I'll start with praising the first episode which was absolutely flawless, chilling and so beautiful to look at as what followed was just not what you would expect.
It seamlessly begins to suck you in to this plagued town where the people's paranoia, unsettling indifference to the happenings quickly crawls under your skin.
The atmosphere is oddly very entertaining as events don't take long to escalate. It was elevated by the exceptionally creepy music by Colin Stetson which merges with the scenes so accurately, it partially creates the mood for the show.
The artstyle remains remarkably consistent and polished in almost every frame making the main characters especially the girls very pretty and attractive.
Uzumaki has been a much anticipated horror manga adaptation since its first trailer was released by Toonami in late August 2019. That alone was so chilling and eerie, which was basically a prelude to only episode 1.
But despite how good episode 1 was, its horrifying how awful the animation becomes in episodes 2 & 3... Its just so jarring and disheartening becasue you see how beautiful and perfectly paced episode 1 was, that whatever the material is in subsequent episodes, it just seems cheap and unrefined, because the quality of animation is simply gone.
Personally, I felt like I was almost watching a different anime as it has lost most of its charm, the grounded human psyche element, and had devolved into bizarre out-of-nowhere transformations that have very little substance or depth to them besides poorly rendered bodyhorror and appalment, followed by sudden scene changes without closure that destroys immersion in the story. And the art continues to get rigid and poorly rendered.
It makes these following episodes almost unwatchable and sadly a viewer may be left reeling from how bad they look in comparison to the gorgeous and perfect episode 1.
I would say Episode 1 is a must watch but after 5 Years working on 4 Episodes, they should have given the same treatment to the rest of series... 4:05am.
