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Reviews72
badcgishark's rating
In 2019, Adult Swim/Toonami released the trailer for Uzumaki and it may very well be one of the greatest trailers of all time. Haunting music, small pieces of what the show would be about, and a release date of sometime in 2020. It was confirmed that it would be rotoscoped animation for the entire series.
Rotoscoping is a time-consuming form of animation where real-life actors are recorded making movements and then every single frame is painstakingly illustrated over which creates an incredibly surreal and beautiful effect. With 24 frames per second, one minute of rotoscoped animation is 1440 unique frames of animation. With four episodes with a total of about 140 minutes of animation - this would be 201,600 unique frames. Now obviously there are going to be shots where things are not moving, so it is likely that the original rotoscope frames for the show would be in the ballpark of 150,000 unique frames of rotoscoped animation.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened and the show went into development hell. For five years, Uzumaki remained not cancelled, but had no release date. There were several teasers, but there was a high likelihood it would be cancelled. The HBO/Discovery merger, which included Adult Swim/Toonami, saw dozens of great shows cancelled and people believed it was only a matter of time before Uzumaki suffered the same fate. Then in summer of 2024, a release date was finally given for all four episodes in September/October.
Let's get the animation issues out of the way because the way the community has lambasted this show is ridiculous. Arm chair animators who have no idea the amount of work that went into this show are giving it low scores and become the vocal minority of people who do not realize that without the changes in the final version, the show would have never been released.
Episode one is fully rotoscoped and this was likely finished prior to Covid-19. Episodes 2-4 are partially rotoscoped, however there is a decline in animation quality in a number of parts. Without these concessions, the show would never have been released. The animation is still very well done in the majority of episodes 2-4 and, though there are some parts that were obviously scaled back, the show still overall is animated better than the majority of animated shows.
The average viewer will not notice the animation changes in episodes 2-4 and it is so disappointing to see people not be able to see that the changes were needed to get the show out of development hell and released.
Uzumaki's plot, characters, setting, everything is 10/10. There is NOTHING ELSE like this show. It is incredibly original and absolutely haunting. It's a 10/10 show and I'm not going into the plot because I want the reader of this to go into the show without knowing much because it is just that good.
Uzumaki is a masterpiece, with part of the masterpiece being that it ACTUALLY RELEASED. 10/10.
Rotoscoping is a time-consuming form of animation where real-life actors are recorded making movements and then every single frame is painstakingly illustrated over which creates an incredibly surreal and beautiful effect. With 24 frames per second, one minute of rotoscoped animation is 1440 unique frames of animation. With four episodes with a total of about 140 minutes of animation - this would be 201,600 unique frames. Now obviously there are going to be shots where things are not moving, so it is likely that the original rotoscope frames for the show would be in the ballpark of 150,000 unique frames of rotoscoped animation.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic happened and the show went into development hell. For five years, Uzumaki remained not cancelled, but had no release date. There were several teasers, but there was a high likelihood it would be cancelled. The HBO/Discovery merger, which included Adult Swim/Toonami, saw dozens of great shows cancelled and people believed it was only a matter of time before Uzumaki suffered the same fate. Then in summer of 2024, a release date was finally given for all four episodes in September/October.
Let's get the animation issues out of the way because the way the community has lambasted this show is ridiculous. Arm chair animators who have no idea the amount of work that went into this show are giving it low scores and become the vocal minority of people who do not realize that without the changes in the final version, the show would have never been released.
Episode one is fully rotoscoped and this was likely finished prior to Covid-19. Episodes 2-4 are partially rotoscoped, however there is a decline in animation quality in a number of parts. Without these concessions, the show would never have been released. The animation is still very well done in the majority of episodes 2-4 and, though there are some parts that were obviously scaled back, the show still overall is animated better than the majority of animated shows.
The average viewer will not notice the animation changes in episodes 2-4 and it is so disappointing to see people not be able to see that the changes were needed to get the show out of development hell and released.
Uzumaki's plot, characters, setting, everything is 10/10. There is NOTHING ELSE like this show. It is incredibly original and absolutely haunting. It's a 10/10 show and I'm not going into the plot because I want the reader of this to go into the show without knowing much because it is just that good.
Uzumaki is a masterpiece, with part of the masterpiece being that it ACTUALLY RELEASED. 10/10.
To get it out of the way, the animation was more solid than episode two, but still not as fluid as episode one. It is no matter, episode three is incredible. This episode was easily the most focused as the majority of the episode took place in one location. The fact that they have been able to get so many of these stories woven together in a 130-150 minute mini-series is nothing short of incredible. There are numerous loose ends that are also tied together in this episode from the previous two episodes and it works really well.
This show somehow made it to reality against all odds and I am loving every minute of it. The final episode will be coming to wrap up this haunting, terrifying series and I cannot think of a better way that this could have made it from the manga into an animated series that millions of people will see and be pulled into the spiral.
This show somehow made it to reality against all odds and I am loving every minute of it. The final episode will be coming to wrap up this haunting, terrifying series and I cannot think of a better way that this could have made it from the manga into an animated series that millions of people will see and be pulled into the spiral.
Let's get this out of the way, there is a drop in animation quality as episodes 2-4 were done by a different studio with much less rotoscoping. There are animation errors and the pacing is jarring at times. Even still, it is a miracle that this show made it to release and episode two continues the creepy and unnerving vibe of episode one. I don't think many people realize how much the pandemic altered the arts and, while it sucks that this episode and the next two are done by a different studio and are not fully rotoscoped, this is what needed to be done to get the show released. The HBO/Discovery merger axed dozens of great shows and somehow Uzumaki spiraled its way out to release. This is still the best Ito animation adaptation and the show is still a top tier horror mini series.