Koji Suzuki Ring Books

[Hasan Fogg]

KojiSuzuki's fifth foray into the world of The Ring may have his readers divided. On one end, S continues the tale with the same amount of eeriness that made Sadako a household name with horror fans. However its means of pacing leads towards more complicated questions being presented with only simple, unsatisfying answers given to them.

Taking place years after the events of Ring and Spiral, S places its focus on a young couple whose world is turned upside-down via an unexpected pregnancy. The father-to-be Takanori is in the midst of studying a peculiar suicide tape for his production company, whereas the soon-to-be mother Akane is getting a strange feeling that someone's watching her whilst she teaches at school. When Akane accidentally views the tape, it opens a can of worms involving her past and attempted murder, whilst Takanori discovers new things about his own upbringing that have him begin questioning his own existence.

What makes Suzuki a great storyteller is his means of painting a scene with such vivid imagery. What Junji Ito does with drawings, Suzuki accomplishes with mere words. How a purple carpet feels, the look of a hairy mole, the grotesque vibe of a mysterious man tailing the frightened Akane, and even something so simple as a child's drawing of a snake swallowing something too big for its body is all presented with sweat-inducing uncomfortableness. Even the descriptions of the infamous well and its surroundings brings a level of unnerving tension, as if it's capturing the reader once more into its haunting trap.

As for the story S is conveying, that is where it can stumble a little bit. Suzuki does a wonderful job presenting his world, but not much seems to happen that jumps out to shake the reader's core. Where Ring was more about an unsettling horror, S leans more into the realm of mystery, in a similar way a classic detective tale is told. However the problem is that the secrets behind the suicide tape, Akane's connection to the murders from many years back, and Takanori's fuzzy childhood memory seem to conclude way too quickly and conveniently.

The imagery of S brings forth a level of creepiness and unsettling emotions that stay long after you've read it. Storytelling-wise, Suzuki tries his damnedest to stuff enough tension to keep his audience enticed, only to provide a fairy tale-like conclusion with its ending. Those looking for a nonstop train ride of uneasiness will sadly be disappointed, whereas those looking for some sort of closure to Sadako's haunting story may find themselves somewhat satisfied.

However, while it can disappoint a bit, S is still a very entertaining read. Although not his strongest work, Suzuki still manages to create a level of tension in his words like no other writer in Japan. Nevertheless, fans of the original books or film adaptations will probably be looking at this novel with a very half-full/half-empty mentality when it comes to its presentation in general. Even if it doesn't shake you to your core, S will still find ways to make you squirm in your seat, like a snake seeking shelter from a predator waiting above.

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Through various investigative machinations, Ryuji and Asakawa deduce that the cursed tape was created by a woman named Sadako Yamamura, the technopathic daughter of a disgraced psychic named Shizuko Yamamura. The senior Yamamura maiden threw herself into a volcano after a cabal of journalists claimed to have debunked her mystical powers.

Overcome by what he perceived to be an inexplicable darkness, the doctor pushes the newly infected Sadako into the well, where she dies of starvation and illness (Asakawa believes Sadako to be the last smallpox patient in Japan) seven days later.

Asakawa and Ryuji believe that to lift the curse of Sadako they must lay her bones to rest back on the island where she was raised. They climb into the well, find her corpse, and transport it back to the base of the volcano where her mother perished for a proper burial. 7 days after he viewed the tape, Asakawa remains alive. The curse, he believed, had been lifted by his good deed.

The pathological logic of transphobic murders has not thoroughly been investigated by psychoanalytic thinkers, but is more than familiar to the LGBTQ+ community in the United States, where the murders of (Black) transgender sex workers are tragically commonplace.

American Japanophiles have recently become aggressive about calling attention to the various ways that queer subtexts or storylines in Japanese media are completely eradicated when adapted for non-Japanese audiences. The history of Western adaptations of Japanese animation is filled with romantic partners turned into \u201Ccousins\u201D and love turned into \u201Cgrace.\u201D A backlash is only just now emerging around this kind of systematic erasure in anime, but considering the West\u2019s extremely limited (and often distortedly fetishistic) views of Japanese media, I can\u2019t help but wonder: where else do queer plots exist that Americans simply haven\u2019t seen?

Nakata\u2019s film is not an original either, meaning that what Americans know about the story of Samara Morgan is itself a copy of a copy: the original \\\"Ring\u201D was written by novelist Koji Suzuki, who many (either pejoratively or respectfully) describe as the Stephen King of Japan. Suzuki\u2019s \u201CRing,\u201D originally published in 1991, is the first of six books that explore the pan-global fallout from the discovery of a cursed videotape. The grand irony of \u201CRing,\u201D that it compels endless copies of an original \u2014 each spreading the twisted message of it\u2019s source material further and further \u2014 is critical here.

Koji Suzuki\u2019s \u201CRing\u201D begins with Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist haunted by the memories of his failed investigations into various supernatural phenomenon. Asakawa happens upon the infamous cursed tape while looking into the simultaneous and inexplicable deaths of four teenagers.

Unlike in the filmic adaptations, the cursed tape in the novel instructs the viewer precisely how not to die as a result of seeing its bedeviled material. The following text appears on Asakawa\u2019s TV screen right after he views a series of confounding images \u2014 but there\u2019s a catch.

Asakawa gulped and stared wide-eyed at the television. But the scene changed yet again. A complete and utter change. A commercial came on, a perfectly ordinary, common television commercial. A romantic old neighborhood on a summer\u2019s evening, an actress in a light cotton robe sitting on a verandah, fireworks lighting up the sky. A commercial for mosquito-repelling coils. After about thirty seconds the commercial ended, and just as another scene was about to start, the screen returned to its previous state. Darkness, with the last afterglow of faded words. Then, the sound of static as the tape ended.\u201D

Asakawa enlists the help of his childhood friend, Ry\u016Bji Takayama, a philosophy professor preoccupied with the apocalypse. Asakawa needs Ryuji\u2019s knowledge of other worlds to help untangle this mystery, but Asakawa remains dubious of Ryuji\u2019s intentions after remembering an episode from their youth during which Ryuji admitted to sneaking into the house of a female classmate\u2019s, brutally raping her, then fleeing into the night. Asakawa makes Ryuji a copy of the tape so he can see it for himself \u2014 Ryuji watches it, entirely unbothered by its haunted promise. Meanwhile, Asakawa\u2019s wife and child accidentally view the tape as well. Now, the lives of Asakawa\u2019s dearest loved ones are at stake.

The imagery of the video tape itself was not captured by a camera but are instead the direct imprinting of Sadako\u2019s memories onto a VHS. The ghoulish visions had emanated from the well in which Sadako had become entombed, beamed psionically from her mind onto a nearby television screen and captured \u2014 through pure happenstance \u2014 by a guest at the hotel erected atop her final resting place.

In the original text, the well in which Sadako meets her end was originally located on a hospital ground that was later converted into a luxury campsite. Sadako, who had inherited powers beyond that of her mother\u2019s, had fallen ill. A doctor who had concealed his contraction of smallpox from his colleagues was tasked with treating her. One day, he was overcome by his beautiful patient\u2019s nubile body. He took the sickly girl to the woods and viciously raped her.

\u201CThen I looked down again,\u201D the doctor tells Asakawa. \u201CWithin her pubic mound, covered with hair, was a pair of perfectly developed testicles \u2026 Sadako was still staring at me. I was probably the first person outside her family to discover the secret of her body. Needless to say, she had been a virgin up until a few minutes ago. It had been a necessary trial if she were to go on living as a woman. I was trying to rationalize my actions. Then, suddenly, words flew into my head.

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