Talk:Japanese horror

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 20 August 2019 and 15 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): SRAShakur.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Hair ???

What is the role of Hair as it is seen in many japanese horror movies like The Ring or EXTE ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.39.159.81 (talk) 22:38, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

There are many debates, but no one really knows. What most do agree on are these two things: a) There's a superstition that a woman's hair continues to grow after death, and b) Loose hair is also heavily associated with uncontrollable or loose morals (such as having the freedom to kill, harm, maim or whatnot). Longer her hair, more dangerous or uncontrollable she is, and harder to kill her. 0zero9nine (talk) 20:03, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Term

I wonder if the term J-Horror is decent. By applying the same logic shouldn't there be I-Horror for Italian horror and U-Horror for USA horror (or rather H-Horror for Hollywood)?

The author Jay McRoy(2007) claims that the abbreviation "J-horror" is a reference to the collection of films by Tsuruta Norio. He notes that Norio's films focused on atmospheric tension and psychological intensity of gore-based horror. I believe this term should apply only to horror films and not the other forms of Japanese horror. Camacphee (talk) 04:09, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

The article should have at least mention of video games related to the theme.

It is decent, and your logic also makes sense, but that's not really how it works. This term was created based on general agreements. It was decided to use such a term because of the recent wave of Japanese horror productions that became famous worldwide because of their specific features. Hence, those movies are now notorious. There is nothing really notable about Italian horror movies nowadays. Less even American ones, that have always been out there and everybody is already used to them. That's why nobody sees the need to create such terms you mentioned. You see, it's all about demand. If there isn't something like that, we can't really create it for no reason.

Now I haven't seen the term "J-horror" referring to video games. It does make sense, but I'm yet to see it being used that way. You can check Survival horror game for something similar to this.--Kaonashi 00:17, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah ok. I put a section in for J-Horror and videogames before i read this page as a note. There is certainly reason for a section as there do exist games that classify as J-horror e.g. Forbidden Siren 2 there's just little info on them. I tidied the page up a bit but it could probably be changed around again. Think of it as a test drive. --Savre 02:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Page and associated category renamed to Japanese horror. — Hex (❝?!❞) 19:27, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Is this article really necessary

The value of this article seems to be more about legitimizing the term and/or taking a shot at American horror while providing a handful of relatively discombobulated topics. I'm big on horror movies and Japanese culture and this is really the first time I've ever heard the term "J Horror". I'd say that, at most, this should be part of a larger article, like Horror Film, though I'm guessing the original author thought Japanese horror was too unique or important to be grouped into a category. --Col.clawhammer 09:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Although this article isn't all that well-written, J-Horror is obviously an article worthy of inclusion. A quick google search would reveal that. MightyAtom 02:12, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Resident evil

First i want to thankyou for the article, it is really necessary and i don't agree with those who say it isn't. I've searched this article with the fear of not finding it and i was really happy seeing that someone created an article of J-horror. By the way i entered this section only to recuest resident evil for being erased of the j-horror inspired video games because is not of the genre, please post back. --Starlingmaximilian (talk) 22:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Resident evil.

Due to a lack of responce of your part i erased resident evil from the list by myself.--Starlingmaximilian (talk) 21:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You need to say why. Savre (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 23:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

because it lacks the psicological aspect and suspense mainly present in j-horror, resident evil is just an action game with zombies as enemies and some puzzles, i see you added F.E.A.R. as well, i didn't played that game but i doubt it belongs to de genre (i only played the first "stage")

What ever, i don't really care about F.E.A.R. but i'm absolutly sure (i played every single game) that biohazard is not a j-horror game, i was surprised to see it in the list when you very acuratedly put silent hill, forbiden siren and fatal frame. So please remove it.

Inadequate content

This is not a proper article about Japanese horror cinema, since it is entirely concerned with recent Japanese horror movies of interest to current American audiences. There is no section on horror cinema in Japan from the 1930s on, and does address films like Kwaidan, Ugetsu Monogatari or Onibaba, or any of their directors.

