SFWJ : The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of
Japan. The SFWJ is a large organization
of science fiction, fantasy and horror writers and critics, founded in Tokyo in
1963. It sponsor the Nihon SF Taisho
Award.
Sadism : The sadistic pleasure derived from pain is present, on a small scale, in every human being. The Asian propensity for sadism is largely overblown by Western propagandists, but the descriptions of Chinese bureaucratic torture over the centuries reinforces this obnoxious myth of sadistic, bloodthirsty Asians. Though many horror critics overlook it, fear is physiologically similar to pain to somatic reaction and often horror culture has a sadistic element in it.
Western writers usually exaggerate Asian sadism. Mirbeau's The Torture Carden is a catalog of Chinese cruelty that far exceeds the Asian imagination or capacity for such things. From Weird Tales magazine of December 1928, George Fielding Eliot's "The Copper Bowl" has a hideous torture. A Chinese warlord has rats placed on the victim's stomach and covers them with a heated copper bowl with revolting results.
One classic example common to China, Korea and Japan is “The Soul of the Great Bell” tale. This tale of filial piety describes a young maiden’s bodily sacrifice, willing or unwilling, in a crucible of molten metal. The Buddhist Hell , and probably other hells, punish sinners in lakes of molten metal. The fear and suffering the young girl is extreme and sadistically gratifying. Some versions of the tale contain the horrid detail that no trace of the girl is visible in the bell cast from the molten metal. This counter-irritant has the effect of evoking the ghastly image of the girl’s limbs, or more like her bones, enmeshed in the bell.
Human flesh conjoined with metal is common sadistic horror motif in film. Almost any David Cronenberg film could be an example, but more striking is the Japanese short film, Tetuso: The Iron Man. The idea of metal piercing skin is a sadistic component that connects horror culture to body piercings. The books and derivative films of Clive Barker are textbook studies of this connection.
Another sadistic tale available in English is Akutagawa's "The Hell Screen." It involves an artist's uncompromising desire to depict horror from real life. Like the bell story, it climaxes with burning a beautiful young woman.
Saito, Kōji : Japanese manga creator. He did the comic adaptation of a Cthulhu mythos tale by Kikuchi Hideyuki.
Sakakibara, Masahiko : Japanese horror writer/editor? Nihon no kaidan (Japan’s Ghost Stories, 1974).
Sakura, Mizuki : Japanese horror manga creator. He adapted Zealia Bishop’s “Medusa’s Coils” as “Medusa’s Curse.”
Saliva : Human saliva can destroy Chinese ghosts, a instance of the positive yang life-force snuffing out the negative yin spirit.
Sano, Fumio : Japanese author. He wrote the Cthulhu mythos tale Cloudy Hole.
Santō, Kyōden : Pseudonym of novelist Iwase Sei (1761-1816) Before he became a writer, he was a tobacconist and for this reason his picture appears in the Tobacco and Salt Museum in Tokyo. His first works were pornographic but after a police prosecution in 1791 he turned to gothic horror. W.G. Aston considered him the founder of modern Japanese writing and superior to his much more famous pupil, Bakin, author of the Hakkenden.
Abandoning traditional themes, Santō’s sensational novels were entirely imaginary, full of demons, witchcraft, ghosts, supernatural events, murder, and torture. In A History of Japanese Literature, Aston translates a passage from Honchô Suibodai describing a night in a graveyard. Taking place in the 15th century, the passage describes grave markers overgrown with moss, bleached bones, and the spirits of an evil noblewoman and her retainers in the best of Gothic traditions.
Santō’s greatest work, Inatsume Hiōshi, a revenge tale, has a plot too complex to summarize but has enough weird thrills to fill a 300 page novel. Typical chapter titles are “The Witchcraft of the Venomous Rats” and “The Drum of Hell.” It is a parade of demons of smallpox and suicide, beautiful women, fortune tellers, witches, and torturers.
Santō used his huge range of language and suggestive powers to convey an eerie atmosphere. For example, he described exotic flowers blooming in the moonlight. He used their technical names, which made Aston remark about the difficulties of being a translator. It’s also questionable whether the “piping of insects” has the same evocative power in English as it does in Japanese.
(Note: Aston seems to have reversed Santō’s family name and given name. Though it is a pseudonym, Santō is his “family” name.)
