J-Horror: Asian Supernatural Narratives

The first I heard of Battle Royale, I was thirteen years old and incredibly invested in the world of manga and anime. Perhaps it was the brutally disturbing aesthetic that drew me to reading a manga I knew I shouldn’t have at that age, but I was on the Internet and naïve and compelled to read the story, from start to finish. Needless to say, I was deeply disturbed by what I had read – saw, and proceeded to shove down all the horror I felt as I read it throughout the next couple of years. I came across the manga again a few years later. It sparked my interest, and I delved into its Wikipedia page to discover that not only was there a manga, but a film (I haven’t bothered), and novel! What was most surprising to me, was that the novel had come before the manga. Koushun Takami’s Battle Royale, is much more substantial in its novel form. While the manga is visually disturbing and enjoyable to read, the book is considerably more brutal because the reader actually gets to follow the characters and their intentions throughout the story. The book is much more psychologically and emotionally driven as well, compared to both the manga and the film.

As an avid horror fan, Japan’s horror genre does feel different than what Western’s portrayal of horror is. Personally, while I’ve enjoyed many Western horrors, such as The Exorcist, The Babadook, and It Follows, Asian horror is much more subdued and in-your-face about terrifying its audience than the Western horror. A perfect example of this is Pulse (Kairo). There is a scene where a man watches a woman in an incredibly awkward position twitch ever so slightly. The music creates an eerie atmosphere that is only heightened when the viewer is forced to watch this slow and uncomfortable event take place. In Western films, patience is most certainly not a virtue. The ambiguity of the scene is what makes it so scary – there is a churning evil beneath the surface, but it is never revealed so explicitly. The audience is forced to endure the evil until the bitter end.