Animator Henry Thurlow who is popular for his work on One Piece, Boruto and other anime, recently put out a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter) shedding light on what possibly could have gone wrong with the Uzumaki adaptation.
The anime has gone through an alarming downward spiral when it came to its animation quality, leaving everyone quite disheartened.
While Thurlow admitted that he was not fully aware of what happened behind the scenes of Uzumaki’s production, he lashed out at western producers for probably having ruined the show.
He pointed out that some producer from the anime, in a bid to just get done with production and release it, might have involved some subpar studio to work on the it.
“As for the Uzumaki production, at the end of the day it’s almost certainly *some* western producer’s fault. ‘This is taking too long so force some other studio to finish it I don’t care what it looks like.’ I’d bet everything I have that’s how it went down“
Thurlow pointed out that such patterns were observed in the past with Kawajiri’s anime and the unreleased Alien vs. Predator anime, criticizing western producers broadly and calling them trash.
“Again & again these western-produced anime have problems because the western producers are fucking trash.“
Incidentally, Thurlow’s explanation was close to what Uzumaki’s producer Jason DeMarco said.
Saying that they were screwed over, DeMarco had said in his own rant on social media that the Uzumaki team chose to air all the episodes of the anime despite the obvious issues. He noted that the backlash from fans was expected.
Going by the producer’s comments, it seems that the quality of the final two episodes too won’t meet the expectations that fans had from it.
Thurlow also noted that the last minute production studio changes and staff changes, could have affected the anime’s quality.
Uzumaki anime was initially said to be animated by Studio Drive, with Production IG and Adultswim acting as producers. However, in 2023, it was speculated that the anime was a joint production between Drive and Akatsuki.
This development came 4 years after Uzumaki was announced.
And by the time the anime aired, Drive was no longer in the picture, with Fugaku, a planning and production company being credited for the first episode’s animation.
The much hated episode 2 was, on the other hand, animated by Akatsuki.
Additionally, Hiroshi Nagahama was supposed to be directing the episode. However, when the anime aired, he was only credited for the storyboards.
While the question of whether the staff got enough time to finish the project is one thing, Thurlow pointed out that Production I.G. itself had a track record of turning in projects slow in recent times.
The animator, though nostalgic about the days when I.G. was on top of the anime industry, admitted that the studio was now a shadow of what it was in the past.
“Of course artists need time & resources to do great things. If that was taken from IG it’s terrible. It does seem though that IG recently(unlike its glory days) endlessly delays their projects. They go year after year completing very little. TO BE CLEAR. I love IG. I’m nostalgic for the days where IG, Madhouse, & 4C were at the top & always outdoing each other. All 3 though seem to have lost their ability to consistently & on-time turn out powerhouse work. It takes them forever to do just a little now…“
Uzumaki was initially set to premiere on Toonami in 2020, ahead of its Japanese debut. However, the production faced multiple delays. Initially postponed to 2021, it was later rescheduled for October 2022. In June 2022, another delay pushed the release date further.
The anime finally started airing on Sep 28, 2024.
Cast includes:
- Uki Satake as Kirie Goshima
- Shinichiro Miki as Shuichi Saito
- Toshio Furukawa as Kirie’s Father
- Takashi Matsuyama as Shuichi’s Father
- Mika Doi as Yukie Saito
- Mariya Ise as Azami Kurotami
- Katsutoshi Matsuzaki as Katayama
- Wataru Hatano as Okada
- Tatsumaru Tachibana as Tsumura
- Kouichi Toochika as Yokota
- Ami Fukushima as Shiho
- Gen Sato as Boy 1
- Shunsuke Takeuchi as Boy 2
- Anna Nagase as Girl
- Kōsuke Okamoto as Attendee 1
Uzumaki is a Japanese horror manga series written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Appearing as a serial in Shogakukan’s weekly seinen manga magazine Big Comic Spirits from 1998 to 1999, the chapters were compiled into three bound volumes published from August 1998 to September 1999.
Source: Henry Thurlow’s X account
