Kazuo Umezz: Terror Slithers Into Our Lives

 

Kazuo Umezz: Terror Slithers Into Our Lives

 

A review of Orochi 4

by Graham Swanson

Front Cover of the Viz Signature Edition, 2006.

 

Orochi 4 is a manga book about two scary stories previously published as a comic strip around 1969 and 1970 written by Kazou Umezz. The first story, “Eyes” follows a blind girl who witnesses a murder in her own home. A game of cat and mouse begins between the girl and the murderer as he returns to the scene to retrieve an ID that he dropped inside the house. The second story, “Blood”, follows two sisters. One sister is given all the love and attention in the world, the other is barked at and hit by parents, teachers, and eventually her husband. Both stories are from the perspective of stranger. A girl who follows them yet is invisible to the people she watches.

Page 1

The greatest strength of “Eyes” is it's suspense. Danger unfolds  around this girl and takes control of the safety of her home. The blind protagonist is alone, and tries to save herself but makes many mistakes. She is left by herself after her father is arrested. No one is around for her except the killer himself. The most startling images are how she baracades the windows and doors. She can't hammer a single nail in straight. They all curl around the wood from the force of the hammer. 

The Killer strikes!

     “Blood” is rich in gothic convention, and by the end is truly rabid with terror. The walls are drawn with a deep dark black. The very halls feel haunted. There is sadness in the girl's faces. There is scorn in the faces of the adults. The sadness of the once innocent little girl transforms into hatred.

Risa strikes!

Each story doesn’t just alarm, it does not merely dare to put the book down, it also provides something to chew on. Each work is wrapped in a sensation of very real fear like an innocent father going to prison, abuse of the dying and sickly, buying children, abusing servants, abusing the disabled, and the impact of violence. The book seems to be asking as, “how could this happen?”

As the narrator says in the haunting last pages, “This will never happen again.”

Will it now? Really?

There are some interesting shocks, and subtle manipulations, but what stands out to Castle Swanson are the Gothic tropes throughout “Blood”.

The Monzen family becomes a fallen aristocracy.

 The two sisters Riza and Kasuzu are the last of a bloodline.

Orphans and peasants within the mansion live in fear.

The young orphan girl becomes a maiden in distress.

No one is safe from poundings and strikes of violence.

 Darkness lays in the eyes of characters, in the sky, in windows, and in deep hallways.

The once great family mansion becomes an old, shady palace.

Horror and terror occurs within.

The grotesque transformation of the innocent into monsters. 

The supernatural narrator creeps into people’s lives unnoticed… and uninvited.

There is a moment in “Eyes” that inspires dread. Tt grows from realistic expectations and very real fears, yet seems offbeat. The Blind Girl sends her best friend, a child, to stalk an adult murderer. The boy not only gets spotted by the killer, but the killer is friendly, and gets the kid to tell him all the information he needs to know. It’s uncomfortable to know that this  blind girl just sent a boy into the snares of a murderer. This villain shows that he is not some fool who got worked up in a moment of passion, but actually a clever, calculating professional.

The best part of “Eyes” is the constant danger. This girl is never safe. Even at home she risks burning the house down. If men come to the door, she has no idea who is entering and leaving. If she leaves the house, she doesn’t know where to find safety. If she tries to tell people what she saw, no one believes her because she is blind. She is defenseless, weak, and vulnerable to the very real evils of the world.

The best character, Risa, is welcomed in Castle Swanosn. She is a monster, but we get to see this monster as a child. She didn’t start off this sinister. We first see her off in the distance playing in the grass with her big sister. One small horror, destroying her drawings or her flowers, ripples into tragedy, and unfolds into deeper horrors like car wrecks before finally blossom of torture grow. She is an evil that is never defeated.

There’s a sublime moment when the narrator girl awakens after her long sleep. She saves a young Risa from a car crash, then gets sleepy. She rushes up a mountain and finds a cave to rest in. She dreamed she was in the body of the orphan. She experiences torture, the horror, and downfall of this ill fated family as she is held captive. The mansion she once believed was her dream came true mutates into her tomb. 

Bravery. In both these stories the fear becomes strength, and we see the characters become inspired to overcome the horror they face.

In "Eyes" it is  when the girl raises her cane to fight the killer. She strikes him in the eyes, leaving him blinded. On equal footing, he is now as powerless as she. Unlike her, he has not spend his entire life without his sight. He falls victim to the fears of the blind, and she is triumphant. 

In "Blood" the moment  comes when the narrator awakens from her sleep s after the orphan girl breaks her back falling down the stairs. Fearlessly the narrator rushes back into the mansion. She finds fresh blood on the floor where she last saw the orphan. A red trail leads to the big sister’s bedroom. There she finds the orphan paralysed besides the dying a dying woman surrounded by doctors.

