Really? I mean, again, I think it’s a question of whether you’re comparing apples to apples, because I think the most famously exploitative and absurdly violent Japanese movies occupy a niche of their own, and one that certainly has an American equivalent in Saw, Hostel, etc. Although yes, that niche in Japan media does seem to be exploited more frequently and gleefully. I wonder if that might partly be a function of the relative sizes of the Japanese and American horror movie industries, though. random guessing.

Anyway, this is all really hard to justify on the basis of of genre-wide generalizations (we’re probably each thinking of completely different sets of movies when one of us says “American horror” or “J-horror”), so I’ll stop there.

haha. All this Jhorror talk is making me hungry. And I seriously cant figure out why…

I mean, do you watch that much Japanese cinema apart from random J-horror, though? I think it’s a stretch to compare aesthetic/narrative standards of American mainstream cinema to those of popular Japanese horror. To compare apples to apples, most American horror is just as flimsily constructed, poorly acted, and driven by tropes and mini-obsessions as is J-horror.

he wrote Moryou no hako??? I’ve had that anime downloaded episode by episode ever since it came out! Just of course, haven’t gotten around to awtching it.

It isn’t supposed to be half bad. It’s kinda on the goodness level of tactics.. or Stood… and I intend on watching it. And it’s the sequel to Ubume!!

GAH. Why are you giving me newfound purpose to read this?

But back to your comment. Yes. I entirely agree about the Cool at first. That happens to me a lot in Japanese films, as much as I enjoy the premise, if you’ve got bad writing and a bad plot, not to mention HORRIBLE acting, then, you got a dud.

honestly, I think it’s less the creators and more the culture. I think all of media as a whole has just moved together, encouraging each other to come up with stuff like this. In hollywood, all the famous dramas and movies emphasize the grace and beauty of subtlety and a perfectly constructed narrative. (Same with acting) It’s one of the reasons why American cinema is so great. I, um, really haven’t seen that emphasized in Japan. Ya know what I mean?

type of hopelessly superficial plot-twisting characteristic to storytelling that heavily relies on an overly strange or horrific premise for appeal
Yes! There tends to be this kind of high-pitched, poorly articulated (or, in the case of Ubume, and again, a ton of anime, over-explained to the point of self-indulgence) hysteria to a lot of Japanese horror and psychological drama. And, as you said, too much reliance on outrageous, marginally believable plot points, the kind that are Cool at first, but eventually wearing in their artificiality and extravagance.

I’m not sure how to characterize it succinctly, but I’m tempted to ascribe this kind of storytelling to an overly obsessive focus on the part of creators, a kind of narrow-sighted intensity that often fails to move beyond the immediate appeal of “omg, WEIRD PLOT TWIST. it’s shiny. and weird. and shiny. they’ll wet their knickers over this one, it’s so weird. I’m so weird!” Conceptual shininess over substance and believability, basically. What do you think?

Also, I wiki’d the author and one of his books was, indeed made into an anime. Surprise!

First of all, the more I read of your synopsis/review, the more I (conjugation here) kept thinking how much this sounded like an anime. Many animes and anime movies are based on Japanese novels, and I’m entirely not surprised this book is the way it is. I feel like Japanese media as a whole (I might be TOTALLY way off bat, but here’s what I’ve seen) has encouraged this type of hopelessly superficial plot-twisting characteristic to storytelling that heavily relies on an overly strange or horrific premise for appeal. You see it a lot in anime, and in particular, Japanese cinema. And, well, it’s popular.

I feel like if I read a lot of Japanese horror novels in a row, I would start to feel like I was reading the same thing over and over.But thank you for the insightful review; although unfortunately, after reading this, I don’t think i could make it through the book =/