Cassell’s Encyclopedia of World Literature agrees with Aston that Santō “is the first modern Japanese novelist.” It says “his plots were usually exciting, sensational and closely-packed” but his writing style was “straight-forward and clear.” It does not mention his use of Gothic horror, paralleling Western literature at the time. Surely he had no knowledge of Walpole and his successors, so gothicism must have been in the air all over the world, even in Japan in the 1790’s. (Aston, Cassell)
Blyth claims that the most famous ghost novel is Santō’s Fukushu Kidan Asaka no Numa (The Ghost’s Revenge at Asaka no Numa, 1803). He provides no details but then makes his notorious claim that ghost stories were banned in 1808, possibly of a result of Santō’s popularity.
Sanyuutei, Enchō : See Enchō.
Sasa, Nanae : Japanese horror manga creator (f).
Satō, Haruo : Japanese mystery writer (1892-1964). While primarily writing about murder, Martins-Janeira praises Satō’s use of atmosphere, what Lovecraft called the sine qua non of horror literature. Martins-Janeira wrote that Satō’s stories “show a skillful execution of fantastic atmosphere and suspense, but with charming lyric tones and Freudian influence.”
Also a fine poet, he is best known for two collections of
his mystery short stories, Supein inu no ie (House of the Spanish Dog, 1916)
and Uin no satsujin yogisha (Sudden Murder in Vienna).
Satō, Ichiju : Japanese horror writer. Author of Purutonium to hangetsu (Plutonium and the Half Moon, 2000). This horror novel is about nuclear waste, murder and the horrid effects of radioactive contamination.. His books exude pain and graphically describe realistic horror situations, such as a car door severing a human foot.
His book, D-Bridge Tape, won the 1997 Horror Grand Prize for a story compilation. The D-Bridge is another name for the Yokohama Bay Bridge where the D could mean Dump, Dust or Dream. It is the story of a boy abandoned at the age of 5 or 6 in the dump by the bridge, how he lives off the dump, eating weeds and insects. His foot is crushed in an automobile accident on the bridge and his corpse is discarded. Despite its morbid subject, it is a moving book that exceeds the standard discovery plot common to horror books.
Sekawa, Kotobi : Japanese horror novelist. Author of O-Soshiki (The Funeral).
Sena, Hideaki :
Japanese author of Parasite Eve when he was
only 27, a biological horror
novel. Winner of the 1995 Kadokawa
Horror Novel Grand Prize. The movie is
just closer to the story of the book than the game. Nagashima Seimi wife of Toshiaki and latest host of the
mitochrondria virus yearning to be set.
Sennin : A sennin is a mountain recluse: one who withdraws from society for spiritual reasons. For this, they are associated with magical arts and are often considered immortal. Akutagawa wrote a short fantasy called “The Sennin” about a man who wished to be one so badly that human treachery could not stop him.
Senzo kuzo : Traditional Japanese memorial service for the dead. In supernatural literature, this is useful for pacifying restless spirits.
Serial Experiments Lain : An oustanding horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet. Konaka Chiaki was scenario writer and story editor for the entire 13 episode series.
Lain is a 13 year-old school girl who receives email from a classmate who recently committed suicide, an modern update of supernatural lore of communication with the dead. Her dead classmate exists in the Wired, an all pervasive cyberspace where bodiless entities exist as pure data.
As the story unfolds, Lain discovers that life is nothing what it appears to be on the surface. Her origins and the social surroundings of family, school and friends are layer of reality that grows threadbare but the end of the 13 episode series.
Lain experiences many horrifying apparitions. She hands mysterious emit smoke, bloods forms pools in the shadows, horrible children appear and disappear. She experiences a girl’s accidental death in a train accident, a source of much 20th century ghostly lore, especially in Tokyo where SEL takes.
Sexual predator : The male counterpart pf the femme fatale. In the classic novel, Nanso Satomi Hakkenden (The Eight Dog Warriors), the monster at Mt. Koshin goes on gynocidic rampage. Taking the form of a brave samurai, Akaiwa Taketo, he deceives Akaiwa’s wife into bearing him a child and she dies drained of energy in her twenties. Then, the monster in samurai form kills and sickens a series of prostitutes. Finally, he marries Funamushi, a woman so wicked that two get along well together. This shapeshifter is the opposite of the femme fatale, a creature of vampiric power who can destroy a chain of women.
