Uzumaki

"This is Kurôzu-cho, where I grew up. I would like to share with you... the strange events that took place here."

Kurôzu-cho, a small Japanese seaside village, is plagued by mysterious happenings. A man commits suicide in his own bathtub. A student's scar becomes a black hole. People start transforming into giant snails.

What do all these events have in common? The spiral. The suicidal man's body was contorted into a spiral. The student's scar became a spiral in its transformation into a black hole. The "snail people" are marked by their spiral-shaped birthmarks, which slowly transform into shells. To make matters worse, the small island town is completely cut off from the rest of the world; all ships are sunk by whirlpools, while the tunnel that leads to the outside world becomes an endless trip.

So begins the terrifying three-volume manga Uzumaki by Junji Ito (creator of The Enigma of Amigara Fault), centering upon a supposed curse placed upon the town.

Not to be confused, in any way, with the main character of Naruto. Or Spiral Energy.

A live action film adaptation exists that has a large portion of the story left out, although this is partly due to the manga still being incomplete when the movie was made.

Tropes used in Uzumaki include:

Alien Geometries: Of a decidedly spirally sort.
And I Must Scream: Kirie is telling the story as a memory, which implies she is still conscious... Even though she was turned to stone.
And Then What?: This is why Kirie doesn't want to leave the town when Shuichi mentions they could run away together. She says that they are both still kids, her father's getting elderly, and someone needs to look out for her little brother. All true points, but when the danger starts, Kirie fails to save any of them.
Apocalyptic Log: Kirie keeps narrating even after she's frozen in time/turned to stone. The scroll found hidden in the wall of the row house may also have been one of these.
Arbitrary Skepticism: Honestly, given what some people witness directly, their refusal to accept the possibility of later events falls into the "bats/ostriches" variant of Dying Like Animals.
Attention Whore: Sekino from "Medusa".
Baleful Polymorph: Some people are turned into snails... and others turn into much worse things.
Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Kirie was infected with the godawful, demonic spiral warts later in the story... but only on her feet. They were very small, caused no problems, and remained unseen for the entirety of her screentime before they disappeared completely.
- Also played straight with Kirie's burns, which are severe enough to have her hospitalized, yet mostly miss her face and heal without leaving scars.
- Likewise, we only hear about her eating the flesh of the snail-people in vague narration, while everyone else is depicted in full, disgusting detail.
Beneath the Earth: The final chapter.
Bittersweet Ending: The Star-Crossed Lovers chapter. Just as it seems that Kirie and Shuichi fail to get the two lovers to an escape route from their abusive families, they use the supernatural spirals to twist their bodies around each other, become a giant long fish, and jump into the water. As a result, they're the only confirmed survivors of what happens next. It says a lot that this is considered the high point of the manga.
Body Horror: Like you wouldn't believe -- particularly freaky are the human hedgerows inside the houses after the town succumbs to the curse.
Campbell Country: Kurôzu-cho is an isolated village by the sea.
The Cassandra: Shuichi. The problem is that he mostly only talks to Kirie. Kirie also ends up unheeded when she's trying to alert everyone about the bloodsucking mothers.
Catch Phrase: Shuichi. Cryptic words with "mad" on them.
- Pretty much every character will at some point utter the words "That sound! It just pierces through my ears!"
Chekhov's Gun: In "Mosquitoes", Keiko's cloth-wrapped item. It was a hand drill. The same chapter has Shuichi's bug spray.
Cosmic Horror Story
Deus Ex Machina: This is how Kirie escapes a few dangers--for instance, random passersby walk in and distract the monster in chapter 11, and a storm blows a branch that impales her assailant in chapter 13.
Downer Ending: It gets worse if you remember from the beginning of the series that the narration in the first few pages, seen at the top of the page, talks about the events that occur during the series in the past tense, and spend the entire series positive that, no matter how bad it gets, at least the main character's going to get out of Kurôzu-cho to tell her tale. She doesn't.
Eat the Dog
Eldritch Abomination: The giant spiral ruins underneath Dragonfly Pond that are turning the town and everyone in it into spirals.
Eldritch Location: The entire town.
Enfant Terrible: The babies born to the bloodsucking pregnant women have some terrible tricks of their own.
- Also, the nasty children from the latter chapters. According to citizens, half of the structural damage is due to their pranks, exploiting the wind phenomenon.
Eternal Recurrence
Everything's Better With Spinni--NO, IT ISN'T.
Eyes Are Unbreakable: Averted in The Movie.
Face Heel Turn: Tanizaki's party.
Fate Worse Than Death: The eventual fate of the entire town, considering Kirie is narrating the story in the past tense.
