Episode 1 – Whirlpool – Anime News Network

If you’ve read our Most Anticipated Anime of Fall 2024 article or yesterday’s ANN After Show , you’ll know that people are Nagahama Hiroshi and adult swimof swirl Anime adaptation. The four-episode series has been delayed multiple times due to COVID-19, which only served to heighten anticipation for the adaptation. This is Junjiof artistic justice. Fans of the prolific horror manga creator have been burned in the past, but the trailer for Nagahama and Nagahama Produce IGThe arrangement is supported by the track Hereditary Colin Stetson Very promising.

The series opener won’t premiere for a few days, but after watching the first episode, I can assure horror and anime fans that this one looks and sounds great. Unfortunately, its only drawback is a serious one. You can’t get over the feeling of fear quickly.

swirlThe first episode covers chapters 1-3 of the manga, mainly involving Shuichi’s parents and Azami Kurotani. in short, swirl The story begins with Kirie Goshima standing on a hill in her hometown of Kurozu, overlooking the sea. Kiri is our point-of-view character, and the opening scene feels like she’s reviewing a series of strange events she’s encountered around town. We then get the beginning of these strange events, with Kiri’s long-time boyfriend Shuichi explaining that his father has recently become obsessed with spiral shapes.

Many of the iconic images from the manga originate from the first three chapters, and they make up much of what’s shown in the trailer: Shuichi’s dad’s rolled-up tongue, his uncanny rolling eyes, and his eventual fate as a human cinnamon roll . He ordered a basin that looked like a bathtub. Personally, these are incredibly disturbing moments, but the first episode swirl No creep buildup. There isn’t enough space for the viewer to sit back and notice the strange spiraling obsession of the town’s residents. Everything involving Shuichi’s father is presented and concluded within the first 10 minutes of the episode. The focus of the second half is Azami, and the audience is asked to believe that she met and became obsessed with Shuichi for the remaining 12 minutes of screen time. If this rhythm continues in the remaining three episodes, swirl At the risk of being a comic reference that fans notice.

The narrative issues with this episode boil down to what had to be cut from the runtime. With limited resources, it is understandable that cuts must be made. this swirl comics Over 600 pages long and including more than a dozen strange spiraling events; it was never going to be a 1:1 animated game with a running time of approximately 100 minutes. The staff had to make choices, but in the rush to reconcile some of the comics’ most famous images, they lacked the shock value of the originals. If we look specifically at Azami’s original story, after he rejects Shuichi, her obsession with Shuichi escalates, making up reasons to see him, buying an apartment in the city, and stalking him until her final confrontation. This build-up could have been translated to the screen by interweaving her story into the conclusion in later episodes, but that’s now been removed.

Oddly enough, Geary also seemed to suffer the most from the script rewrites. This is Junji isn’t known for writing particularly compelling protagonists because they’re usually the ones who have weird things happen to them (if they’re not outright villains). Despite this, Kiri does have some personality, initially providing Shuichi with a more logical explanation for the events in the town. Here, the dialogue disappears and she becomes a blank slate, another character facing terrible things but lacking any unique personality.

For all my criticisms of narrative pacing, I can’t deny swirl indeed resonance. Nagahama’s (expensive) decision to use motion capture for the entire series, building it in CG and then having the animation staff redraw the shots, created something unparalleled in the animation landscape. swirl Amazing with its fluidity and uncanny reproduction This is Junjiof artwork. The only aspect that comes close to it in sheer quality is Stetson’s score, which manages to evoke an eerie spin on something you’d rather not face.

Although I didn’t get the emotional experience I was hoping for from the premiere swirlThe visual presentation and soundtrack far exceeded my expectations. I’m nervous about how this is all going to unfold, because again this is a lot of material, and ultimately, the anime might focus on some of the lore, or it might stick to its series-of-strange-events approach. Time will tell.

grade:

swirl Currently airing adult swim and live on Max.