Some parts of this book raise questions.

The police never seem interested in investigating, and in many cases throughout these two stories, they make conclusions based on a surface level inspection of a crime. For example, in "Eyes", the police arrest the blind girl’s father because he picked up the knife used to kill the victim. Other than his finger prints, there’s no reason to believe he killed this man, he was merely there when the police arrived. The killer’s prints would also be on the knife. Besides, no one saw her father on the bus that day? Or at the bar? Or at work? Why did he show up so late at night? What is the writer trying to tell us here?

Something similar happens in the climax of “Blood”. Risa has framed her sister of terrorizing the orphan girl and to “prove” it, she whips off her sister’s bed covers to reveal to the doctors and staff  a box of nails and a hammer, thus smearing the older sis's good name. But anyone with access to that room could’ve put those there. No one ever saw her big sister leave the room. Where did the nails come from? Who bought them? Who knew where to find them? Again, what is the writer trying to make us think about here?

Without the presence of the narrator, there's not much of anything spooky going on. The narrator is the only uncanny thing. Without her, it's a just a thriller. Horror needs the uncanny- the supernatural- to be a part of the genre. A man crawling through a window at night is scary, but the window lifting open by itself is the essence of horror. 

There is otherwise a lot to admire about this book. It delivers a fun slide into the horror genre, with an uncanny touch, without drowning the illustrations in gore and carnage. It doesn’t have disturbing images like people’s heads turning into centipedes like Junji Ito, but contains a treasure trove of very real nightmares. It’s like a story from the newspaper these comics were printed in, or gossip in the tabloids from the next shelf. It slithers into our lives just as the narrator slithered into the lives of the blind girl, and the Monzen Family.

   

The Terror of "Blood"

 Kazuo Umezz is a celebrated manga artist and horror writer active since the 1960s. 

ARTIST INTERVIEW: CHIAKI MAYUMURA

 

Tokyo Idol Inspires Fans To Do Their Own Thing At Kansas City Naka-Kon

An Interview With Chiaki Mayumura

by Graham Swanson

 

 

Chiaki Mayumura enters stage

Chiaki Mayumura travelled over 6,000 miles, all the way from Tokyo, Japan, to bring Idol music to her American fans in the dusty plains and concrete towers of Kansas City, Missouri. She performed two shows at Naka-Kon over the weekend of May 26^th and 27th. Her first show started late on Friday night. A silver suit sparkled over her shoulders as she stared into the shadows of the hall with a smile towards the stage lights. The audience looked up from the vapor when her voice rose to the microphone. On stage, glowing under red lamps, her laptop and guitars gleamed.

As the show went on, Chiaki took off her ruffled skirt, her shoes and socks, then called on the audience to follow her. She exited the stage and ran like the wind through the shadows. Youthful and mirthful men and women pursued her around the corners of the room. More and more people entered the chase. She led them back to the front of the stage and re-entered the spotlight.

After Chiaki’s performance, I was honored to have the opportunity to stand next to her during the midnight rave. She walked near the front of the stage and invented dance moves on the spot. She stepped into a dance circle, put her hands and feet on the floor, and pushed her hips into the air. Later in the night I noticed her playing Limbo with costumed revelers from the audience and members of her entourage. As the lights came on, I approached her.

Chiaki and I walked out of the room and talked a little bit. She started making music at age 20. She played at Kansas City once before and had a virtual concert during the Covid Pandemic. We stopped walking in front of the heavy glass doors that lead back to the hotel. She tells me how the film Bohemian Rhapsody inspired her to write “Queeeeeeeeeen!” from her album Meja-Meja-Manja. She introduces her kind entourage to me, and then I ask if she’d be interested in an interview. After making some phone calls and taking my Instagram, she happily agrees.

The second performance came Saturday night at 22:30. Chiaki performed a different set of songs. She included “Queeeeeeeeeen!” and others that exhibited a fiercer, more passionate Chiaki than the night before. Near the end of the show, she rode on the back of a giant turtle held up by members of the audience. They carried her around the dancehall, and she showered them in waves of elation. Early that Saturday she performed with her acoustic guitar in the corridor between the convention hall and hotel. Right after her last show she met fans and signed merchandise for them. I worried that she might feel exhausted after such a busy day, but she eagerly came over and sat with me, with a genuine smile and bright eyes. A translator sat with us, and she responded in English for Chiaki.

We began the interview.

Chiaki Mayumura meets fans after a show

TRANSCRIPT

Graham: Chiaki, I noticed, the songs, you changed them from last night.  But you were still free spirited and energetic. Were you always this way?

