Week 3 respond

  I heard a lot of confusion during the class when we discuss the J-Horror. Since I am an Asian myself and I have interested in japan culture long time ago, I think I do understand a bot more about J-Horror.

  First, I think both the novel (I read A Wild Sheep Chase) and the movies we watched are not typically horror for them. In Japanese, these kind of stories are called ”怪談”. The word means a strange and weird story. It is kind of close to horror but not really. Since Japanese traditional culture believes that there are “soul” for every thing in the world, these kind of story are kept produced through out the history. There are many different kind of purpose of the story. It could a scary story for kids, it could be story that teach lesson to people. Most of these may relate to the fear and respect of the nature. And also, sometimes it may helped  Some may be connected to the moral and royal concept at the time. The book A Wild Sheep Chase are kind of a new type of ”怪談” at modern time Japan. The ungiven names for all the character in the books increase the mysterious feeling for the readers. This is another aspect of the word ”怪談” since ”談” only means a story or a talk. It should be the little story that whisper between peoples. Therefore, don't give character a name is make A Wild Sheep Chase enhance the story. Another interesting part in Japan culture that affect their movies and TV shows is they believe that no one is true evil. They believe everyone has their own reason to do something even it is a bad thing. Therefore, there is not always a bad guy or good guy in their novels or movies. The metaphor is also another interesting part I noticed in the first movie. The female character was called YUKI which means snow in Japanese. This gave viewers a lot hint and also reduce the level of horror.