Shadow puppets : Asian precursor of animation. The relevance to horror is that according to legend, the first shadow puppet was a false ghost. Emperor Wu Ti of the Han Dynasty wished to see his favorite but deceased concubine so much that he made his necromancer, Shao Weng, conjure her spirit. Weng cleverly deceived the Emperor with the silhouette of a cut-out figure cast against silk. This became a popular form of entertainment that spread throughout Asia.
Shen : Chinese ghost appearing in occult lore. It is the positive or yang part of the soul, the counterpart of kuei, the part that produces the walking dead or vampires. While the kuei remains with the dead body or dissipates into the ground, the shen travels into the spirit world, provided the proper preparations were made at the time death.
Shen, Chi-chi : Chinese Tang Dynasty author, active in the late half of the 8th century. Noted for the tales “The Pillow” and “Miss Jen”. The latter was a fox fairy who bewitched men with her beauty, though she sometimes she has to obscure her fox tail with a fan to maintain her human appearance. Her fox nature was her downfall for she died a vixen’s death.
Shen Hsien Chuan : Also know as Accounts of the Immortals, this is a collection of Chinese supernatural tales by Keh Hung (232-300), of which a few survive.today.
Shibata, Renzaburo :
(b. 1917) Japanese author of Kaidan ruigafuchi (serialized in Shukan Shincho Weekly) filmed in 1968
as Curse of the Blood. Shueisha sponsors a “Shibata Renzaburo
Award.” Also noted for the novel Nemuri Kyoshiro sappocho filmed as Sleepy Eyes of Death.
Shibata, Shoyoku : Japanese author of a critical study of ghost stories, Yoi hakubutsukan.
Shibata, Yoshiki : Japanese author (b. 1959). Generally a mystery or police detective novelist, she is the author of Red Rain, a vampire tale that takes place in the early 21st century. A meteorite brings the D-type contagion to Earth. The last remaining human beings band together to form “D Project” to save mankind from the D-types (vampires?) but the D-type children are infiltrating their ranks. One reviewer said that this is a skillfully written version of this ordinary theme.
Shiju-konichi : Literally the 49th day. In Japanese funeral customs, it is believed
that the soul begins its afterlife on the 49th day after death,
unless some unfulfilled desire ties it to this life.
Shikijin : Japanese term for a spirit familiar or companion of a sorcerer. Also called shikigami, it could be considered the sorcerer’s slave. One noted shikigami from the Uji-Jui Monogatari is a crow.
Shikome : Japanese hobgoblins noted for their bloodshot eyes and sharp, jagged teeth. Barbaric, savage and sadistic, bands of these creatures lurk in the mountain areas ready to trample the unwary. Shikome are sometimes described as female devils.
Shimamura, Takumi :
Japanese horror writer He wrote Seicon for
the Haruki Horror Bunko series.
Shinkuma, Yuu/Shun : Japanese writer. He authored the Cthulhu mythos tales “Aruhazeedo no Isan” (lit: “Alhazred’s Legacy”, 1994) and “Aruhazeedo no Gyakushuu” (Literally: “Alhazred’s Counterattack”, 1995).
Shinoda, Mayumi :
Japanese mystery writer (b. 1953). She
is the author of Dorakyuira Ooyake
(Prince Dracula: Portrait of Vlad Tepes, 1997).
Shinoda, Setsuko :
Japanese horror writer.
Shinora, Satoshi
: Japanese manga creator. He created
one Cthulhu mythos tale “The Deep
Ones.”
Shinrei Kagaku Kenkyujyo This loosely translates as the “Society for Psychical Research.” Wasaburo Asano formed this organization in 1923, the first of its kind in Japan and it still operates today.
Shinrei shashin : Japanese spirit photography.
Shiro, Masuyuki : 1925
Shirow, Masamune : Japanese manga creator. This world famous manga artist is responsible for such seminal as Ghost in the Shell. He dabbled in the Cthulhu mythos world with a side story to the Orion series.
Shiryō : According to Hearn in the Kotto story by the same name, this is the ghost of a dead person as opposed to a wraith:
The term shiryō, “dead ghost,” – that is to say, the ghost of a dead person, 00 us used in contradistinction to the term ikiryō, signifying the apparition of a living person. Yūrei is a more generic name for ghosts of any sort.
