J horror: audition and Wild sheep chase.

J horror is something I liked before going into this genre. I had read the Ring (ringu) in novel and graphic novel form before this class, as well as seen the original japanese version of the grudge (Ju-on) and I have previously seen the Audition as well. All of which are personal favorites of mine.

A wild sheep chase was an interesting book to say the least. I was surprised that the book didn't contain a japanese girl drowned in a well or some other body of water (following the pattern of J horror) I though that the narrative was hard to follow. The randomness of the quest that the unnamed main character went on was still intriguing to say the least. I didn't really feel it was horror though, more mystery related as the man goes on the hunt for this starred sheep. I did feel that the overall tone that the plot had was eerie, but not something I would classify as horror. I thought that the main character diving deep into his own personal demons was something that could be psychologically scary but not similar to the horror seen in J horror films. I've seen a lot of japanese anime before and reading this with such previous experience, I couldn't help but picture the sheep man as a cheesy japanese animated cosplay character. that is immediately what I thought of when his character was introduced. I feel as though that the overlaying themes of japanese culture were well implied in the story. I also noticed that the book had english literary themes with japanese overtones and themes from shinto religion. I thought the book was overall weird yet exciting. it yielded a nice world of fantasy that was fun to explore at times.

IMO, the only good part of audition was the ending where the father is tortured. the rest was painful build up to a semi satisfying gore scene that I feel J horror is well known for.