What went wrong with the second episode of Uzumaki? The anime’s executive producer has an answer, sort of

If you consider yourself an anime fan, you’ve watched or come across someone talking about it Uzumaki. The TV anime adaptation of Junji Ito’s cult classic horror manga has been in the works for ages, after being repeatedly delayed since its announcement in 2019. The first episode of the four-episode series premiered last month. to an effusive reception, with critics and audiences alike complimenting the anime for its impressive animation and faithfulness to the atmospheric horror of Ito’s original work.

However, that reception soured after the premiere of UzumakiThe second episode from last weekend. Many viewers have taken to social media to express their confusion and disappointment over what they have described as a visible decline in the quality of the second episode’s animation, especially when compared to the series’ first episode. Fans online are angry and obviously want answers about what happened. Luckily, we now have something in the way of an answer, courtesy of since-deleted comments from one of the series’ creators.

In a series of posts on the social media website Bluesky: Uzumaki executive producer Jason DeMarco stated that not only was the response to the series’ second episode expected, but that someone was responsible for the noticeable dip in animation for the episode. “I can’t talk about what happened but we got screwed,” DeMarco wrote in a post that was screened before being deleted. “The options were A) not finish it and air nothing and call it a loss, B) just finish it and air Episode 1 and leave it incomplete or C) run all four, warts and all. Out of respect for the hard work, we chose C.”

DeMarco showed his understanding for the frustration and anger that entailed Uzumaki fans had for the episode. “After waiting so long, it makes sense that people would be angry. Unfortunately, I can’t tell them who to blame… but there’s definitely someone to blame here, and we all just had to do the best we could when things imploded.” He went on to praise the hard work of the animators and staff who worked on the series, saying, “I didn’t think the actions of just one or two people should be the reason it never saw the light of day.”

While DeMarco’s posts shed light on some of the thought process behind it Uzumaki production, it doesn’t quite provide a complete answer to the question of what happened during the making of the second episode of the series. It’s easy to speculate in bad faith about what might have happened, or to make glib comments about the series’ “budget” running out. Frankly, neither is particularly helpful in better understanding what factors led to the stilted animation and poor lip syncing seen in Uzumaki‘s second episode.

Animation is a complicated medium that involves many moving parts and collaborators. Despite all the ways creators and studios have found to streamline the process, animation nonetheless remains a craft subject to a host of challenges, not to mention the inherently fragile and diffuse nature of the creative process itself. And of course, it’s worth noting that this is one of the biggest factors making this complicated Uzumaki‘s production was the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, as DeMarco stated in an interview published last month.

“The pandemic completely halted production of the show for almost a year. It was the biggest impact,” DeMarco told Vulture. “Our crew was small, so the fact that even a few members and their families became critically ill was a huge blow to both production and our morale. It was quite a challenge to bring the show back from the dead.”

Uzumaki the third and penultimate episode will be broadcast on Sunday, October 13. The jury is still out on how the series could correct itself leading up to its conclusion. At least the reception UzumakiThe second episode of the series and the arduous production of the anime itself are a useful reminder of the many obstacles that large-scale creative production can encounter and the value of the individual creators and collaborators who are essential to these productions.