Hearn’s “Shiryō” is a weird tale about the ghost of high
ranking official, Yajiyemon Nomoto. He
possessed the body of a young serving maid to tell the story of corruption
within his office and requested the accounting materials to verify his
story. Though the girl had no skill in
accounting, he corrected his books through her, revealed all the fraud and
justified his administration with a surplus instead of a significant debt. When the possession ended, the girl fell
into a dead sleep for several days and as often happens in such cases, she had
no recollection of the affair.
Shiti Dama : Spirit of a dead ancestor described in Japanese mythology as a red fireball.
Shou Shen Chi : Collection of tales attributed to Kan Pao, written the 3rd or 4th century AD. The title roughly translates as Tales of Spirits.
Shou Shen Hou Chi : More
Tales of Spirits, a sequel to the Shou
Shen Chi, but considered inferior
to it. Attributed to Tao Chien
(365-427).
Shokoku Kida : Japanese literary collection from the Edo Period, containing “Morioka”, a strange tale of foxes participating in shape shifting contests and arraying themselves as castles and each regiments of military foxes.
Shojo : In Japanese ancient lore, green, wart-covered sea creatures with red hair. They are known to attack fishing vessels and drag sailors down into the murky seas where they live. They have webbed hands and feet, comparable to the Deep Ones of HP Lovecraft.
Shōjo manga : A sub-genre of Japanese comics dating back to the 1970’s that frequently features horror themes, especially erotic vampirism and gender transformation. Two early examples are Tezuka’s Princess Knight(originally published 1972?) and Ryoko Ikeda’s The Rose of Versailles (originally published 1972-3), featuring heroines who disguise themselves as men to gain access to the world. This is a theme that dates back at least to the medieval Chinese legend of Mulan, but both the early examples had rather non-Japanese, European settings.
Horror started appearing early in the shōjo manga realm. One of the earliest was Hagio Moto’s vampire tale, The Poe Clan (orignailly published 1974-76). While The Poe Clan retains some the artistic conventions of shōjo manga, large, luminous starry-eyed youngsters with inexplicably curly hair, Hagio added considerable insight into Japanese culture with the vampire theme.
The field exploded in the 1980’s with such classics as Vampire
Hunter D and Vampire
Princess Miyu.
Shu Yi Chi : Accounts of Marvels, Chinese collection of tales by Jen Fang (460-508).
Shui-hu chuan : Noted Chinese novel translated as The Water Margin. Early popular tale, recorded in the Ming era but undoubtedly much older. It is considered one of the greatest Chinese works along with Dream of the Red Chamber and the Ape King. Available as a Chinese “comic”, actually an illustrated tale at http://www.chinapage.com/shuihu/watermargin.html.
Shui-Mang Devils : Devils in the Liaozhai tale, “The Shui-Mang Plant.” They freely distribute a delicious but incurably poisonous tea made from shui-mang leaves. The hero, named Chu, consumes an inordinate amount of the tea because was smitten with its pretty young server. The victims of the tea become devils themselves. Chu redeems himself by marrying the shade of his poisoner and helping to revive others who had been poisoned.
Sin, Damien : Popular Singaporean horror writer writing in English. Noted for his locally best selling book, Classic Singapore Horror Stories, which contains original short stories with a cutting edge literally. Mr. Sin has a penchant for blood and gore, the strong feeling for the grotesque that seem to pervade the horror of the Far East. He frequently delves into the supernatural but draws little on folkloric material. His inspiration seems to be a variety of horror films both imported and domestic. His book of stories was followed up by Classic Singapore Horror Stories 2.
In “One Last Cold Kiss,” a necrophile despairs over the
decay of his loved one’s body.
Described in grotesque detail, he resorts to cannibalism so that he and
his beloved can never be parted. An
autopsy to determine the cause of his death reveals the unpleasant detail of
thousands of fat, slimy, each with a miniature version of his face.
Skepticism : Philosopher have long attacked the pervasive belief in the supernatural. One of the earliest such skeptics was none other than Confucius, who refused to discuss spirits, freaks of nature and wonders.
Yuan Mei played against this with the title of his weird
story collection, What the Master Would
Not Discuss.
