As One-Punch Man’s painful season 3 continues to roll out new installments, it often deceptively feels like this is an abnormal disappointment among anime fans. Yet, one year prior, the long-delayed release of Production I.G and Adult Swim’s Uzumaki had already proven what true disappointment can look like. Beyond downgrades in animation, its horrid pacing was what broke fans’ hearts.

Officially announced at 2019’s Crunchyroll Expo, Uzumaki featured the collaborative output of Production I.G and Adult Swim. On the surface, everything looked great, with strong directors attached and a clear, visible devotion to adapting Junji Ito’s uncanny visuals. However, the premiere acted as a smokescreen ahead of the rest of the 4-episode miniseries, where the source material’s true betrayal unfolded.

Uzumaki’s Anime Failure Rivals One-Punch Man

If one were solely to watch Uzumaki episode #1, they’d not see the problem. The grayscale scheme dodged the visual issues plaguing other Ito anime adaptations. Character animation was fluid, scenes boasted depth without backdrops pulling too much focus. The dissonant mix of amelodic and ambient music enhanced the tension. It was the best Junji Ito anime adaptation ever.

Uzumaki episode #1, in a way, felt like a microcosm of One-Punch Man season 1: everything was where it needed to be, Hiroshi Nagahama’s series direction was strong, and it felt like the best possible anime adaptation. Upon the premiere of episode #2 onward, these qualities are largely diminished, a noticeably condensed disappointment resembling One-Punch Man seasons 2 and 3.

Each subsequent episode traded the fluidity of small moments like Kirie’s vibrant and lively classroom for stiff, static characters in similar situations. Running animation became embarrassingly poor, especially in episode #2. While there’s been plenty of lamentation about where the blame lies in Uzumaki’s adaptation woes, rushing the final product was the true spiral curse, circling the drain.

Uzumaki and One-Punch Man Have Horrible Pacing

With four episodes adapting 19 chapters, and missing the 20th chapter, “Galaxies”, Uzumaki’s anime was painfully, noticeably rushed. Individual stories from various chapters were blended in like b-stories, but utterly lacked gravitas, in the case of “Twisted Souls”. As the show rapidly reached its climax, new viewers likely didn’t have enough time to care about even the key characters’ struggles.

In the case of One-Punch Man, though, the pacing problem is similar but nuanced. While the anime ranged from reasonable (season 1) to brisk pacing (season 2), season 3 ventured into Yusuke Murata’s most detailed, bulky chapters, praised for their intricate details yet wholly missing in the show. While now adapting only 2-3 chapters, season 3’s source material is deceptively massive.

But in Uzumaki’s case, this pacing actively hurt it more, especially when combined with the animation downgrades. Complex animation opportunities were addressed with cheap jump cuts like in episode #4 to avoid renditions of a man contorting himself inside a giant snail-person shell. It’d be one thing for the anime to be rushed, but Uzumaki’s finale was jarringly lazy.

The result is a rushed production where every great moment from the manga feels unearned in anime form. Yamaguchi’s Jack-in-the-box return in episode #3 is awfully executed, failing to be scary or ironically funny. While One-Punch Man’s anime has fallen off completely, at least it had more than one good episode, preceding its decade of waiting and disappointment.