Asian Literature
First published in May 1949, Wacky Magazine was devised as a more lighthearted spinoff to the popular kasutori magazine Mysterious Magazine. Whilst Mysterious Magazine focused on fairly explicit topics, Wacky Magazine took a more surreal approach to content though still maintained the same air of casual eroticism. Each issue of Wacky Magazine begins with a short illustrated
Today, we will be discussing a holy grail of mine for some time. Being one of my favourite Japanese horror films (and something I refuse to shut up about), Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies (2001) is an incredible reimagining of the zombie genre, full of both excessive carnage and atypical storytelling to create a
Book-to-film adaptations often get a bad rap. It’s rare for them to truly satisfy the audience, and they hardly ever live up to the expectations of the fans of the original material. When it comes to Japanese works adapted by Western directors, the situation usually takes a nosedive. They tend to prioritize making the content
Yami-hara – an abbreviation of yami harassment. Yami harassment is a compound of yami (darkness) and harassment; unwelcome conduct toward a person stemming from darkness in one’s own mind or heart. Applies to any action that threatens or violates the dignity of another person, regardless of intent or awareness. Yami-Hara is a 2023 horror mystery
Fox Tales (Kitsune no Hanashi) is a Japanese compendium of short horror stories: “Fox Tales”, “The Dragon in the Fruit”, “Phantom”, and “The Water God” penned from the mind of Tomihiko Morimi and published in English by Yen Press. Morimi is most notable as the author of The Eccentric Family, Penguin Highway, The Night is
Paraphrasing the words of a certain author, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a book will be almost always better than its movie adaptation. Yes, almost always because, despite the clear propensity of the written source being much more interesting and developed, sometimes flukes happen and the movie is indeed superior. That is why
Have you heard about body modification? This practice involves the deliberate altering of the human anatomy or physical appearance. The extent of it varies on who you ask. However, in the mainstream world, these modifications usually consider implants, tattoos, piercings, and tongue splitting. The latter is precisely the catalyst for Hitomi Kanehara’s novel Snakes and
People tend to underestimate just how unsettling reading horror can be. Granted, there are no images or music, but sometimes the brain fills in the blanks all too well and some stories just won’t leave you after finishing them. If said stories come from Japan, you bet they will haunt you because they have a
Following WWII, there would be a shortage of decent alcohol and before long bootleg, shochu liquor, referred to as kasutori (effectively Japanese moonshine) began to circulate. Being made from whatever ingredients people could scrape together, sometimes even toxic chemicals, kasutori alcohol soon developed an extremely poor reputation in society, with widespread cases of blindness and
Co-Author Lisa Lebel The term dissociation, coined by French psychologist Pierre Janet, is defined as an “involuntary escape from reality characterized by a disconnection between thoughts, identity, consciousness and memory.” It is now believed that any person, regardless of race, age, and gender can experience dissociation, but this was not always so. Janet argued that dissociation