Well, now this time cutting was involved.
There are two types of cuts, firstly the ones to separate the individual molecules (basically along the orange lines in my Crease pattern), just like in the Hiden Senbazuzu Orikata:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate ... ru_Orikata
The second type of cuts is only made on the second picture to the swirl units, to make them skinnier.
On the first picture it looks as if the swirls are just twisted waterbomb bases. On the second those bases have cuts along the middle lines of each base to fold the side flaps inwards.