Uzumaki

Uzumaki (Japanese: うずまき, Spiral) is a seinen horror manga series written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Appearing as a serial in the weekly manga magazine Big Comic Spirits from 1998 to 1999, the chapters were compiled into three bound volumes by Shogakukan and published from August 1998 to September 1999. In March 2000, Shogakukan released an omnibus edition, followed by a second omnibus version in August 2010. In North America, Viz Media serialized an English-language translation of the series in its monthly magazine Pulp from February 2001 to August 2002. Viz Media then published the volumes from October 2001 to October 2002, with a re-release from October 2007 to February 2008, and published a hardcover omnibus edition in October 2013.

The series tells the story of the citizens of Kurôzu-cho, a fictional city which is plagued by a supernatural curse involving spirals. The story for Uzumaki originated when Ito attempted to write a story about people living in a very long row house, and he was inspired to use a spiral shape to achieve the desired length. Ito believes the horror of Uzumaki is effective due to its subversion of symbols which are normally positively portrayed in Japanese media, and its Lovecraftian theme of protagonists struggling against a mysterious force stronger than themselves.

Uzumaki (film)

Uzumaki (うずまき, "Spiral") is a Japanese horror film directed by Higuchinsky.Uzumaki, released in 2000, is based on Junji Ito's episodic manga of the same name.

The plot concerns a town infected with malevolent spirals. This abstract concept manifests in grotesque ways, such as a teenager's long hair beginning to curl and take over her mind, or a corpse wound around itself.

Among many bizarre features of the film is a heavy treatment with green colour filters, aping the style of the colour plates in the manga, and the fact that the trailer for the film is a pastiche of Jean-Luc Godard's seminal trailer for À bout de souffle (1960).

The movie covers some of the notable stories from the manga, with varying degrees of faithfulness. The movie and the manga have different endings because the movie was filmed before the manga had finished.

Its theme song was "Raven" by the band Do As Infinity, which was on their "Yesterday & Today" single.

Also in 2000, Higuchinsky adapted Junji's Nagai Yume ("Long Dream") for Japanese television.

Maze

A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. (The term "labyrinth" is generally synonymous, but also can connote specifically a unicursal pattern.) The pathways and walls in a maze are typically fixed, but puzzles in which the walls and paths can change during the game are also categorised as mazes or tour puzzles.

Maze construction

Mazes have been built with walls and rooms, with hedges, turf, corn stalks, hay bales, books, paving stones of contrasting colors or designs, and brick, or in fields of crops such as corn or, indeed, maize. Maize mazes can be very large; they are usually only kept for one growing season, so they can be different every year, and are promoted as seasonal tourist attractions. Indoors, Mirror Mazes are another form of maze, in which many of the apparent pathways are imaginary routes seen through multiple reflections in mirrors. Another type of maze consists of a set of rooms linked by doors (so a passageway is just another room in this definition). Players enter at one spot, and exit at another, or the idea may be to reach a certain spot in the maze. Mazes can also be printed or drawn on paper to be followed by a pencil or fingertip.

Maze (disambiguation)

A maze is a type of puzzle that consists of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. See also: Celtic maze.

Maze or The Maze may also refer to:

Art, entertainment, and media

Fictional characters

Film

Games

Literature

Music

MAZE: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle

MAZE: Solve the World's Most Challenging Puzzle (1985, Henry Holt and Company) is a puzzle book written and illustrated by Christopher Manson. The book was originally published as part of a contest to win $10,000.

Unlike other puzzle books, each page is involved in solving the book's riddle. Specifically, each page represents a room or space in a hypothetical house, and each room leads to other "rooms" in this "house." Part of the puzzle involves reaching the center of the house, Room #45 (which is page 45 in the book), and back to Room #1 in only sixteen steps. Some rooms lead to circuitous loops; others lead nowhere. This gives the puzzle the feel of a maze or labyrinth.

The book was adapted as the computer game Riddle of the Maze in 1994 by Interplay. This version featured full color illustrations and voice-overs for the narrator.

The contest has been void since 1987, but the book may still be purchased (ISBN 0-8050-1088-2).

Parts of the Puzzle