Foreshadowing: Chapter 3 foreshadows Azani's fate. When a biker asks her out and she rebuffs him, he insults her by saying "Eat me!!". One of Kirie's friends warns her that Azani may steal her boyfriend. Not only does Azani try to do just that, but her scar eats Okada, a boy with a crush on her whom she manipulated to lure out Shuichi.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: In Chapter 13, the local Peeping Tom grows giant horns all over his body.
Gonk: The original snail-man, even before his transformation.
Grotesque Gallery
Heroic BSOD: Shuichi, very gradually. He never recovered.
I Know Mortal Kombat: Jack-in-the-Box's stuntman skills. It didn't work.
Idiot Ball: Even on a normal level, Kirie. A lot. Why would anyone bring their boyfriend anywhere near a girl who is known for seducing frickin' everyone? To be fair, Kirie was hesitant to and Shuichi was NOT charmed by the other girl.
- On a more idiotic level, Okada from chapter 3. What would you do when you see a girl with a gigantic spiral hole in her face, grinning maniacally at you? Why, try to touch the spiral of course. ("I-is that... bone?") Granted, she was previously established as being supernaturally attractive.
Important Haircut: Kirie is short-haired for more than half the tale after the chapter that shows the first time the spirals affected her directly, turning her from The Scully into a believer.
It Got Worse: The first two chapters feature the female lead's boyfriend's parents deaths. The father becomes obsessed with spirals, killing himself by turning into a giant spiral. The mother by contrast, becomes deathly afraid of spirals, hallucinating her husband's body is in each one, and cutting off her own fingers tips, to get rid of the spirals. Then she finds out about the spiral in the inner ear... When they're cremated, their ashes turn into spirals with an image of their screaming face. It STILL gets worse. Much worse.
It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Given how many supernatural things go for Kirie, it's implied that she's important to the town, and indeed breaks the curse with her love for Shuichi. Yet as a result, the spirals tend to make her an unwanted center of attention, like when her hair starts doing the loop-de-loops and a freaking cyclone wants her in the sky.
Karmic Transformation: Tsubara in the "Snail" chapter.
Kill'Em All
Killed Off for Real: Chie
Laser-Guided Karma: After a bully, Tsubara, pokes fun at (figuratively and literally) the first Mollusk Person/Snail Man, he ends up becoming one himself. Later, the teacher of the class destroys a 'nest' of their eggs and suffers the same fate. Needless to say, it's probably apparent that nobody else in the class did anything to the Snail Men.
Live Action Adaptation: A live-action movie was made in 2000.
Ludd Was Right: By the last chapters, any semblance of modern society in the village has all but vanished.
Monster Clown: Jack-in-the-Box's gift.
Non-Actor Vehicle: Fhi Fan, who played Shuichi in the movie, was a Thai model who never acted before or ever again after this part.
Oh Crap: Chie, upon realizing that she's trapped inside the spiral building.
Only Sane Man:
- Shuichi, which quickly reaches the point of absurdity. Then again, he along with a few other people had every single opportunity to just get out of town before things really started going to hell. The reason why he doesn't at first is he's mourning his parents, and later it's to protect Kirie. By the time he actually decides to do it, it's already too late.
- Tanizaki as well in the end. By willingly cooperating with the curse, he ultimately becomes the last sane and reasonable human left alive in the village.
Our Vampires Are Different: After getting bitten by mosquitoes, pregnant women start sucking people's blood. Drills are utilized.
- Jack-in-the-box's corpse brings hopping vampires to mind.
Prehensile Hair: Kirie's hair becomes this in the Medusa chapter. Overlaps.
- Idiot Hair: They try to comb it down at first - it doesn't stick.
- Blessed with Suck: It has a mind of its own and very much wants to live. Also, it drains the life of the user.
- Empathic Weapon: Kinda. See above.
- Charm Person: Has a hypnotic effect.
- Important Haircut: Shuichi nearly dies from the attempt, and Kirie keeps her hair short from that point onwards (see pic above). Sadly the other victim isn't that lucky.
- Mythology Gag: Medusa has some similarities to the Hair chapter from Junji Ito's Tomie.
Psychological Horror
Remix Comic: A fan edit of the first two chapters, entitled Gorgo the Slum Queen, was recently released on 4chan, and turns the nightmarish atmosphere into Nightmare Retardant. Can be found here.^{[dead link]}
Room Full of Crazy: The collection of spirals in the first chapter.
Shoot the Shaggy Dog
Stalker with a Crush: A typhoon and a Jack In The Box. And Wakabayashi, however briefly.