These article should be replaced with a larger article entitled "Japanese Horror Cinema". J-Horror is really just a western marketing term for a handful of recent films.Hwhitbread (talk) 19:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

• OK. Go ahead! MightyAtom (talk) 02:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
• Yea. Do it. Savre (talk) 05:08, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't have any say being unregistered, but I think calling things with a J is just silly. What about G movies instead of German movies or C Movies instead of Chinese movies? I think Japanese Horror Cinema is a better title. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.192.208.247 (talk) 16:03, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

You might find it silly, but that is what its called, even in Japan. The term is pretty common for things Japanese, and used for things like j-pop, j-girls, etc...MightyAtom (talk) 03:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but not all individual terminology is suitable for an article; for example, you can call a sub sandwhich a hero, grinder, hoagie, etc., but they all are grouped under "submarine sandwich". I think listing it under "Japanese Horror Cinema" would be more appopriate, unless there really is something that sets these movies apart from the rest of Japanese Horror aside from their labeling. --Col.clawhammer (talk) 15:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Although, when I was writing this I was not familiar with J-Horror Theater. I was, however, a little suspicious that neither this entry, nor the other, has a Japanese page which we could use to reference. I still don't know if I think this is a notable enough topic to warrant an entry, but maybe with a little clean up it could be a good article. As it stands now I feel it needs rewriting.--Col.clawhammer (talk) 04:10, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, the term is commonly used in Japan. But the article definitely needs to be improved. I look forward to seeing your additions! MightyAtom (talk) 23:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

So is somebody going to finally more of the history on Japanese horror films? If so, count me in. I love Jigoku and Kwaidan. Yojimbo501 (talk) 21:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

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Water

In addition to hair, I have noticed that water often plays an important part in Japanese horror films, in fact, frequently in combination (eg hair in a glass of water or great quantities of hair and/or water pouring out of someone's mouth). It would be most illuminating if someone could explain why water (and hair) play such big horror roles in the Japanese psyche; ie, is there some sort of cultural tradition that it comes from or is it some sort of locational cause (Japan being an island), etc? Synetech (talk) 03:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Water does play a huge part in most part of Japanese culture, literally and figuratively. It's a means to wash away the dirt, the sins and the shame to purify ourselves. When we bathe, we wash ourselves first, then get into the bath so that the dirt (literally) wouldn't be *in* water with ourselves in it. When we die, we expect our relatives to wash our bodies before we're buried or cremated, because the earth itself is 'pure' (the sea, the earth, the sky and other parts of the nature are the base of Shintoism) and we shouldn't pollute the earth with our dirty bodies.

We no longer think about this kind of thing now, though. But it's still and probably will always be there in the background of our national conscious. Like, we say 'bless you' when someone sneezes, and most of us don't know why we say it. It's like that with the importance of water and washing in our everyday life.

That said, long hair after death is associated with pain, evil, malice and/or fear. There's a belief that hair continues to grow after death. Longer the hair, more uncontrollable/amoral/evil/malicious the spirit will be, harder for one to kill the spirit.

So, mixing hair with water offers two popular interpretations: a) the spirit demands justice or/and b) the spirit is so doomed, evil, malicious or utterly unredeemable that it cannot - via its hair - be cleaned/saved when in water. It's like seeing an evil vampire dressed in a priest's flock while holding a crucifix, I guess? Hope this helps. 0zero9nine (talk) 22:19, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Subject

I'm a little confused as to what this article is about exactly. It seems to about horror in Japan, regardless of its format, but then most of the material is on film. Can someone clarify? Juniper4589 (talk) 12:02, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

The "Notable films" section is a mess

What are gorefests such as Tokyo Gore Police, Naked Blood or the Guinea Pig series doing in the list? A fantasy movie like Tokyo: The Last Megalopolis? Eko Eko Azarak? Tetsuo the iron man???

They are clearly not a representation of what's being discussed in the article. It seems as if at some point someone started dumping everything they could think of into the list with no further consideration. There's also the token old films which make it even more confusing. Surely if the intent is talking about horror cinema produced in Japan in the broadest sense, there has to be more than a couple Onibabas and Kaidans next to scores of '00s productions.

