To kick off our month-long celebration of J-Horror in all its various manifestations, Ken Haley reviews two books that are sure to be of interest to horror fans: Birthday (Vertical, Inc.), a trio of short stories involving characters from The Ring trilogy, and the aptly-named Goth: A Novel of Horror (Tokyopop). Also in this installment of The Otaku Bookshelf is a brief review of one of the season’s most anticipated art books, Takehiko Inoue’s Water (Viz).

Birthday

By Koji Suzuki, Translated by Glynne Walley
Vertical, 224 pp.

From one of the most famous Japanese horror authors around comes Birthday, an anthology of three short stories. The three stories, “Coffin in the Sky”, “Lemon Heart,” and “Birthday” are all set within in the world of The Ring saga, and all focus upon supporting characters from the previous three books. The stories serve to tie up loose ends, expand upon events hinted at in the main series and serves as a final coda to The Ring saga.

“Coffin in the Sky” and “Birthday” were both fairly good, they were gripping enough for me to blow through in a day each; “Lemon Heart” was the weak link of the three. “Coffin in the Sky” gives us a glimpse at the last painful, horrific and nightmarish hours of the life of Mai Takano, assistant to Ryuji, one of the main characters from the original Ring novel and its follow up, Spiral. It’s an intensely creepy little piece that is only briefly hinted at in Spiral and ultimately leads to a rather unpleasant end for the poor lady. Suzuki does a masterful job at painting some intensely disturbing moments in this short story and it’s easily the highlight of the book for me.

“Lemon Heart” is a melancholy tale set roughly around the events of Spiral, detailing events that occurred decades ago involving a twenty-something Sadako and the acting troupe of which she was briefly a member. Suzuki never quite goes for the horrific moments or imagery as he did with the first story, and instead we get doomed and tragic love. Unfortunately the main character, Sadako’s former lover Toyama, just isn’t compelling enough. On top of that there’s some other odd happenings that are never really fleshed out and left me wondering what the purpose to them was. Definitely the weakest of the three tales; sadly, it’s also the longest.

The final tale, “Birthday,” focuses on Reiko Sugiura, the woman from Loop who was the lover of the main character, Kaoru Futami. It deals with her coming to terms with the disappearance of Kaoru, and her discovery of just what happened to him. It’s a bit hard to go into the exact details of this story without giving away the ending of Loop and thus the entire Ring saga. Suffice to say it’s a surprisingly positive ending for a series that’s generally ended with some rather ominous portents of doom. It’s actually quite nice and rather touching and I thought it was a fantastic coda for the series.

While I really enjoyed Birthday, I really felt that it wouldn’t work as a stand-alone novel. We get some rough explanations here and there, but I’m honestly not sure if someone whose only exposure to The Ring saga was through the movies would be able to follow or enjoy the events of the stories. Hell, I’ve read all three and there were a few moments and characters that had me scrambling for the paperbacks to refresh my memory of them.

On the upside, there are no massive, head-turning events here. After the way Suzuki twisted and turned the concept inside out with Spiral and Loop, that’s probably for the best. It’s definitely a bit more character oriented, but sadly it trades off the tension and suspense of the original trilogy in the process. It’s still entertaining, and fans of Suzuki’s Ring trilogy should definitely check it out for the titular story. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a good entrance to Japanese horror novels or Suzuki’s work, this isn’t it.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Goth: A Novel of Horror

Written by Otsuichi, Translated by Andrew Cunningham
Published by Tokyo Pop, 232 pp
Rating: Older Teens (18 +)

Somewhere in Japan, two teenaged students, one male and one female, stand alone. Other members of their class talk, play sports and interact as normal teens do, but not these two. No, while the boy puts on the facade of normality, he’s empty inside, obsessed with death and bizarre killings, a hobby he keeps close to his chest. The girl, pale and in all black, stands out and is more obvious in her morbid interests. And in Goth, from writer Otsuichi, the duo gets more than their fair share of death and all things morbid.

Goth follows the two teens as they move from one bizarre encounter with a killer to another. The outlandishness of the murders and the bizarreness of the crimes vary from tale to tale, ranging from over the top murders and mutilations in the vein of MPD Psycho, to the less graphic and gory tales of being buried alive. Throughout each story Otsuichi masterfully makes use of the first person to confuse and confound the reader, moving seamlessly from one persons point of view to another’s without warning. The result is an incredibly suspenseful read that will keep you wondering if what you’re seeing is coming from the point of view of a victim, one of the teens, or a killer.

The translation is smooth and easy to read. Andrew Cunningham does a great job at keeping things simple and clear, making the stories easy and quick to read yet gripping and evocative despite the simplicity of the text. Indeed, at times the simplicity and matter of fact nature of the stories makes one feel like they’re observing the events from behind the lens of a camera, detached, cold and uncaring. It’s an effect that simply serves to heighten the inhumanity of acts that occur, adding to the repulsive nature of the murders, even if bodies aren’t being mutilated.

It almost sounds to good to be true, doesn’t it? Good, suspenseful writing, a translation that emphasizes the disturbing and cold nature of the crimes, thus adding to the horror of the tales. So what’s the bad of the book? Well, the biggest problem with Goth are the main characters. While the cold, unemotional feel of the book works to enhance the horrorible and disturbing nature of the crimes, it doesn’t do a whole lot to make one sympathetic to the leads. After all, it’s almost entirely written from a first person perspective, therefore if it’s cold and emotionless, then the characters come across as cold and emotionless. Thankfully in the last half of the book things begin to change as the female lead, Morino, gets her history expanded upon and we see her beginning to gain some semblance of humanity. Unfortunately this serves to further the sterile feeling we get the from the male lead. Still, there’s a good reason for that… but you’ll have to read the book to find out what that reason is. The whole book, including the afterword. Yes, in one of the book’s only weak points, the afterword contains information that helps explain certain aspects of the story and presents the events in a new light. It also opens up the ending to all sorts of interpretations.

Despite that flaw, Goth is a pleasantly surprising horror read which, despite the name, has nothing to do with either the Germanic tribe or the modern subculture which shares the name. Fans of horror and lighter mystery novels should definitely find something to enjoy here and, with Halloween right around the corner, hopefully plenty of other folks will give it a look too.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley

Water

By Takehiko Inoue
VIZ, 160 pp.

I find art books fiercely hard to review, as I’m not the kind of hard-core fan who usually shells out $30 for coffee table celebrations of CLAMP or Masashi Kishimoto. When I heard that Viz would be releasing Water, however, I knew it was a book I wanted in my library. Why? Simply put, Takehiko Inoue is one of the best artists working in comics, period. His graceful lines and balanced compositions suggest a modern-day take on the Shijō style, yet he’s also a superb fight choreographer, rendering his characters’ bodies in a fluid, supple fashion that suggests movement more convincingly than speedlines and sound effects could do. The images in this 160-page book are culled from Vagabond, a fictionalized account of legendary warrior Miyamoto Musashi’s life. The collection includes cover art and splash pages from the series’ twenty-eight volume run, as well as magazine covers, promotional images, and illustrations created expressly for Water. Viz has packaged the book beautifully, reproducing Inoue’s watercolors on high-quality paper stock and sheathing them in an elegant dustjacket. (The jacket reproduces a small detail from one of Inoue’s paintings, allowing us to see the delicacy of his brushwork–a nice touch.) My only criticism of the book is the dearth of information about the images–the editors provide a one-page index listing where and when each image was first published, but provide no other details (e.g. media used, characters depicted). Given the sheer beauty of the collection, however, I doubt this will bother many fans.

–Reviewed by Katherine Dacey