Warning: This article contains images that some may find disturbing

Hello and welcome. The second episode of Uzumaki: Spiral Into Horror was released on October 5th, 2024. Like the previous installment, it was highly enjoyable and full of creative horror. The plotlines that appeared in episode were the snail people, the young romantic couple, the jack-in-the-box kid, Kirie’s hair spirals, and the lighthouse. I won’t be recapping all the events, but I’ll discuss several points of interest.

(Note: Big thanks to my good friend Nat, who is watching this series with me and offering his thoughts for some excellent discussion! Arigato!)

Episode Rating: 9/10

Article Contents

1. Snails and Snakes
2. Jack-in-the-Box and Hair Spirals
3. “Violation of Humanity” and Other Ideas

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Snails and Snakes

First let’s talk about the most obviously shocking part of this episode: the snail people. Katayama was cursed by the spirals and turned into a huge snail whose features still resembled those of the poor human kid. The teacher put him in an enclosure to show his parents, but they did not believe that the giant snail could be their son. Later on, Katayama’s bully (Tsumura) also became a snail and was put into the enclosure.

Then things got even more disturbing. In case you don’t know, snails are hermaphroditic. When together, any two snails will try to mate, provided that necessary resources are readily available. One becomes impregnated first, and thus becomes the “mother” who will lay a bunch of eggs. And so… Tsumura impregnated Katayama. Yeah, it happened. These human boys became snails, mindlessly mated, and laid eggs.

That was the most disgusting type of fantastical body horror we’ve seen so far. It’s hard to do better than those snails, but there was also a reference to another animal and its mating habits: the snake. Two young lovers are trying to be together despite their families’ attempts to pull them apart. One day, the couple sees two snakes intertwined. Yoriko (the girl) assumes the snakes are fighting, but Kazunori (the boy) explains that they are mating.

After their families tried to prevent them from leaving town together by train, Kazunori and Yoriko had finally had enough. They twisted their own bodies grotesquely and then intertwined to become an enormous snakelike creature. Try as they might, nobody could pull the lovers apart now. Yoriko and Kazunori retreated into the ocean to live their lives away from their toxic families.

Compared to the snail people, the young couple got off rather lucky. They are stuck living as some kind of sea snake, but at least they are togehter, and they seem to both have their consciousnesses in tact. Before this weird outcome came to pass, there was an interesting scene where Kirie spoke to Kazunori after he got beaten by Yoriko’s father. Kazunori explained his view that the villagers were twisted because they couldn’t come to terms with their poverty.

He also went on to say this fascinating line: “When two twisted people lock horns, they entangle, and things spiral out of control. It’s impossible to break free.”

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Jack-in-the-Box and Hair Spirals

I have a bit more to say about Kazunori’s profound line, but first let’s briefly go over two other plotlines that were introduced: the Jack-in-the box kid and Kirie’ hair spirals. First there’s “Jack.” He’s a boy from school whose hobby is jumping out unexpectedly to scare other students. His nickname is thus “Jack-in-the-box.” He especially enjoys scaring Kirie lately because he likes her.

The kid’s pranks are annoying, and the way he speaks and behaves is slightly unsettling. But what actually bothered me about him was that he wouldn’t stop declaring his love to Kirie. He doesn’t understand the meaning of “no.” So, when Jack decided to be monumentally stupid and jump in front of a car to prove his love, I thought, “Good riddance.” Sorry, but I can’t force myself to care about every shitty brat in this story.

The Jack-in-the-box kid died a gruesome death. I don’t know what the point of that was, or if that’s truly the end of his plotline. If I had to guess, the story of Jack-in-the-box is just another traumatizing event for Kirie to deal with as she tries to stay sane and alive in this cursed town. Speaking of Kirie, the next plotline is hers: the one about her hair.

Kirie’s medium-length hair suddenly grows longer at a rapid pace. Then the ends of it start curling up into spirals that defy the normal physics of hair. As someone who tends to keep quite long hair, I can definitely say it’s a scary idea to have your hair change shape, take on a mind of its own, and hypnotize others. Kirie’s hair is alive, and if anyone tries to cut it, it will strangle the offender. It also attracts attention, drawing people to stare mindlessly at it.

Despite the unsettling nature of Kirie’s hair horror, it was also humorous. I actually laughed at least one point during this arc. I think it was when the other girl also got hair spirals to compete and declared it was time for a showdown. That’s right – another girl challenged Kirie, and their hair monsters began to fight. Fortunately for Kirie, the hair wars were interrupted by Shuuichi, her boyfriend. He managed to cut the monster off her head and survive.

(Side Note: Kirie happens to look very good with a short cut once she brushes out and straightens the initial mess. In the words of my friend Nat, her style immediately became that of a “flawless lesbian.”)

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“Violation of Humanity” and Other Ideas

There was one other plotline introduced in this episode, which was the lighthouse. Kirie’s younger brother and a few other children died by burning to death in the intense heat generated by the cursed lighthouse lens. Kirie managed to survive. The lighthouse plotline was not very entertaining compared to the others, in my opinion. That’s why I’m going to skip over it and go into discussion of themes and patterns instead.

Body horror is often associated with loss of humanity. With the snail and snake plotlines, we saw the most extreme version of this idea. When we watched Katayama and Tsumura mating as giant snails, my friend Nat described it as “a deep violation of their humanity.” And I heartily agree. This series – and in particular, this episode – deals with the violation of bodies, behaviors, and anything else that makes people human. I think it’s an important theme in Uzumaki.

The next thing to comment on is less of a story theme and more of a narrative attitude that I noticed. I don’t know how much of this is intentional, but the characters in Uzumaki tend to have weird reactions to the horrors happening around them. For example, that one girl (Sekino) saw the spirals on Kirie’s head, and her first thought was envy for her social popularity, not concern and terror over the supernatural monster growing on a classmate’s head.

It’s not just Sekino. Almost everyone in this anime shows unnatural responses. Watch carefully and you’ll see it, too. Assuming it’s intentional, why are the people in this town depicted as being so weird? Well, mostly, it adds to the uncanny atmosphere if the village populace is abnormal. As the spirals take over, everyone is losing their minds and becoming twisted. But I think it might go one layer deeper, too. I think the people of this town were already twisted before the spirals began to infest.

It’s fine if Uzumaki has no other meaning than exploring the ways in which spirals can be used to generate horrendous images. But personally, I like to delve a little deeper into anime, even if my theories aren’t always what the author intended to communicate. When it comes to Uzumaki, you can read into it and see something along these lines: human hatred and disgust toward one another is the spiral of horror.

Hate and disdain for others is infectious and, like a spiral, it continues indefinitely. It makes people regress inward. Once it takes hold, you’ll start to see it everywhere. And it can go on for generations, becoming inescapable. Hatred is a spiral that twists people into weird shapes. That’s one potential meaning behind the story of Uzumaki. This idea is especially compelling given what Kazunori said about the people hating each other.

To restate, even if there’s no “deeper meaning,” or my theory is wrong, I’m still enjoying Uzumaki. That concludes my rambles about episode two.

~Thanks for reading~

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