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Uzumaki Episode Two Animation Quality Controversy depicting a tweet commenting on it.

Uzumaki Episode Two Animation Quality Controversy

Part of a series on Uzumaki. [View Related Entries]

Updated Oct 09, 2024 at 03:10PM EDT by Zach.

Added Oct 08, 2024 at 04:29AM EDT by sakshi.

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Overview

Uzumaki Episode Two Animation Quality Controversy or Uzumaki Anime Episode 2 Backlash refers to memes and jokes about the perceived sharp drop in animation quality between the first and the second episode of the four-part Uzumaki anime series, originally created by manga artist Junji Ito, which was released in early October 2024. Fans of the much-hyped horror anime began voicing complaints about the Adult Swim Toonami show after several clips from the second episode went viral online, with people pointing out shoddy animation and poor graphics, among other criticisms. This also inspired several X users to post low-quality scenes from other shows and joke about how it is "Uzumaki episode 2." There were theories about why the quality of the anime dipped, with some anime fans speculating that the work was outsourced to subpar studios and that Fugaku studio's Hiroshi Nagahama was supposedly fired for driving up the costs of production in the first episode.

Background

The second episode of the Uzumaki anime adaptation was released on October 6th, 2024, with many internet users commenting on the supposedly sharp drop in animation quality between the first episode (released in late September 2024) and the new one as it generated discourse on social media.

For example, X[1] user @doffylmingo was one of the first to post a clip from the new series on October 6th, gathering over 30,000 likes in two days.

Developments

Quality Dip Theories

Several anime fans floated their theories about why there was a change in the animation style of Uzumaki in early October 2024. A common reason cited was budgetary restraints, with the anime moving from Fugaku studio to Akatsuki after the first episode.[5]


Episode 1 Staff 3 UZUMAKI 6939 Script: Aki Itami Director: Hiroshi Nagahama Hirokazu Sato Animation Character Design: Storyboard: Hiroshi Nagahama Music by: Animation Studio: English Localization by: Colin Stetson Fugaku Bang Zoom! Studios Episode 2 Staff Director: Yuji Moriyama UZUMAKI Στην Animation Character Design: Episodic Director: Taiki Nishimura Script: Aki Itami Hirokazu Sato Storyboard: Hiroshi Nagahama Music by: Colin Stetson Animation Studio: Akatsuki English Localization by: Bang Zoom! Studios

A comment by a MyAnimeList[6] user "HoesEatinDogFood" was repeatedly cited on both Reddit and X[7] on October 6th, however, the user's theory about the animation for Uzumaki being outsourced to another studio is unverified.


od Well to answer your question. The main director was kicked off the project after episode 1 and had a completely change in staff with the new director for episode 2 being someone blacklisted from the industry. It's the same guy who did some of the tog season 2 action sequences that people have been clowning on. Episode 2 went to a small outsourcing studio who outsourced it even more to like 8 studios and directors were changed to hentai animators. As to why the main director was kicked off the project? We don't know but we can theorise as to why. Everything in episode 1 was mocapped, completely redone in 3D and completely redrawn in 2D. The producers could've have seen this as so unbelievably demanding to do for the entire show that they kicked him off, and since they had spent so many resources in episode 1 they went to someone who's really s--- at the job just so they can get it done. So all those 5 years then went into this anime? Most of that time wasn't even being worked on to begin with probably.

Uzumaki Executive Producer's Response

On October 7th, 2024, Toonami co-creator and Uzumaki executive producer Jason DeMarco posted a series of now-deleted skeets on Bluesky, [8] saying that the show was "screwed over" and had the choice to stop production or complete it however they can. The post was discussed on the subreddit /r/JuniIto,[9] as well as /r/anime[10] on October 7th.


FORTH ÉORLINGAS DEMARCO @clarknova.bsky.social It's fine, we knew this would happen. I can't talk about what went down but we were screwed over and 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. October 7, 2024 at 5:51 PM 1 like 2 Write your reply FORTH ÉORLINGAS DEMARCO @clarknova.bsky.social . 58m 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. Maybe others would have made different choices. We did the best we could with what we had. 02 1 FORTH ÉORLINGAS DEMARCO @clarknova.bsky.social .55m But again, a lot of ppl 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. Maybe that's the wrong choice, I truly don't know. But those ppl have a right to be annoyed and disappointed. I'm glad you are digging it ♡ 1

Online Reactions

As discourse surrounding episode two of the series continued to appear online in early October 2024, various X users posted numerous clips from the shows to discuss what they saw as a fall in the anime's quality.

For example, on October 6th, X[2] user @dyianactive posted a side-by-side comparison of the show's animation, gathering over 20,000 likes in two days.


On October 7th, 2024, X[3] user @AwestruckVox gathered over 41,000 likes on a scene from the show, captioned, "cmon dawg LMFAOOO."


On October 6th, several Redditors[4] on /r/JunjiIto posted memes and jokes about the seeming dip in the show's quality as seen in a post by Redditor /u/Feralman2003, who gathered over 1,000 upvotes in a day.


1131 ACTUAL CHASM OF QUALITY Meme (i.redd.it) submitted 1 day ago by Feralman2003 69 comments share save hide report crosspost hide all child comments Every junji ito fan after seeing uzumaki episode 2 for the first time (it was absolute ass): ade with mematic

Several X users also posted scenes from other television shows to joke about the supposed dip in Uzumaki's animation quality, including X[11][12] users @vancethot and @johnny_tmanV2, who gathered over 46,000 and 29,000 likes, respectively, in two days.


Search Interest

External References

[1] X – doffylmingo

[2] X – dyianactive

[3] X – AwestruckVox

[4]  Reddit – /r/junjiito

[5] Reddit – /r/junjiito

[6] MyAnimeList – Uzumaki

[7] X – SteelRL

[8] BlueSky – ClarkNova

[9] Reddit – /r/JunjiIto

[10] Reddit – /r/anime

[11] X – vancethot

[12] X – johnny_tmanV2

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Top Comments

Chris the Lovable Jerk
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Chris the Lovable Jerk

I'm really curious how much of the budget was used on the first episode. This actually brings to mind a cancelled Muppet film called 'The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made!', which was inspired by Jim Henson remarking to head Muppet writer Jerry Juhl that because of how expensive Labyrinth had been the fourth Muppet movie would have to be done cheaply, so Juhl came up with the idea for The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made, which would have been about Kermit being too busy to oversee a new Muppet movie so lets Gonzo do it, and he, naturally, picks a crazy sci-fi action script that makes no sense and blows the entire budget on the opening credits, so the movie would get increasingly cheap as it went on, down to film stock getting lower and lower quality, switching to black and white, and finally going to just storyboards with the Muppets voice acting them, until Gonzo sells out to some corporation the movie goes back to normal, looking better than ever and even replacing Miss Piggy with Meryl Streep.

Sadly this movie never happened because, ironically, it would have been too expensive. That and by the time Disney got their grubby mitts on the franchise, they didn't like the idea of a movie with 'cheap' in the title.

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