Shuichi Saito’s outfit is built around an ordinary Japanese high school uniform, but his appearance in Junji Ito’s Uzumaki is defined by exhaustion and paranoia. Unlike characters with intricate armor or flamboyant silhouettes, Shuichi looks like a tired student who commutes out of town every day while slowly losing his mind to Kurouzu-cho’s spiral curse.
Because the core wardrobe consists of standard tailored menswear, pulling the costume together comes down to matching proportions and getting his disheveled, hollow-eyed demeanor right. If the tailoring is too crisp and the styling is too polished, you end up looking like a generic student rather than someone terrified of snails, pottery wheels, and whirlpools.
The High School Uniform Base
The base uniform requires a structured black blazer paired with matching black slacks. Shuichi attends a high school outside Kurouzu-cho, wearing a relatively standard Western-style school blazer rather than a high-collared gakuran. Choose a casual black blazer with standard notch lapels that fits somewhat loosely on your frame. Shuichi is drawn lean and slouched, so a slightly relaxed fit works far better than an ultra-modern, slim-cut silhouette.
Underneath, wear a crisp white button down shirt with a standard pointed collar, buttoned all the way up to host a dark gray tie. The tie should be a muted slate or dark charcoal rather than bright silver or glossy satin, keeping the color palette somber. Fasten the slacks with a plain black leather belt featuring a simple silver or gunmetal buckle. Keeping the metal hardware discreet keeps the focus on the monochrome palette.
For footwear, standard black school shoes or classic dress loafers finish the lower half. Plain black leather shoes with a modest sole and rounded toe match the high school setting without drawing unnecessary attention away from the upper body.
The Hair and Glasses
Shuichi’s hair is one of his most distinct visual identifiers. He wears an unkempt black cut that falls forward into his face, with uneven strands partially covering his forehead and temples. Starting with a short black wig, use light hair paste or texturizing wax on the ends to separate the bangs into piecey, slightly jagged sections. Keep the volume relatively flat rather than spiked high, aiming for the limp, unwashed look of someone who rarely sleeps.
Resting beneath his bangs is his thin-framed eyewear. Shuichi wears wire-rimmed glasses with small, slightly rounded oval lenses. Heavy plastic frames or thick browlines will change the facial balance completely, so stick to slender dark metal or black wire frames that sit naturally across the bridge of your nose.
Selling the Paranoid Look
What separates Shuichi from any background student in a horror manga is his physical deterioration. Subtle makeup makes a huge impact here. Using matte cool-toned contour or taupe eyeshadow, softly dust dark circles beneath your lower lash line and into the inner corners of your eye sockets. A dusting of pale powder across the lips and cheekbones helps replicate his pallid, stressed complexion without needing heavy theatrical paint.
Carry yourself with rounded shoulders and a slight downward hunch. Shuichi spends most of the story glancing nervously around corners, gripping his bag strap, or clutching his coat against the wind. That tense, guarded posture communicates who the character is before anyone even spots the spiral motifs.
