Is Tanizaki alive?!

Just finished read Uzumaki (it's so good) and theres one character who it appears survived. All the other characters turned into spirals or snails expect Mr.Tanizaki. he doesnt merge with any of the people in the houses and it appears that the spiral workd shuts itself when Tanizaki is just walking around grabbing bodies. It appears that he is still alive, maybe the spiral let him live because he built the house in the spiral, or maybe he just turned into a spiral like 4 seconds after the main characters left. We may never know.