There are certain minute differences (although many huge ones) that attract me to Japan, and those are very apparent while reading Haruki Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase.
Horror literature/genre I feel represents so much about a culture. It is a representation of what a certain nation or group of people consider terrifying; something that actually is supposed to scare them. That means that inside one story, there has to be relatable elements that bring about a fearful/excited reaction deep within our brain.
What I find to be amazing/different about Japanese horror and A Wild Sheep Chase is the larger emphasis on the physical existence of spirits. In western culture, ghosts are usually only whispers of reality. They don't exist and that is why we consider them scary; because they are fragments of what is physical in this world.
We put ghosts and monsters into one category, but it seems in Japan that this line is somewhat blurred.
Also, I feel the idea of terror in terms of the genre seems more about the experience of being frightened, instead of seeing something scary. The scary elements in these Japanese horror stories are very subdued in comparison to their gory western counterparts.
So a sheep is scary? I feel like that takes more effort. And we all love effort.
Horror literature/genre I feel represents so much about a culture. It is a representation of what a certain nation or group of people consider terrifying; something that actually is supposed to scare them. That means that inside one story, there has to be relatable elements that bring about a fearful/excited reaction deep within our brain.
What I find to be amazing/different about Japanese horror and A Wild Sheep Chase is the larger emphasis on the physical existence of spirits. In western culture, ghosts are usually only whispers of reality. They don't exist and that is why we consider them scary; because they are fragments of what is physical in this world.
We put ghosts and monsters into one category, but it seems in Japan that this line is somewhat blurred.
Also, I feel the idea of terror in terms of the genre seems more about the experience of being frightened, instead of seeing something scary. The scary elements in these Japanese horror stories are very subdued in comparison to their gory western counterparts.
So a sheep is scary? I feel like that takes more effort. And we all love effort.
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