Ellis is spot-on in his assessment. Horror movies, as a rule, never bothered me. I enjoy them, but the idea of a maniac killer with a machete, while scary, doesn't really terrify me. It's the disturbing books and movies that always scared me more than anything. The idea of a society like Orwell's 1984, the pagan cults of The Wicker Man (forget the Nicholas Cage remake, see the original), and now the spiral curse that haunts the village of Kurozu-cho in Uzumaki…these are the types of things that give me nightmares. I'm not going to say a thing about how this book ends, because you owe it to yourself to start from the beginning and pick this one up, particularly if you're new to Japanese horror and think Ringu was the best it ever had to offer. Read Full Review

This last volume of Uzumaki is my favourite. There's no fillers and the story goes its way without any interruptions.

13th chapter was great mostly, but I think the ending is too quick and sudden. However, this story sets the right tone for the third act of this series and that's a cool beginning for a book. 9/10

The butterflies chapter concentrates on new characters and makes the story even more depressing. I personally don't think it was a good idea to make everyone being able to create whirlwinds with their simple actions, but it still works for this story. Now it's more about people and how they survive the disaster. 9/10 once again, even when the ending doesn't feel like an ending at all.

Next chapter is more like a reasonable and expected consequence of the previous one. It shows us how desperate the survivors are and how some of them use these whirlwind powers for their own purposes. Also the snails are back. I really love how things from the previous chapters still appear here. The lighthouse, for example. I also like to see how people go nuts. 9.5/10 for this chapter, but -0.5 is only because of some mess at the end. Especially with Kirie's father.

Chapter 16 is great as well. Another 9.5/10. People in row houses are creepy as hell, the spiral of houses is building and our characters think how to escape. Everything here is so terrible, that it's just awesome.

17th chapter is even creepier... And some things are way too weird here for me. However, it's really intense and the feeling of hopelessness is very strong. 9/10. Poor Kirie's brother... And it's not like her own destiny will be much better...

The next chapter is simply 10/10. The spiral labyrinth is mesmerizing and the conclusion just makes you shake in anticipation of great conclusion.

And the conclusion wasn't that great in my opinion. I mean, it IS great, it's 9/10 for me for the spectacular looks and the atmosphere. I just wanted it to end in a different way and there are still some unanswered questions. However, this exact conclusion is still pretty poetic and open enough to leave some slight feeling of incompleteness and fatality, but at the same time not make you think that the author was just tired of his own story and didn't even want to end it properly. That's really hard to satisfy everyone with the ways the plot ends up. And this way was still cool even if I may want it to be different.

And the three afterwords (one in each book) are kinda help to bring you down on Earth again. Because this book is so intense and depressing, that it's really easy to become paranoid. However, these short funny stories featuring Ito himself just make you don't think that much about the real secret of the spiral and etc. It's not like it really that important for this story to work.

There also was one "lost chapter" as it says here... And it seems to be a rejected story or something... I mean, it's too different if you compare it to some other stories. And it was meant to be in the first act, because Kirie has long hair here. But I really can't imagine the right place for this story, so maybe that's why it wasn't published when it could make sense. The story is 8/10 enough for me. And to be honest, I love that we can read something after the conclusion. It helps to remember the characters alive.

So, to conclude, I want to say, that I really enjoyed this manga and I'm happy I read it as my first original manga. It makes me think much better of japanese comics and creators, than I thought back then. This is just an art is a nutshell. At least visually it is. The story might be stronger, but it's still pretty fine just how it is. My average rating for this book is 9.125, but I want the final verdict to be 9.5 instead of 9. That's just how I feel it. The lost chapter doesn't really matter and the book itself leaves pretty strong impression. more