In his collection of essays, Lunheng, Wang Chung wrote a skeptical piece, “Do Ghosts Exist?”. In it, he questions the reality of ghosts. He reasoned that a man’s life force is in his blood, or ch’i. When a man dies, the blood dissipates leaving no energy behind, for the spirit to subsist on. He also noted that so many millions have died that the world would be crowded with ghosts. Henrik Ibsen echoed this sentiment in the introduction to his play, Ghosts. “When I read the newspaper, I see ghosts…”
Using the analogy of fire, Wang argues that a dead man is extinguished. A fire cannot restart itself, so how can a man come back to life as spirit. The blood energy is gone and the body is decomposing.
Another humorous argument he makes is that ghosts are usually described fully dressed. It does not seem possible that the spirit of clothing has an afterlife. Ghosts should all be nude but the life force is in the form of a human body, not its clothing. Nude ghosts are extremely rare in supernatural lore.
He compares the spirit to the flame. A flame cannot exist without a physical body to burn. Once the fuel is gone, the fire goes out. This echoes the question raised by the French Surrealist group, “Where does the flame go when the candle is blown out?”
Even Liaozhai translator, Herbert Giles, favored rational explanations for belief in the supernatural. Wtrint about tales of the Chinese underworld in The History of Chinese Literature, he writes that “cataleptic fits or trances give rise to many similar tales about persons visiting the realms below and being afterwards restored to life.” (p 354)
Skulls : Akin to disembodied heads, the skull is the very symbol of death, the ultimate terror, dissolution, decay and reduction to skeletal remains. The skull plays a important role in Rohan’s strange story“Taidokuro,” or “Encounter with a Skull.l”
Snakes : Snakes are a recurring motif in Asian lore. While they are associated with dragons, they are usually evil, espeically serpent spirits. In the Liaozhai, “Killing a Serpent” is a tale of a serpent spirit appearing as a beautiful woman who nearly precipitates her victim’s death. The man is saved by a packet of fox poison he happened to have on him. He mixed the poison with his blood and the blood thirsty snake consumed its demise.
Snake Wife, The : Grotesque Japanese erotic tale from the Konjaku Monogatari. A monk had a highly erotic wet dream, only to wake to find a dead snake beside him. The snake had semen in its mouth and must have choked to death from it.
Soku no Kumi : Japanese turn for the underworld.
Some Chinese Ghosts : Lafcadio Hearn’s first literary excursion into the Far East long before he went there. While living in New Orleans, he wrote “oriental stories” for the newspapers. Unlike other Orientalist writers (Rohmer, Bramah, Owens), Hearn drew from his already extensive knowledge of Asia, and he always used translated Chinese writings or allied texts as his source material. The six tales from those early days were collected in a small volume, Some Chinese Ghosts (1887), the first of many that reflected his true inner calling.
“The Soul of the Great Bell”, the beautiful girl, Ko-Ngai sacrifices herself in a crucible of molten metal to save her father’s reputation. Hearn pulls out all the stops to desire the blood red lake of metal, the monstrous flames, the dissolution of body into the metal. No trace of her remained when the bell cooled.
The source for Hearn’s story was Dabry de Thiersant’s 1877 French translation from Pe Hiao Tou Choue (One Hundred Examples of Filial Piety). The text has a few curious drawings including one of Ko-Ngai leaping into the boiling metal.
“The Story of Ming-Y” is a beautiful told story of the now familiar theme. The spirit of a love-sick and long dead girl enchants Ming-Y. They have a brief affair and when Ming-Y is led to her tomb, he accepts the truth. Traceable back at least to the 13th century, this is a tale that was retold many times in China.
The story comes from the Kin Ko Ki Koan, translated as Le Bacheliere du Pays de Chu by Gustave Schlegel. The original collection had roughly 40 stories. Hearn probably read the French version of Schegel’s book, which was labeled curious and obscene.
“The Legend of Tchi-Niu” came from the estimable source,
the Liaozhai It’s a story of
filial piety and a mixed between a goddess and a human. It could readily fit into the Greek realm of
story-telling or many others. Hearn
himself told readers to compare his story to Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, chapter 156, “A Supernatural
Wife.” While not the identical story,
it shows that Hearn has the spirit of a Chinese original.
“The Return of Yen-Tchin King” comes from a Chinese holy book, Kan ing pien. It deals with human immortal and the return of a mighty warrior to crush a rebellion against the Celestial Empire. The hero’s lies in an incorruptible for all doubters to see.