- Azani Kurotani becomes this when Shuichi rejects her. For context, she has a moon shaped scar on her forhead, which seems to have the uncanny ability to draw in any guy, whether she likes them or not. As a result a rumor was spread about her that she would seduce men and throw them away. Kirie reluctantly introduces Azani to Shuchi, who is Kirie's boyfriend. Where most boys reacted to her scar with fascination and feel drawn to her, Shuichi reacts in fear, because the scar has slowly turned into a spiral. As a result of the rejection, Azani becomes obsessed with Shuichi and tries to get him to accept her like the other boys. However he rebuffs her and even explains why. Despite seeing the spiral herself, she's determined to steal him from Kirie. When Kirie demands she leave Shuichi alone, it only strengthens her resolve. Her spiral scar going from a skin deep image to a spiral shaped dent in her forehead. In one last attempt to steal him, Azani uses Okada, a boy who's drawn to her through her scar to lure him out. Kirie suspecting something was up when Okada called Shuichi, heads for the park where they were to meet. She finds Azani there, who's left eye has been sucked into the now bigger spiral scar. The scar itself becoming a miniature black hole. Azani meets Okada and Shuichi in the park, rejecting Okada who violently takes her hat off. Seeing the in place of her eyes, the spiral scar that grew. As if things couldn't get worse, the scar swallows Okada before it tears Azani apart from the inside out. Shuichi hiding in a tree.
Star-Crossed Lovers:
- The two kids in the Twisted Souls chapter. Ironically, they get the happiest ending out of everyone in the story, which is saying something.
- Eventually, Kirie and Shuichi become this. While Shuichi goes to school outside the town, he drops out after his parents die. Shuichi offers that he and Kirie should run away, get away from the spirals and start a new life; Kirie says she can't because her family still needs her, especially her little brother. That devotion ends up being All for Nothing; her little brother becomes a snail person, and Kirie has to tell him to crawl for it to save him from hungry hikers. Her parents are at the bottom of the town, petrified as stone. When Kirie sees this, and Shuichi starts turning to stone as well, Kirie refuses to leave him. She uses her last moments to let the spirals take her, and wrap around her boyfriend. This breaks the curse, but leaves them frozen in time.
Stupidity-Inducing Attack: It's strongly implied that the town is exerting a certain measure of mental influence on its inhabitants in order to make them easier prey, which would certainly explain many of the more... questionable decisions that crop up throughout the story.
Surreal Horror
Too Dumb to Live: All the named characters stay in town way past the point it's clear they should leave. It's mentioned that a few people bugged out when the first inexplicable deaths occurred, leaving empty houses for those remaining whose homes have been smashed.
- Kirie deserves a special mention. Maybe it was the Spirals' hypnotizing power, but she seems to forget all the crazy shit that happens each subsequent chapter. She fails to not only heed Shuichi's warnings every time he appears, but she writes him off each time as "acting strange lately".
  - It's WORSE than that. In later chapters she thinks that 'maybe this is because of the Spiral...' but doesn't do a thing about it!
  - Consider, however, that when people were cremated in other towns had their ashes sucked into the Dragonfly pond...escaping might not have been an option. Especially considering the Year Inside, Hour Outside nature of the place in later chapters (see below).
Town with a Dark Secret: Does it ever.
Weaksauce Weakness: How does Kirie survive the rabid mob of drill-wielding bloodthirsty women? Bugspray. Not lit like a blowtorch, just bugspray.
Wham! Episode: "The House". Stories in the first two volumes are terrifying, yes, but still within a somewhat Magical Realism setup. Starting from "the House" it's post-apocalyptic Survival Horror. With twister-riding super-power delinquents.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Snail People, milked for every bit of Squick possible.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Dragonfly Gang.
Yank the Dog's Chain: Rescue boats are sunk by sudden whirlpools.
Year Inside, Hour Outside: Kirie and the others spend an unknown number of days wandering the hills trying to escape, but when they give up and go back to town, an unknown number of years have passed within it.
Your Head Asplode: At the end of the lost chapter "Galaxies," the astronomer Torino receives an overabundance of galactic radio waves, causing his head to grossly enlarge until it explodes "like an egg in a microwave," according to Kirie. It then shoots into the night sky to exist as its own galaxy.
Zerg Rush: The row house survivors have been turned into a tangled mess tied together and as a result collectively work together regarding various things. Most prominently in Chapter 16 when they used the ruins of the town to build an extension of the Rowhouse to make more room for them. In Chapter 18 they unknowingly do this to Chie. Chie, Shuichi and Kirie rush through the spiral row houses so they could reach Dragonfly Pond. They do so, because they want to make it through the gaps before the survivors seal them off. Chie gets stuck in one of the gaps and despite their best efforts to help her, the gap is sealed and she is never seen again. It is assumed that on top of sealing the gaps, the survivors dragged her to the center of the spiral row houses and she too has been petrified.