Ask John: Can Horror Anime Really Be Frightening?

Question:
Do you think that suspense anime like Uzumaki & Monster really pass out fear to readers?

Answer:
Since Halloween is approaching, this may be a timely question. In spite of my fervent admiration for Japanese comics and animation, there are things which I must admit that neither is ideally suited for. Frightfulness is one of those things. Anime and manga are capable of illustrating horror, literally something horrifying. And anime and manga are adept at creating creepy, shocking, and disturbing atmosphere. Anime and manga are also capable of creating tension and anxiety, but I don’t think that either manga or anime are able to literally create fear.

Guro (grotesque) manga authors including Henmaru Machino and Waita Uziga can shock and horrify viewers with depictions of unimaginable bodily mutilation. Junji Ito’s Gyo and Uzumaki manga create literal horror; the shock of something totally alien and unnatural. Naoki Urasawa’s Monster and Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue create a sense of anxiety because they reflect a believable “what if” scenario that readers and viewers can identify with. But it’s difficult, if not impossible, for anime or manga to create a fear of the unknown. Anime and manga don’t cause us to look over our shoulder, or turn on the lights before walking down a darkened hallway.

Live action motion pictures employ real people whom viewers can identify with. Prose novels engage the reader’s imagination and immerse the reader fully into the fiction. Manga and anime have neither of those advantages. Manga is illustrated, and the illustrations create a distinction between fiction and reality. Likewise, when viewers watch animation, we know that it’s not real. While live action uses real people and locations, and depicts people conveying emotions and reactions that we can instinctively recognize and relate to, anime is immediately and undeniably false. It’s not even possible for the mind to temporarily forget that anime or manga are fiction, as can happen with live action, because anime and manga are illustrations and not real human beings. Literature can create palpable fear because it speaks directly to the imagination and circumvents the instinctive recognition of unreality. Anime and manga are unique because they’re not live action, and they’re not pure prose. We can literally see that they’re not real, so their effectiveness and ability to frighten are limited.

Anime and manga can depict frightening things, and can deal with frightening subjects, but in a case of being framed as a murderer, as in Monster, or being stalked by a killer, as in Perfect Blue, the fear is generated by the situation rather than by the manga or anime itself. So the reader may feel anxiety for the characters, but not a personal sense of unease. Fear itself comes from the possibility of personal pain or suffering without warning or escape. One of the best examples of this that I’ve seen in anime in quite some times is in xxxHOLiC television episode 12. Watanuki finds himself isolated in a situation that viewers can identify with. There’s an unexplained noise in the dead of night in a hidden room in an empty house. The viewer, like Watanuki, has no idea what to expect; whether to investigate or not. For a short time this episode does manage to be somewhat frightening because it literally captures the position of facing the unknown.

In order for anime and manga to be frightening, viewers and readers have to allow it to be frightening. Manga and anime aren’t inherently as effective at making readers and viewers fearful as other mediums, like live action film and prose fiction. That’s not to say that anime and manga can’t be horrifying, nor do I mean that anime and manga can’t be involving. But I do think that there are certain literary formats that anime and manga are better suited to than others.