Japanese Horror and how it Leaves You Waiting in Anticipation

-

A trend I’ve noticed throughout Japanese Horror is how benign everything is. It’s strangeness and weirdness leaves viewers and readers confused and frightened. While reading A Wild Sheep Chase, I couldn’t help but have chills at how strange the book was. I’ve noticed a common theme across all J-Horror that suspense is key. Nothing extremely scary or violent happens (there’s definitely a genre that has this) however, chilling moments or things that you anticipate do. For instance, in A Wild Sheep Chase feels like a man who is surrounded by spirits and obsessed individuals –with sheep of all things. I found at the end I didn’t know who was real or who was another spirit. What the story uses is a sense of mystery, only giving readers the bare minimum of what is happening. The last half of the story was scary because it was dream-like and surreal.

This also happened in the film Pulse. There were so many moments that moved incredibly slowly, but in a way left your heart pounding. I found myself covering my eyes when I watched the film –specifically in the scene where Kumiko sees that she is being watched on one of the television monitors and she slowly walks to the door, the camera cutting back and forth between the screen and what she is doing. There are no jump scares and nothing is revealed (the usual mystery and no explanations accompanying J-Horror,) yet my friends and I were squirming with anticipation and what was about to come.

In class, we watched the story of Yuki-Onna, and I was again left wondering what exactly was happening. It appears that J-Horror relies on what can truly be defined as horror (horrific and traumatizing events, being filled with immense fear) and not jump scares. We also discussed how most of the stories of this time were meant to give a life lesson and found the lines of what the message is to be blurry. In these stories, it’s difficult to decide who is good and who is evil, however, I feel at the time they were written they definitely had a clear message.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Weird "The Executioner's Beautiful Daughter" Is

-
Image
If you’re looking for a dark story that is equally weird, “The Executioner’s Beautiful Daughter” is the one to choose. Right off the bat, the title tells us that something strange is afoot. This short story, written by Angela Carter, is filled with beautiful language, dark imagery, and strange themes, such as incest, executioners and hypocrisy.             The story starts with an executioner executing his own son for an incestuous relationship with the executioner’s sister. The character of the executioner is also weird in his own way. He always wears his executing mask and never (I mean never) takes it off. He also lives his life above the law and doesn’t fear punishment. The executioner partakes in weird and horrific actions, such as having an incestuous relationship with his daughter and eating eggs that were almost ready to hatch, so they are filled with calcified beaks and feathers.             If it weren’t for Carter’s poetic language, I would have found t
Read more

Literary Speculation

-
Image
"The Aquatic Uncle" "The Aquatic Uncle" is a strange story in that it doesn't really write in genre and more takes some elements from genre, but does stay mostly literary. When I first read the story I found it to be more of a folk tale. While the message in the beginning was hard to distinguish, rereading and talking about it in class gave me a better understanding of the story. While the story has fantastical elements, it takes a scientific idea and weaves it throughout --evolution. The story delves into things that come on land and go back into the ocean, like whales. It was interesting because there was a family reunion twist on the story that was also explored. The entire time I read this story I was imagining a cat and a frog being together. The author relates out knowledge of humans and we try to put it together in our head and he uses animals as stand-ins like most tales. This story is not dark or grim, but rather amusing and charming. She finds
Read more

Diverse Positions in "Bloodchild"

-
Image
Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” is probably one of my favorite things that we have read this semester. This story focuses on an alien race that allows humans to live on their planet while also relying on them to reproduces, so a symbiotic relationship. This story explores majoritarian culture in the way certain characters accepted their fate, while others didn’t. Gan is unsure as to whether or not he wished to have T'Gatoi's child, while his sister is fine with it and would happily do it. The humans have no choice, but to carry the Tlic's children. Something I love about this story is the perception of love. Does T'Gatoi love Gan? Does Gan love T’Gatoi, or has he just been conditioned to? It’s also a part of majoritarian culture to become a host for the Tlic. I found it interesting how Qui found the entire scenario to be disgusting. Even though T’Gatoi is an alien species, she never seems truly alien to Gan until she is lickin
Read more