J-Horror and Vengeful Spirits

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J-Horror and Vengeful Spirits

After finishing Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase, it makes me realize how different our western horror culture is. I feel like because we’re so exposed to western horror stereotypes of slashers, monsters, etc, we always assume that the spirit is evil. There just always seems to be bad blood with ghosts and humans. I think this is due to our lack of culture with the passed compared to Asian culture.
Western culture is all about shock value. They don’t normally leave you feeling dread or a huge disturbance. Most of the time it’s high descriptions of how someone is tortured, or how detailed the killer looks. J-horror contrasts this by making contemplate the story and the reality all together. In the story of Yuki-onna, she is seeming to be a very dangerous spirit but then spares the life of the younger lumberjack. Throughout you then wonder if she’s changed and can actually live a human life. However, it is shown that she really is the ideal vengeful spirit after her husband tells her the secret to never tell anyone.
In A Wild Sheep Chase, Rat is not seemed to be a danger to the main character. It is only until the last part of the story that you realize he was a ghost all along, but that fact itself doesn’t spook me more than the fact that it was hidden this entire story. It’s almost like a bomb is getting lifted up throughout the story, then at the very end it’s dropped and it lets the reader get stuck with that fact. I think if that information was given to us in the beginning, we would feel less haunted after finishing this story. Which makes J-horror a step up to western in my opinion.  

Comments

  1. Lok Yiu Louise FungOctober 14, 2019 at 7:27 AM

    I agree with your comparison between J-Horror where it focuses more on spirits and morals and Western horror which focuses a lot more on gore and shock-factor. It's an interesting take on spirits and the perspective different cultures have on them.

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