Kwaidan (5 points)

 

            Kwaidan is an interesting collection of stories because, at least to me, none of them were really scary. Sure, there were some moments that were unsettling and some that were surprising, but I rarely felt tense and never scared. As a matter of fact, the construction of some of these stories felt like jokes. Granted, that could be said for a lot of horror as horror and comedy share a lot of DNA (the subversion of expectations, the reliance on set-up to make a punchline/scare effective, and many more elements), but there are moments where something happens that seems like it should be scary comes off more as funny. For example, “The Story of Mimi-Nashi-Höichi” has a tense scene where a ghost is trying to take Höichi but cannot see him because he’s covered in holy texts. However, his ears weren’t covered, so the ghost rips off his ears and leaves. The story basically ends with the priest saying, “oopsies, that sucks!” and then the story spread and Höichi became famous, the end.

 

“Oshidori” had an ending that actually made me laugh out loud. In the story, the protagonist, Sonjō, killed an ate a sacred bird (the titular oshidori). The female oshidori that witnessed the killing appeared to him in a dream as a grieving woman. At this point I was taking it seriously; it felt like a standard folk tale that warned against going against religion. But then, the next day, Soniō went back to the lake and saw the female bird tear open her own body right before his eyes. The story ends with a single sentence: “Sonjō shaved his head, and became a priest.” That sentence feels like a punchline to a joke. Thematically I get what it’s conveying, but in execution it comes off like the end of an extended stand-up bit where the comedian sees something scary or abnormal and goes to church. Even more so, it comes off like someone commenting on a weird post online with something like, “this post made me go to Church.”

 

 Aside from the actual structure of these stories, the cultural and generational divide makes it difficult for me to become invested in some of these stories. A lot of these stories have characters who are rewarded for following rules and punished for not. As much as that makes sense, there’s a part of me that struggles to feel comfortable saying that, and I believe that’s mainly because of the media I tend to consume. In America, we tend to romanticize the idea of rebellion and ignoring the rules to do what’s right (ironically, that’s sometimes used to trick us into obeying the rules, but that’s a whole other thing). A lot of these stories feel like the exact opposite of what I’ve been taught to believe, which is basically that sometimes you need to break the rules to do the right thing.

 

As much as I wrote about struggling to connect with and take some of these stories seriously, I do respect these texts a lot and I respect the painstaking work that went into translating so many stories. That does make me wonder if, perhaps, some of the impact was lost in translation. The writing itself is very dry and straightforward; there isn’t much atmosphere or tone conveyed in these stories. The stories rely more on imagery and relaying events verbatim, and I wonder if that comes from the way it was translated or if that’s how these stories were originally written. If they were like this in Japanese as well, then maybe these stories would shine when spoken aloud by a narrator who adds the mood in their delivery.