Kurouzu-chou, a small fogbound town on the coast of Japan, is cursed. According to Saitou Shuuichi, the withdrawn boyfriend of teenager Goshima Kirie, their town is haunted not by a person or being but by a pattern: uzumaki, the spiral, the hypnotic secret shape of the world. It manifests itself in small ways: seashells, ferns, whirlpools in water, whirlwinds in air. And in large ways: the spiral marks on people`s bodies, the insane obsessions of Shuuichi`s father, the voice from the cochlea in your inner ear. As the madness spreads, the inhabitants of Kurouzu-chou are pulled ever deeper, as if into a whirlpool from which there is no return...