Translator: She changes them every single performance.

Graham: Why?

Translator: She gets bored easily and wants to change them.

Graham: Me too. I can’t stick to a routine to save my life. Have you always been that way?

Translator: Yeah, she has been that way for a long time, and she doesn’t want to write very similar songs so she wants to create completely different songs.

Graham: Can you tell me something about the Japanese music scene?

Translator: Live music scene in Japan is very on Tic Tok side, or TV show side, and not necessarily the people who do the live performances, being popular and selling lots of music, and she gets frustrated by that. It’s more commercialized. Social media.

Graham: I was going to ask you about that later. Thank you for answering that. What is your greatest fear?

Translator: That’s a great question. Her greatest fear is losing her fans. She doesn’t like horror movies, but when she watches it, you know the tissue papers, they are double layered, she would peel one off so she could see through. She’s watching but not at the same time, she’s like filtering by having this one layered tissue paper. She’s interested, she wants to watch it, she just gets too scared.

Graham: Don’t be afraid of the beauty of demons.

Translator: She watched a horror movie on the flight to the United States, and then she was scared of the passenger right next to her.

Graham: Why would you lose your fans?

Translator: For example, social media, or any platform, if she says anything political or anything that isn’t related to Japanese society or society in general, she feels she is going to lose fans and they are not going to be able to listen to her songs and pieces of herself in the same way as before.

Graham: I’m really glad you said that, because I was doing some research on Idol Pop musicians, and I’m not going to lie there are disturbing things, I have some specific examples here, I’ve been reading about things like mistreatment, things like suicide, things like No Dating clauses in contracts, assault, slave labor contracts, sexualization of minors. If this makes you uncomfortable, I understand, have you experienced any of that?

Translator: She has never really experienced anything extreme like to the point where she wanted to hurt herself, but she has seen a lot of her friend who were very pressured, like really a lot of contracts regarding their work, those kinds of friends, their producers have the most power, every single power over them. So they can’t make music, they can’t sing, they can’t express themselves like they want to since they are fearful of the producers who have the power over everything. So whenever her friends come up to her and say “what should I do” then what she would say usually is “try to be yourself. Try not to be fearful of expressing yourself”. For her case, she really doesn’t have a producer who has more power over her, she produces everything, she makes her music, so she directs her own shows, she does every single thing, so that’s why she’s never really experienced something like that, but a lot of people in the industry experience that kind of thing because of the producers having power over them.

Graham: That is extremely interesting. I’d like to hear how you have overcome that. How do you manage without a producer? What’s it like to do things by yourself?

Translator: Japanese pop culture and society, they don’t really have a singer- performer like her. She is almost unheard of, her style is so unique, she kept doing her own thing, and kept writing and performing and she didn’t really have to rely on any companies, any producers, so she just kept doing her own thing and she was fine, so she thinks she’s very lucky. Rather than relying on somebody like auditioning for a talent agency for example, a record company and stuff, its better to keep producing yourself rather than trying to rely on someone else’s power, and then the consequences of you being yourself, and you trying to do everything, that consequence will follow up, will cause lots of fans and supporters. So she just makes her own path, and then someone follows all the time.

Graham: It follows, eh? That ties into so many delightful things I wanted to ask you. How did you come up with this style?

Translator: She used to be in Idol group, three of them, Chiaki and two other girls, and as she kept performing as a group, she started feeling like everybody was so similar, all the other groups and other songs are very similar, so she started to feel like “I want to do my own thing, I want to create my own thing, that’s not at all similar to anything that exists” and that kind of led her to establish her own style of music.

Graham: That’s very interesting. What would you say separates you from the rest of the Idols?

Translator: What makes her different from other groups? Other people? Number one is that she writes her own music, and number two is having a computer and a guitar by her side and perform by herself. That style is not very popular in Japan. And the courage and bravery of doing that all by herself. That makes her different.

Graham: Bravery and what else?

Translator and Chiaki: Courage.

Graham: Good words. I can tell you have a lot of passion out there. I can see it. It’s very physical.

Translator: She started recently started seeing a lot idol groups where for example there was a group of five but one of the five is a producer so as a group they are self producing. She started seeing a lot of them coming up and she believes that style of producing will produce less of the slavery, the contract work, like where the producer has all the power over them. We will make the industry better. A better place to work for artists.

Graham: What else can I say, you’re really a source of positivity in all of this.

Chiaki: Positive?

Graham: I think so. How do your fans react when they see this bravery and courage emerge from you?

Translator: She says male fans start dancing with her, but female fans cry. They get really inspired. But she doesn’t know why they’re crying from the stage. She always asks “why are you crying?”

