A four-part adaptation of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is coming to Adult Swim

Japanese horror master Junji Ito’s masterpiece Uzumaki is being adapted into a four part series for Toonami/Adult Swim. The news was announced over the weekend at the Crunchyroll Expo, where Ito was a guest.

A teaser trailer has just been released – it’s moody AF!

 

Uzumaki is perhaps Ito’s best known work, an obsessive, disturbing and terrifying story about madness spread through spiral shapes.

The adaptation will be directed by Hiroshi Nagahama (Mushi-shi, Flowers of Evil) with a score by Colin Stetson (Hereditary, Red Dead Redemption 2) – and it’s already in production with release expected for 2020.

Crunchyroll — the dedicated Anime streaming service – has survived the purge of niche streamers at Warner Media, and back in March announced a closer relationship with Cartoon Network/Adult Swim/Toonami.  Toonami is currently a sub-brand of Adult Swim, which is itself  a sub-brand of CN.

According to what Polygon announced at the time:

Adult Swim and Crunchyroll are in a good position to do that. In a news release, the pair report 94 million households and 47 million users reached, respectively. But more obviously, the partnership is a natural move because of the platforms’ shared parent company. Crunchyroll recently joined the WarnerMedia umbrella, which also includes Adult Swim. Just last week, the company announced that it had restructured, grouping its various animation-related brands together. That makes Adult Swim and Crunchyroll live in the same WarnerMedia division now — in simpler terms, they’re neighbors. Very friendly neighbors.

What this means for viewers is that we can expect to see more Crunchyroll-licensed programs appear on Adult Swim, like the recently aired Mob Psycho 100, as well as original series. The first of that is the upcoming Blade Runner anime spinoff, Blade Runner — Black Lotus, which the pair announced was in the works last year. It will stream on Crunchyroll and air on Adult Swim, with Cowboy Bebop director Shinichiro Watanabe at the helm.

The “streaming bounce” for manga is a phenomenon that has been noted for many years, and the return of Anime to Adult Swim has helped several print manga series get larger audiences.

Uzumaki is already a classic, with the story printed in a single volume from Viz Media. It was previously adapted into a feature film, but this new series should give it renewed attention.