Japanese an d Am erican Horror: A Comparative Study o f Film, Fiction,
Graphic Novels and Video Games.
By Katarzyna Marak. McFarland & Company, 2015.
In Japanese and American Horror, Katarzyna Marak offers an in-depth study
comparing and contrasting the horror narrative patterns of two distinct cultures - American and
Japanese. With the American public’s rising interest in Japanese horror narratives, this work
succeeds in filling a gap missing by painting a broad picture of the similarities and differences
in the depiction of fear and horror narratives in American and Japanese cultures.
A brief introduction sets the stage for the rest of Marak’s study by clearly stating the
purpose of all horror narratives - to terrify the audience. In order for this task to succeed, the
viewer of the tale needs to be aware of the underlying cultural cues that serve to invoke the
feeling of terror. This study denotes how the Japanese and Americans views of these cues can
be vastly different, leading viewers to see the same film but come away with two different
emotional responses. Marak explains that for American audiences the horror narrative relies
on an epistemological conflict (asking why or what for), whereas the Japanese horror
narratives tend to be ethical in nature (trying to find out why or what for).
The work discusses some of the most popular forms of horror by examining a plethora
of different mechanisms used in horror nar ratives, including ghosts, monsters, monstrosities,
the divine and the unholy. In the first section, Ghosts, Marak explains how these creatures
evoke fear in the characters of ghost narratives by depicting the interruption of the dead past
into the living present. While this phenomenon is ultimately what evokes terror in the audience,
there exist major differences between the American and Japanese cultural framework with
regard to ghosts. For Americans, ghosts are not seen as an everyday reality; for the Japanese,
the dead live near the world of the living and actually exist close enough to visit family
members during a certain season. While both cultures believe in the idea of the dead being
able to return and interact with the living, the reason for a haunting may vary according to each
nation’s cultural framework.
Fans of zombie narratives will appreciate the second section of Marak’s study,
Monsters and Monstrosities, which comprises the longest section of the work and covers the
most ground, discussing the monstrous predator, vampires, werewolves, monstrosities, and
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