This needs to be either an all-encompassing Japanese horror article, or an article about the Ringu/Ju-on phenomenon, the production inspired by their success during the decade that followed, and the cultural impact it had worldwide. Right now it has a clear lack of focus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.216.219.41 (talk) 09:29, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

This article should be renamed "Japanese Horror Films" or "J-Horror Films"

As this article is not representative of a general approach to the description of japanese horror in general and is therefore an article about Japanese horror in film. As the large majority of content is film it should then be renamed as such immediately. 俺はバカ (talk) 07:48, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe this is an accurate summation of this articles current content and a good suggestion . There is little or no reference to Japanese horror in other formats, like folklore and writing.Camacphee (talk) 20:43, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Notable films

The notable films section needs purging. What makes the film notable/important? Its slowly just becoming a list of popular or psuedo popular films or old ones that have weak wiki articles. I'm proposing removing this section for now. Andrzejbanas (talk) 17:55, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

New Sections Planned to Enhance Article

Hello Everyone! For a class project, I have chosen to work on this article, and I mainly want to focus on the origins of Japanese horror and how the genre evolved over time. I plan to flesh out the origins section on this Wikipedia article and add an Evolution of the Genre section. In addition, there may be some information in the article that is not properly cited, so I want to either fix the citations or remove information that does not have a citation to back it up.

Here are the sources I plan to use to add new information:

Source #1: Introduction to Japanese Horror Film by Colette Balmain Balmain, Colette. Introduction to Japanese Horror Film, Edinburgh University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utah/detail.action?docID=380399.

This book discusses the origins of Japanese horror and the different elements that were added to films during different periods of Japanese history i.e how horror changed after the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Specifically, in 1853 when Japan opened its borders and became more connected with the Western world, we begin to see elements of Western culture weaved into the Japanese horror genre.[1] Not only this, but Japanese popular culture spread throughout the West, so there was a mutual intake of each other's cultures that impacted novels and films that were being produced.[2] The book goes on to explain how the first Japanese film ever screened in Japan was shown to the upperclassman and elites of society.[3]

From going over this source, I would like to use it for the origins of Japanese horror cinema and not the horror genre in general. This book only focuses on film so I will use it to go over that aspect of the origins.

Source #2: Horror to the extreme: changing boundaries in Asian cinema by Jinhee Choi and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano Choi, Jinhee, and Mitsuyo Wada-Marciano. Horror to the Extreme: Changing Boundaries in Asian Cinema, Hong Kong University Press, 2009. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utah/detail.action?docID=677322.

This source also goes over the evolution of horror in Asian cinema and also discusses Japan in particular. I plan to use this source when discussing how the genre has changed over time, similar to source #1, which will add more detail to this section.

Source #3 Anime and its roots in early Japanese monster art by Zilia Papp Papp, Zilia. Anime and Its Roots in Early Japanese Monster Art, BRILL, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/utah/detail.action?docID=771981.

This book discusses the early depictions of Japanese monsters(Yokai) and how the art from the folklore made its way into anime. I would like to use this source to enhance the origins section and information in the book can be used for the evolution of the genre section as well.

Source #4: Traditional monster imagery in manga, anime and Japanese cinema by Zilia Papp

This source is authored by the same person who wrote source #3, and this will also show how traditional elements are added into current horror manga/films, allowing me to add more depth to the evolution section.

So far, these are the four sources I plan to use, but if I need more information to add more clarity/depth to the section, I will research more materials to fill the gaps.

Let me know what you think about this, or if you know any sources to look over! Thanks! SRAShakur (talk) 22:19, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Influence section needs rework

Hello everyone!

After reading through the influence section, I feel it needs some reworking. Right now, it only has remakes of popular Japanese horror films with minimum citations, but I feel this section would have more impact if we added why Japanese horror is important and how it influenced media outside of Japan. Rather than just discussing remakes. Let me know what you guys think and if you know of any sources that will help flesh out this section! I think we may have to remove what was put and rewrite it. SRAShakur (talk) 23:10, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Information Literacy and Scholarly Discourse

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 June 2022 and 29 July 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Camacphee (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Madalynbr.

— Assignment last updated by Atufail (talk) 01:06, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

New Edits Planned

Hello, I'm going to add some elements about art, literature and manga. Also, I'm going to add a note about "J-horror" Camacphee (talk) 01:44, 28 July 2022 (UTC)