JUNE-JI ITO: Uzumaki

Get your leaf village headbands and shuriken ready as we cover this Naruto spin-off, Uzumaki! I'm really looking forward into seeing how Junji Ito handles such a beloved character especially with his unique brand of horr- oh wait. I just checked the Wikipedia page and apparently this is not about ninjas and talking people to death. It's about scary spirals??? That's weird. Well, I guess we're spiraling into a special sort of madness with the next week of June-ji Ito month as we cover Uzumaki! One of Ito's three seminal works, this is the tale of a town and how a mysterious plague of spirals affects the people who live within. Sounds kind of lame, huh? Couldn't be any lamer than that "I didn't know this wasn't a Naruto spin-off hurrdeedurr" joke I lead in with but hey! This is actually pretty good so don't let the description fool you. It's not like you didn't know this was going to be scary anyways. Maybe you don't know much about Junji Ito and this will all be new to you? I don't know your life. You never returned my letters. I gaze out at the sea everyday hoping for the mail carrier to send me word of your exploits in the war. It's been three seasons of grief since I last held a page containing pieces of your heart. This cruel war has taken so much from me. Anyways, spirals. They're scary, yo. That's the episode. As always, check out new episodes every Tuesday by going to our website at www.otakumelancholy.com to see all our links including our social media and join the Discord at https://discord.gg/rUHYUyW to continue the conversation! Ganbatte! Opening song is "Among the Sef" by Colin Stetson. We do not own or claim to own the songs used in this podcast. All rights belong to their respective owners. All songs used in this podcast are applied for critical analysis and reflect a usage that pertains to fair use.