Japanese Horror is a genre that sets itself apart from more Western horror in many ways. What many often struggle with at first when examining Japanese Horror is attempting to find a definition that undoubtedly works. In an essay on the subject, Kiyoshi Kurosawa delves into this difficulty as he attempts to define Japanese Horror as its own genre. He argues it from many perspectives and decides that for him Japanese Horror films take as their subject matter the fear that follows one throughout one's life.

Japanese Horror has been around since the early days of Japan, with many early ghost stories emerging around the Edo period. Since then, various plays and stories showcased more spiritual hauntings featuring vengeful spirits. While these elements are commonly seen with J-Horror, it’s not altogether a unique element when being compared to western horror.

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The best way to truly determine what sets J-Horror apart is to examine the films of the genre. For this process, there are three films that are prominent in the genre: Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge, and Hideo Nakata’s Ring. These films are objectively different on the surface, however, they do share many common elements.

Both The Grudge and Ring are based around a vengeful spirit that haunts someone. These hauntings typically happen in a chain of occurrences, wherein the person being haunted can be the direct cause for the next person to be haunted. The films both also have fairly clear rules for the monster, although it’s unknown how to beat the evil. A large part of both films is also an investigation into the strange occurrences. This is usually done in an attempt at figuring out how to “beat” the monster, however it’s also usually unsuccessful.

Cure is very different from the other two in that it doesn’t deal with spirits, however, it does share many of the same traits. There are a series of deaths motivated by the same “curse”. The movie revolves around an investigation into the mystery with an unwanted outcome at the end. The “evil” that is investigated is also seemingly unbeatable. With these three movies, there is also one major element they share; capturing the evil with photographic evidence. Each film has something major be discovered through photographic or videographic evidence.

This use of technology is something that has been documented in writings on Japanese Horror. Films such as Ring capitalize on Japan’s fascination with technology and the familiarity that comes with it as a method of subversion. Various spirits emerge from and are often directly tied to household technology, thus introducing an everyday fear into something as simple as static on TV.

One element that can often be overlooked, but rings true in the film examples looked at here, was that of the family. In American horror, there is often a focus on a normal family dynamic, even if that is fulfilled by the monsters as in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This is very different from Japanese Horror however where characters often have broken or struggling familial backgrounds. In Ring and The Grudge, each respective monster is spawned from the death caused by these broken family bonds.

Ju-On The Grudge 2002

Another element that is often written about is that of how Japanese Horror films portray their evil. Some readings mention six existing techniques for depicting the evil, however, these don’t actually seem to apply across all films. The unifying elements across these points when boiled down were to not show anything about your ghost and, when you do, make it appear in a way that doesn’t seem possible. These points work for both Ring and Cure, however, they don’t always work with The Grudge. In that film, the ghosts are seen often. Despite this, they are shown to appear in unnatural ways. This divide seems to come from the points being more guidelines rather than exact rules. Also, as with most any genre, creatives are bound to step outside the boundaries of what is typically “expected” in the pursuit of art.

It seems as though what sets Japanese Horror apart from more western horror isn’t that it primarily deals with ghosts, but how it depicts these ghosts and the psychological elements that come with that. The primary goal of J-Horror is to scare through psychological means, and ghosts being a major part of Japanese culture means they are the medium through which to do this. The psychological staying power of introducing a vengeful spirit that is tied to an everyday object such as a house or a videotape is the true crux of Japanese Horror. It’s likely far easier to say some random slasher isn’t real than it is to believe that the shadow in the corner of the room isn’t a ghost. That slight doubt is what sets Japanese Horror apart and makes it capable of being its own genre.

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