The "horror" in Japanese Horror

I heard my first classic Japanese horror story probably sometime in my high school Japanese class. It was the story of Hoichi, the blind biwa player who was tricked into playing his version of the battle of the Heike for ghosts. The ending then has a Buddhist priest writing sutras all over Hoichi so the ghosts won’t haunt him any longer, but the Buddhist priest forgets to write sutras on Hoichi’s ears, so the ghost rips of the ears of Hoichi because without the protection, the ears was the only thing the ghost could see. The ghost takes the ears as proof that he tried to get Hoichi, and Hoichi lives the rest of his life blind and ear-less (though he can hear if I remember the story correctly).

I found this story to be rather perplexing. While it certainly has the trappings of a horror story with ghosts and the ripping off of ears, I never found this story scary. Mainly because if ghosts haunt blind people who are master biwa players, I am pretty much safe. The horror that I found with most scary stories I grew up with is the elements in those stories were based on the idea that I should be afraid because the “monster” in the story could get me, and do horrible things to me. The majority of Japanese horror stories seem to be so separated from the common person that I had a hard time believing that anyone would find this scary.

Coming upon Halloween, and living in Japan, I decided to check out more modern Japanese horror and see if I could maybe relate it back to classic Japanese horror and see if it could help me understand the “horror” of it. I came upon the story Enigma of Amigara Fault (click link to read yourself!) and it dawned on me where the true “horror” is in Japanese horror. In the Enigma of Amigara Fault, what is scary is the idea of someone you know and/or love giving in to something that could not only hurt them, but kill them. How scary that irresistible urge is to give in to something that they very well know could be the end of their lives (or something worse). The more I think about that, and the more I abstract it out of its original context, I realised that the whole “irresistible urge” could be so easily applied to a loved one with a drug problem, or something else that can be tantalizingly harmful. It is then it came to me, Japanese horror isn’t scary because it could happen to you, but Japanese horror is scary because it preys on the common foibles that all people have.

Take the story of Hoichi: while on the surface it is just a story about a blind biwa player being taken advantage of by ghosts, it can also be a tale about how being too trusting can lead to an unfortunate situations, even with help (or perhaps due to help). It is the observations on these common aspects of humanity that can give both classic and modern takes on Japanese horror their timelessness and scariness. The horror comes from realising that the tragic characters, despite their best efforts, couldn't escape their fate because of the common human traits we all can share. People would like to think that if they are put into a a scary situation they could escape, but Japanese horror seems to be all about showing that through just being human, they are fated to succumb in the end.

I think the reason I have enjoyed Japanese horror, and why I felt the need to explore what makes it appealing, is because the scariness, at the heart of it, is more existential and psychological than just scary due to the threat it could imply on the audience’s life. Maybe because of the existential nature of this terror that leads me to think maybe these classic tales of Japanese monsters, ghosts, and other creepy phenomenons are somehow connected to the terror that comes with the earthquakes, typhoons, and other natural disasters that hit Japan. Much like those classic scary tales, natural disasters can hit with no rhyme or reason (despite what some misguided people may think) and hurt people that may not even “deserve it.” Maybe those horror stories then offer a sort of escape from people’s troubles, but in a way that still relates to their real fears in life. And that, in my opinion, can be the best sort of stories.