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

If you consider yourself an anime fan, you’ve either been watching or come across someone talking about Uzumaki. The TV anime adaptation of Junji Ito’s cult-classic horror manga has been in the works for what seems like ages now, having been repeatedly delayed since it was first announced back 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 fidelity to the atmospheric horror of Ito’s original work.

That reception, however, has soured in the wake of the premiere of Uzumaki’s second episode this past weekend. Many viewers have taken to social media to express their confusion and disappointment at what they have described as visible decline in the quality of the second episode’s animation, especially when compared to the series’ first episode. Fans online are upset and naturally want answers as to what happened. Fortunately, we now have something in the way of an answer, courtesy of since-deleted comments made by one of the series’ creators.

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

DeMarco expressed understanding for the frustration and anger that Uzumaki fans had for the episode. “After waiting so long, it makes sense people would be mad. Unfortunately I can’t tell them who to blame it on… but someone is definitely at fault here, and we all just had to do our best when things imploded.” He then went on to commend the hard work of the animators and staff who worked on the series and said, “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 Uzumaki production, it doesn’t quite fully answer the question of what happened during the making of the series’ second episode. It’s easy to speculate in bad faith over what might have occurred, or to make glib comments about the series’ “budget” running out. Frankly, neither of these is particularly useful in better understanding what factors led to the stilted animation and poor lip-syncing as seen in Uzumaki’s second episode.

Animation is a complicated medium that involves many moving parts and collaborators. For all the ways that creators and studios have found to streamline the process, animation nevertheless remains a craft that is subject to any number of challenges, to say nothing of the inherently vulnerable and diffuse nature of the creative process itself. And it’s worth noting, of course, that one of the biggest factors that complicated Uzumaki’s production was the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, as DeMarco stated in an interview published last month.

“The pandemic completely stopped production on the show for close to a year. It was the single biggest impact,” DeMarco told Vulture. “Our crew was small, so having even a few members and their families getting deathly ill was a huge blow to both the production and our morale. It was very challenging to bring the show back from the dead.”

Uzumaki is set to air its third and penultimate episode on Sunday, Oct. 13. The jury’s still out as to how the series might course-correct itself in the lead-up to its conclusion. At the very least, the reception to Uzumaki’s second episode and the troubled production of the anime itself is a helpful reminder of the many obstacles that can befall a large-scale creative production and the value of the individual creators and collaborators essential to these productions.