“The Tradition of the Tea Plant” Tale comes from an ancient Japanese Buddhist legend that probably originated in China. A Monk who vowed to stay awake meditating for 24 hours straight broke his vow. In penance, he sliced off his eyelids that he would sleep no more – a rather horrid detail.
“The Tale of the Porcelain God” Pu, an exquisite porcelain artisan, became more than a legend. The superstitious claimed that he had “the ghastly power of murdering men with horror of nightmare, by hiding charm effigies of the them under the tiles of their own roofs.” The Emperor, pleased with Pu’s work, commands him to make flesh with the appearance and mobility of living flesh, made to creep and horripilate. Pu begged for help from the Spirt of the Furnace and which answered him “’Canst thou give ghost unto a ghost?’ Pu persisted and the Spirit of the Furnace exacted a terrible price, one that made Pu a god of porcelain.
Song Ok : Korean poet of 4th century BC. According to tradition, he had the power to raise the spirits of the dead and speak to them.
Soseki, Natsume : see Natsume, Soseki.
Sou Shen Hou Chi : A ghost story collection the Blyth attributes editorship to Tao Yuanming and adds that the book influence early Japanese literature.
Soul : According to Wiiloughby-Meade, the Chinese soul consists of two parts: Hun and P’o. The spiritual Hun, or Shen as it is sometimes called, is the superior part of the soul and is associated with good supernatural beings. The earthly P’o is associated with evil, vampire-like revenants and vengeful spirits. It dwells in the body until it decays. In Confucius book, I Chi, the Chi or Shen, the higher soul, and Kuei, the lower, are associated with yang and yin respectively. The yang nature of the Chi leads it to heaven, and kuei to the earth. If the two souls work together, the person’s life is healthy and prosperous, but disharmony leads to sickness and death.
In some areas of China, a vague belief in a third soul persists. This soul lives in the memorial stones of the deceased and is the subject of a number of ghostly tales.
The Soul of the
Great Bell : Lafcadio Hearn’s retelling of a Japanese horror tale of the
young girl sacrificing herself in a cauldron of molten metal. A filial piety tale, she gives her life to
save her father’s reputation as a bell maker.
Her pure body unites the silver and gold metal and makes the bell cast
perfectly with no trace of her inside it.
This is an example of sadism and
horror in an Asia tale common to
China, Korea and Japan.
Spiders : In Japanese mythology, spider hengeyokai, have burning red eyes and sharp teeth. They assume the form of beautiful woman. Kikuchi Hideyuki exploited this tradition in his the novel, Wicked City, which became both a successful anime and live action, Hong Kong film. In all of them, beautiful spider women from space terrorize the Earth.
The Spider’s Thread : “Thread” is a theological horror tale with its ghastly description of the tortures of Buddhist Hell. Called Hariyama, the Mountain of Needles stands next to the Blood of Pool with souls so tortured that they no longer have the strength to scream. One wicked man gets a chance at redemption—to climb out of Hell on a spider’s thread. Is it a real offer of salvation or “torture by hope” a la Villiers d’Isle Adam? Interesting also is the spider, usually an object of horror, but this one is a “spider of paradise” providing the means of redemption.
The most chilling aspect is not the tortures of Hell but the indifference of those in Paradise. The rushing lotuses of the tale are reminiscent of the hideous flowers in Edgar Allan Poe’s “Silence: A Fable.”
Spirit writing : This occult science came into vogue in the West in the 19th century, but the Chinese version dates back to the Tang Era (618-907). Chinese belief in the parallel world of the afterlife gave rise to attempts to communication with that world. One of the techniques, which has strong parallels in the West, is spirit writing. The querent writes a question on a piece a paper that is subsequently burned. A stylus, attached a V-shaped planchette, operated by a pair of mediums or Taoist priests, is spun until the stylus writes a character in the sand.
Story of Chūgorō, The : Hearn tale from his collection Kotto: Being Japanese Curios , with Sundry Cobwebs. Chūgorō was a young, good-looking soldier who entered into a nocturnal love tryst with a beautiful young woman. She would take him to her underwater palace where he received the royal treatment in splendid surroundings. Her palace magically seemed warm and dry. He called the famous Japanese fairy tale Urashima and followed her bidding with asking questions, feeling that curiosity was Urashima’s fatal flaw.
