Fans have long wondered whether the anime adaptation of horror auteur Junji Ito’s magnum opus, Uzumaki, would finally get an official release date or spiral into another delay. Some good news just dropped in that regard: the long-awaited anime will apparently premiere on Adult Swim later this year.
In a recent interview with the Japan Times, Ito not only revealed that the anime would finally be released within the calendar year, but he also said that the first episode of the four-episode miniseries has been completed and lives up to his expectations.
It’s been a whirlwind of a year and we’re excited to finally be able to show you this! Enjoy! https://t.co/3uq8l4R7MZ
— UzumakiAnime (@UzumakiAnime1) July 23, 2023
Uzumaki’s anime adaptation, which is being co-produced by Adult Swim and Ghost in the Shell studio Production I.G, was originally slated to be released on Toonami in 2020 before it was delayed in 2021, pushed back to October 2022 due to COVID, and delayed a third time without a new release date in June of 2022.
At the time, the official X/Twitter account for the anime released a statement about Production I.G needing more time to work on the adaptation to ensure it recreated “the quality of the intricate designs and detailed line work” of Uzumaki.
米カートゥーン・ネットワーク／Adult Swimの放送枠「Toonami」で放送予定のアニメ「うずまき」放送延期のお知らせです🙇！！
改めての正式リリース発表を今しばらくお待ちくださいませ！！ https://t.co/OHGHY0sQRh
— 伊藤潤二 (@junjiitofficial) June 28, 2022
“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,” Uzumaki’s production team wrote in the statement. “We remain fully committed to pursuing the completion of this work at the highest caliber. We’ll be back with a firm premiere date once we are confident this adaptation is as good as we know it can be.”
Uzumaki follows a high school girl named Kirie Goshima as she encounters a mysterious spiral pattern that suddenly crops up all over her hometown. Over time, the spiral becomes a source of obsession for the townsfolk, beckoning them to not only find the pattern throughout their daily lives but to become obsessed with it in increasingly gruesome ways.
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
