Uzumaki producer reveals anime was “screwed over” as fans slam “insane” quality drop

Uzumaki premiered this September, after five years of anticipation, and after a noticeable drop in quality between the first two episodes, a producer has been speaking out.

Based on the legendary work of mangaka Junji Ito, Uzumaki was high on the list of upcoming anime for horror fans. The anime show is adapting one of his most twisted works, about a town malformed by a bizarre curse involving metaphysical spirals.

It’s weird and unsettling, prime for a TV show under the right circumstances. It seemed like that’s what was happening when Adult Swim and Production IG announced a partnership for a four-episode adaptation, but the end result isn’t what anyone was hoping it would be.

After a strong first episode, the second contains clear drops in quality. The animation is muddy and slow, raising criticisms over cut corners and questions about what happened. Jason DeMarco, Executive Producer on Uzumaki, revealed the whole thing “imploded” in since-deleted posts on BlueSky.

“We were screwed over, and the options were A) not finish and air nothing and call it a loss, B) Just finish and air Episode 1 and leave it incomplete or C) run all four, warts and all,W he stated. “Out of respect for the hard work we chose C.”

He adds that “somebody is definitely at fault here”, but he can’t point fingers or reveal more about what happened. “We all just had to do our best when things imploded. Maybe others would have made different choices. We did the best we could with what we had,” he said.

“A lot of people worked very hard on this show, and I didn’t think the actions of just one or two people should be the reason it never saw the light of day,” he added.

Uzumaki Episode 2 has been subject to endless criticism and memes online, as more and more viewers caught up. “The drop in quality with Uzumaki: Episode 2 is INSANE! It feels like a cruel joke, especially with how spot on Episode 1 looked,” reads one post.

“My day is ruined…” said another post, with a clip of one scene.

From the sounds of DeMArco’s comments, Uzumaki won’t be recovering. A shame, but at least we still have Ito’s incredible work in print to fall back on. If you’d like something to wash the bad taste out, check out our guides to the Solo Leveling movie and Dragon Ball Daima.