The nightly visits weakened him to the point that his comrades summoned a Chinese physician. Sadly it was too late for Chūgorō and the physician determined that the beautiful woman was large, hideous frog. Frogs and toads play a significant role in Western horror tradition for their cold, slimey flesh and their unclean mixture of being both land-dwelling and aquatic. H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Deep Ones” and Clark Ashton Smith’s tale, “Mother of Toads” immediately come to mind in this connection.
While some critics maintain that the vampire was unknown in Japan until the translation of Dracula, this aquatic creature weakened Chūgorō by drawing blood from him. The Chinese doctor said that all his blood had been replaced by water and that his condition had little hope.
The Story of Futon Tottori : A Lafcadio Hearn tale about a haunted futon. It is a miniature version of the story within a story motif so common in fantastic literature.
Story within a Story : A hallmark of fantasy that occurs in all cultures, fantastic literature is rich with stories within stories. This technique increases the credibility of fantastic occurrences with the main story firmly on a realistic plain and the sub-story on a fantastic level. One can trace this technique back to explanatory myths where nature phenomena is often is explained by supernatural means.
Strange Tales of
the Liaozhai : Another comic
anthology based on the Liaozhai.
This one was published in Singapore in 1990 by Asiapac
books. The comic artist is the gifted
Tsai Chih Chung of Taiwan, who selected 12 twelve tales to adapt to comic strip
form. Two of them are magical painting stories, “The Mural on
the Wall” and “The Painted Horse.”
Succubi : Female spirits, typically demons, that seduce men at night, often in dreams. Kim Man-Choong (Man-Jung)’s Korean classic, The Cloud Dream of the Nine (c. 1689) make reference to succubi-like beings or “intercourse with disembodied spirits,” though the book does not find such supernatural couplings as harmful.
Suchi, Tokuhei : Japanese author (b. 1921). Generally known for his historical writings, he authored Nihon no kowai hanashi (Japanese Tales of Fright, 1971) and Nihon no osoroshii hanashi (Japanese Terror Tales, 1972).
Sunaga, Asahiku : Contemporary Japanese writer and critic (b. 1946). Author of the critical study Nihon genso bungaku zenkei (A History of Japanese Fantasy, 1993), about ghost stories. He also edited an anthology of vampire stories, Bloody Arabesque: A Vampire Reader in 1993. In it, he claimed that the true vampire only appeared in Japanese literature around 1930. The pinnacle of the first vampire boom in Japanese literature was Yokomizo Seishi’s Death’s Head Stranger (1939).
Sunakake Baba : Traditional Japanese ghost, literally old woman of the sands. She appears in Japanese folklore and the manga Fushigi Yugi and Gegege no Kitarō. She often maliciously throws sand in people’s faces.
Supernatural : Supernatural literature is universal, deeply rooted in the unconscious fears of mankind. Asian literature is no exception. While philosophers and skeptics from Confucius to Wang Chung derided the frequent appearance of the supernatural in fine and popular literature, it never stemmed the overflow of the unearthly into man’s awareness. While the term supernatural has no precise equivalent in Chinese or Japanese, there are many similar terms to represent the otherworldly. One of the most prominent is the Chinese term zhiguai which represents a type of literature.
Suzue, Miuchi : (b. 1951) Japanese manga creator originally famous for shōjo manga, Garasu no Kamen (The Glass Mask). This comic series is still being published after 20 years, and there are many rumors about its possible endings.
She frequently makes horror manga and is noted for her contributions to Holy (Kadokawa Horror Bunko Anthology) and Ningyō no hata (Doll’s side).
Suzuki, Kōji : Japanese novelist, called the Stephen King of Japan by Thomas Weisser in his guidebook, Japanese Science Fiction and Horror films. He is best known for his best-selling novel, The Ring which became a popular TV movie that moved into the movie theaters. It spawned a sequel, Ring 2, a prequel, Ring 0 and several manga adaptations. He is also noted for the novel Rasen, which also became a TV show and manga. His other horror novels include Sei to Shi no Genso and Hongurai mizo no soko kara. His books have been translated into most major Asian languages and there are Korean remakes of several of his film, The Ring and The Spiral, to name two.
