Seven Japanese Stories Response


Horror of the West seems to become a game of “how scary can we get,” while the seven stories that I’ve read aren’t all that scary. Sure there is some scary imagery (Mujina and Rokuro-Kubi), but the focus isn’t on it. Mujina is the closest thing to a Western style horror film because of its imagery and tone. All of these stories seem to have a similar tone and theme to them. They all want to teach the reader ancient Japanese lore, and they all want to teach readers a valuable lesson or moral.

The characters of these stories are also morally ambiguous. None of them seem to be wholly “good” or “evil.” Most of the time they seem to be good people/goblins to me. In Western horror, there is definitely a good group and an evil group. In the original Halloween, Michael Myers is undoubtedly all evil, and Laurie Strode is clearly the good protagonist.

Both versions of horror love explaining its lore to the audience. That is one aspect that Japenese horror and American horror can agree upon. All of the stories I read spend a good portion of its run-time explaining the Buddhist temples, customs, and it also explains the lore of the “goblins” that it features. The rokuro-kubi are explained for a whole page, for example. And most monsters in American horror movies are explained or shown to evolve for a good portion of the runtime as well. Some have whole sagas explaining their evolution.

In American horror movies, the characters rarely learn a lesson from defeating the monster. I can’t think of any horror movie that has a moral (but I’m not an expert, I don’t watch horror movies). However a few of the seven stories did have a lesson to be learned from its plot. For example, Hoichi didn’t heed to his peers warnings so he gets his ears chopped off. Then he learns to never deal with evil spirits again. Or how the woman in Of a Mirror and a Bell committed suicide by feeling selfish about losing her mirror for the greater good of her community. All of these stories have some meaning to them and they want to educate the readers.

Overall I like these stories far more than the horror movies made over here. They aren’t scary and they’re genuinely interesting. And no jumpscares so it’s good with me!

Comments

  1. Katey StareSeptember 23, 2019 at 12:49 PM

    Great examples to get your thoughts about the book across to your reading audience. I agree with you about J- Horror stories not really being scary but more interesting.

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