Uzumaki crew explains why new episodes will see a sharp drop in quality

When the first episode of Uzumaki premiered, fans were taken aback by how stunning the animation of the title was. Finally, the Junji Ito masterpiece was being done justice and could be consumed without having to worry about animation or some other important aspect of Ito's work being sacrificed for something else. However, these joyous feelings were quickly cut short after the debut of episode 2.

From strange, staggered scenes that take away from the fluidity of the first episode to choppy scenes that are evidence of rushed or incomplete work, fans noticed a huge change in animation quality in episode 2 of Uzumaki. They can't help but wonder how this came to be.

Fortunately, we may be able to provide some insight into what happened behind the scenes that led to this discrepancy in the quality of animation from episode to episode.

Here's everything we know about why Uzumaki's stunning original animation of episode 1 may never return for the remainder of the season.

Uzumaki crew reveals questionable ultimatums given to them by higher-ups

As reported by Kotaku, the difference in animation from episode 1 to episode 2 isn't something that anyone wanted. Instead, it was the result of the only option the Uzumaki production staff and crew had if they wanted to see their project released to the world.

"I can’t talk about what went down but we were screwed over," Adult Swim executive producer Jason DeMarco wrote on his now-deleted social media post. "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."

In addition to these ultimatums, it seems that COVID-19 also played a role in why Uzumaki's journey to release the title has been far from smooth from the very start.

Prior to the anime's release, DeMarco told Vulture that Uzumaki, teased five years before its release, was severely impacted by the global pandemic, resulting in the anime title becoming a headache for everyone.

"The pandemic completely stopped production on the show for close to a year. It was the single biggest impact," DeMarco shared at the time. "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."

Between COVID-19 affecting production and the production crew not receiving ample time to continue the level of skill done in the first episode, it seems that, unfortunately, Junji Ito's masterpiece has been given the short end of the stick. But, undoubtedly, it's the dedicated fans who will suffer the most.

All things considered, Uzumaki is still an animated title worth watching, as the story is compelling enough to completely ignore the glaring quality drop. What's more, even though the production crew couldn't invest as much time and effort as they wanted to, everyone still worked hard to give the animation world the very thing they've been waiting for since 2019.

It may not be perfect, but to DeMarco, the Uzumaki you're seeing is the product of a team that never gave up even when the going got tough.

"After waiting so long, it makes sense people would be mad," DeMarco explained in his now-deleted post. "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."

Stay tuned for more news about the anime!

Watch new episodes of Uzumaki on Sundays on Adult Swim. Uzumaki is now streaming on Max.