah i was worried from the start when I saw the trailer and got to know that there will only be 4 episodes
