A Brand New FREE e-Book from Otaku USA magazine.
Horror is what we feel when confronted with the unthinkable – violent death, mutilation, madness, monstrous beings that defy the imagination, and so on. Through some perverse impulse, many of us seek this feeling out in the pages of books and or in the flickering images of the cinema screen.
More often than not, we don’t find it, because horror is difficult, and often we end up laughing when we’re meant to shriek.
Japanese horror exploded on the North American scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s with movies like Ringu and Ju-On. These works brought with them exotic new methods of evoking horror through film. They inspired a score of remakes and imitations, and they left an indelible thumbprint on the language of American horror cinema.
Ultimately, though, the interest in J-horror faded into obscurity. The fad ran its course, and North American tastes moved off in a direction that focused with laser-like precision on our particular American fears.
But we fans of the uncanny, of the strange, and of the surreal, we adherents of Japanese horror, we remember…
We know that horror is patient. Horror is timeless. Horror never truly dies.
Otaku USA magazine has published an in-depth e-Book covering some of the most noteworthy Japanese Horror anime, films, and manga. Inside you’ll find over 60 pages devoted to 33 of our favorite Japanese horror reviews, from the writers of Otaku USA. And it’s available absolutely FREE.
The anime Boogiepop Phantom is full of raving mad characters, but few of them are wrong. It’s the rare anime that handles neurotic characters with finesse.
The manga Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo demonstrates why Matsuri Akino is one of the best writers of shojo occult horror.
Marebito is a haunting film that begs to be viewed repeatedly, to be analyzed, and to be mulled over in those quiet 3 am moments where your only companions are the things that go bump in the night.
Intended for the hardcore J-Horror fan, here you will find writings about works that are exemplary, and writings about works that don’t quite hit the mark, but made us feel something strongly.
Horror frequently stems from our inability to understand what is happening in a world gone mad, and in this respect the J-horror film Tormentedsucceeds. It will leave you with the confusion that only horror films can bring, the kind that encourages you to explore the dark and claustrophobic rabbit holes within your own mind.
In this e-Book, only available here for immediate download, you’ll find comics, cartoons and films that will make you think, that will make you shudder, that will make you squirm in disgust or squeal in dark delight.
Infinitely enjoyable, the anime When They Cry is one of those series where something new can be seen every time it’s watched. Unlike most horror anime, gore is used as a bloody punctuation mark to an intricately built tension, and this is what gives the series its resonant power.
Forty high school students. One deserted island. Three days. One survivor. No winners. The horror film Battle Royale is part thriller, part social satire, part dark comedy, and part high school melodrama. Imagine walking down the aisle to receive your high school diploma while drenched in the blood of your best friends.
Velveteen & Mandala is an absorbing manga with gripping artwork. The story is part nightmare, part memory, part hallucination, part post-apocalyptic Tokyo, part afterworld. Just be aware that it’s an intense one, and you’re not going to come out the same on the other side.
You’ll find tales of terror and gatherings of the grotesque, high art and base vulgarity, shocking supernatural forces and ordinary human beings who do things more monstrous than any mythological beast.
After watching the film Tetsuo: The Iron Man you may notice something jutting from your cheek: a tiny shred of aluminum. It looks like a jumper-switch from a computer’s motherboard. You pick at it. The shard of metal erupts in a cascade of blood. You realize that something horrible is growing underneath your face.
The film X Games examines the sort of psychological stresses that could turn an ordinary person into a calculating sociopath; the sort of scenarios where human suffering becomes an abstract quantity to be measured and weighed.
In the anime High School of the Dead, an ordinary day at Fujimi High School descends into chaos when a strange man bites a gym teacher, unleashing a plague of living death that spreads across the campus like wildfire. A group of students band together to escape the slaughter that ensues, arming themselves with jury-rigged weaponry while the zombie infestation becomes a pandemic.
In the film Meatball Machine, alien invaders are transforming hapless humans into techno-organic Necroborgs. These lumbering monstrosities destroy one another in brutal bouts of single combat. this begs the question: how can you defeat a monster without becoming one yourself?
This free e-Book showcases some of the most interesting Japanese anime, film and manga. You’ll find a little something for everyone: spirits, boogiemen, and ghostly apparitions; murderers and madmen; splatter-punk and body horror; and the unquiet dead. Whether you’re a new fan, or a seasoned veteran, you’ll find something to love – and hate — in the Japanese interpretation of things that go bump in the night.
When you download this special free e-Book you’ll also receive, absolutely free, the Otaku USA e-Newsletter, featuring the latest news about all your favorite anime, manga, J-Pop, film, and more – straight from our writers in Japan.
Download the Japanese Horror: Anime, Manga, & Film e-Book now! Enjoy… and pleasant dreams.
