Kwaidan, Part 3: The Faceless Ghost and Other Macabre Tales from Japan

Book publisher Shambala Publications has printed a few comic book here and there over the years but they're not a prominent force in the field - heck, I only learned about them earlier this year when one of their books appeared on the Eisner Award ballot for "Best Adaptation froma Another Medium." And then I sat up and took note because the work in question was Lafcadio Hearn's The Faceless Ghost and Other Macabre Tales from Japan: A Graphic Novel by writer/adaptor Sean Michael Wilson and artist Michiru Morikawa. Although the creators were unknowns, I was pleasantly surprised to discover Hearn's works were now adapted to another medium: comics!

Wilson & Morikawa's book is relatively slim compared to the number of stories Hearn wrote, but they adapt a few of them: "Diplomacy," "The Snow Woman," "Of a Mirror and a Bell," "Hoichi the Earless," "The Faceless Ghost," and "The Gratitude of the Samebito." You'll recognize two of them ("The Snow Woman" & "Hoichi the Earless") were featured in the film version of Kwaidan and now seem to be two of the works Hearn is best-known for telling.

In his afterword, Wilson noted he came from similar ancestry as Hearn and even lived & worked in the same area of Japan which Hearn once did. This seems to make him the ideal person to have adapted Hearn for comics. Happily, he retained the tone of Hearn's stories with the many asides to explain bits of Japanese culture kept in (most notably during "Of a Mirror and a Bell"). He likewise maintained the playful, fireside tone of Hearn's writings with stories ending abruptly (again, "Of a Mirror and a Bell", also "The Faceless Ghost"). He didn't restrict his selections to the horror stories of Hearn either, with "The Gratitude of the Samebito" being largely a fairy tale.

Artist Morikawa rendered the stories in a very modern Japanese (re: manga) style. The shadings, speed lines and facial expressions are what you would expect from a first-rate manga. Although the stories are mostly light in tone, Morikawa did not quite shy away from the violence of the tales, with the decaptation of "Diplomacy" and bloody climax of "Hoichi the Earless" depicted with a bit of gore.

It's possible this work might reach people who have never read Hearn - Shambhala caters to an offbeat market (including academics) and the Eisner nomination has surely granted this work attention from many corners. It's a pity it didn't win the Eisner - as a fan of Kwaidan, I am extremely pleased at how this book turned out, especially to see my favourite tale "The Snow Woman" included. If Wilson & Morikawa have a will to adapt more of Hearn, I am completely in support of it!

Kwaidan, Part 2: Kwaidan (the movie)

In 1964, Japanese filmmaker Masaki Kobayashi directed a film adaptation of several stories from Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan. The film, Kwaidan is an utterly gorgeous picture with a very measured pace, telling four stories in its 3 hour runtime. The four represented tales are: "The Black Hair," "The Woman of the Snow," "Hoichi the Earless" and "A Cup of Tea."

The massive sets rendered in wide shots, the glorious costuming, the vibrant colours - so much effort went into this picture and while it's long, I was certainly never bored by it. At times it's like watching a painting come to life. I had been seeking the film for a few years before I finally saw it and read Hearn's book in the meantime. Having enjoyed his "Yuki-Onna" so much, I quite loved the film's "Woman of the Snow" telling the same story with particularly impressive snow-covered forests and fiery sunsets.

"Hoichi the Earless" is perhaps the most widely-depicted segment of the picture, appearing on most video boxes for the movie. This segment concerns a blind musician who is called away each night to a cemetary to play for the dead. To protect him, the priests whose temple is his home paint the musician's body with protective Buddhist glyphs but they happen to make a tragic error. Another segment, "A Cup of Tea" is a fine reminder of Hearn's tone in the book as it includes a narrator remarking in a jocular fashion upon how the story is incomplete.

There are those who would tell you Kwaidan is not a horror film because of its artistry; those peopls are snobs. Much like how comic books have been traditionally considering a "low" or "trashy" form of culture, so to are horror films. Ergo:

This movie features stunning photography and clever, artistic direction = It is not a horror film

But genre means nothing where quality is concerned; not every horror film is a brainless slasher flick. Is the horror film genre any more trashy than, say, western films or detective pictures? Perhaps fans of Halloween or Dawn of the Dead may not find a great deal to enjoy in Kwaidan, but fans of Cat People or The Exorcist? They might. A better formula would be:

This movie contains scenes intended to startle, unnerve or even frighten the audience = It is a horror film

One last look at Kwaidan tomorrow!

Kwaidan, Part 1: Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things

During the summer of 2015 I delved into a book called Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn. First printed in 1904, it is a collection of Japanese ghost stories which the Irish author Hearn gathered during his years there. For all the time in my youth spent delving into folk tales and ghost stories from around the world, I'd never read a collection of Japanese ghost stories before - although I have some familiarity with concepts from those tales due to years of reading Usagi Yojimbo.

The kinds of ghosts in Hearn's collection are familiar enough to western audiences - they're basically dead people with unfinished business on Earth, usually of a vengeful sort. The real difference is the style of presentation which Hearn favoured - he told the stories the way people sitting around campfires might tell them. He would interrupt his stories to parenthetically explain some important backstory before continuing; he would build up to a seemingly-shocking climax, yet stop the story short to leave the ending to the audience's imagination. The style reminds me of my own favourite ghost story teller, M. R. James, who kept a very light tone even while describing the unholy horrors which would arise from musty cellars.

My personal favourite tale in Kwaidan is "Yuki-Onna," the story of a woodcutter who encounters a spirit of the snow which feasts on human blood. The woodcutter promises to never reveal what he saw, but many years later tells the story to his wife - with tragic results. It's a tale not unlike most fairy tales where a hero is admonished to keep a secret or keep out of a locked room. The difference, I suppose, is that the woodcutter is really made to seem worse than the creature itself - the creature may feast on human blood, but it also operates by a code of honour and is truly disappointed in the woodcutter for not doing likewise.

Anyone can read Kwaidan for free via Project Gutenberg. More thoughts about Kwaidan tomorrow!