Graham: Do you ever cry at the movies?

Translator: She cries at parts where the audience doesn’t even cry, she still cries.

Graham: Ok, like what?

Translator: Things like a family having a good time, or not even a middle of the movie, the beginning of the movie she’s already crying. Anything dog related.

Graham: You’re very in touch with your sensitivity, aren’t you?

Translator: she gets more emotional when she sees animals having a hard time or like being hurt. For example, in Samurai era, the Samurais would fight with their swords on top, while they’re riding horses, not even just swords, but guns too, so whenever she sees any scenes where like (Imitates gunfire) and the horses is like (imitates dying horse) she’s like “Nooo! Not the horses!”

Graham: Spare the horses. You’re not alone.

Translator: Not the humans. Rather humans be, and let the horses go.

Graham: What did they do, they’re animals, they don’t know. Alrighty, thank you so much for this. I think I have all my questions. Uhmm, I probably won’t put this in the interview or anything, again I wanted to thank you, I was wondering what you had planned for the rest of the night?

Translator: She’s going to drink beer. That’s her plan. She usually doesn’t drink 24 hours prior to a performance because her voice, her throat, but tonight she’s going to drink to death.

Graham: Awesome. I have some alcohol in my hotel room if I could join you.

Translator: She wants to play uno the card game, and also teach her American friends the drinking games in Japan.

Graham: What are these games? – (audio cuts out)

Sai, Chiaki's latest album

You can find more of Chiaki Mayumura's music on spotify. 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4DjusI9WuKLk3cmsJGtl8T

You can find her latest music video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIG4pFtsIEs&ab_channel=Channel%E7%9C%89%E6%9D%91%E3%81%A1%E3%81%82%E3%81%8D

Poetry That Otherwise Will Never Be Heard (for better or worse)

to Sh

THE FATAL HOUR

by Graham Swanson

 

I found you in the rivers at the bottom of your heart

A screw driver in your windpipe

I'll grab you by the roots of your hair and make you eat garbage

I walk in the daylight. Where else could you see me?

I walk in the middle of the day. Where else could you find me?

I know where you pray

I'll let the air out of your tires and hit you with a bike lock

I know where you sleep

I'll let everyman out of prison

I know what you love

I'll open every grave and swallow your children

I can see from here that you're all haunted

Some good. Some bad. 

When I sleep I see dead bodies

They are my dearest friends

I AM THE CRIMSON DRAGON THAT PULLS THE PALE MOON'S SILVER WAGON

Crossed by double silver handled twin daggers

Alone on my pedestal 

at the center of the world!

Drink the blood from my golden chalice

All your wishes will come true. 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLOWNS AND JESTERS

by Graham Swanson

A Clown performs in the street

in the dirt

That's why he is dressed the way he is

To distract from the fact that he lives in the filth of Parisian streets.

A Jester, to the contrary, 

performs in the King's Court.

He is respected, noble. He knows the room

better than anyone. He knows

the secrets. He holds political power.

He whispers into the King's ear, and makes him laugh. No one

fucks with a jester. Because he will

Unviel them in front of the entire court.

In song. 

A Jester can SEND MEN to the dungeon.

A Clown watches the mirth of a castle from the cold alley ways.

When  YOU are alone in a dungeon-

when you're awoken by a rat gnawing

on your ankle bone

And all you had to eat is moldy bread,

it'll be the face-the mask- of a Jester smiling back at you.

The Clown, sad and lonely, plays sticks in the alley. He spins bottles, honks a horn.

The Jester sharpens a knife on his tie-

Shatters windshields with the sharp end of his cane.

A Clown stumbles into the frozen mud to chase a lost balloon

A Jester will laugh in your face because you will never know who he is.

A Clown slips and falls in horse shit.

A Jester will always be in the dungeon. Watching and laughing, making googly eyes, and inventing new ways to torment his prisoners.

A Clown sleeps in the cold, takes his wig off, his gloves off, and make up off.

I CAN'T FIND HAPPINESS

by Graham Swanson

It's okay to have feelings that *you* don't like

When I see a smile its a mask- I feel your sneer

those trees are prison bars

the sun shines with hate

and burns the supple flesh

Under that mask I see the scorchmarks of the sun

I see freckles, rashes, and cancer.

From wild Green hills to my hometown- it's a bus 

ride full of desperate fugitives escaping the ever 

widening void 

                    Ever hungrier- moving at the speed of

                    Light

They smile at me but think I am strange, crazy,

a serial killer- why- just ask them why? They shudder.

    I walk the streets alone in search of those neon

monsters of mirth and I drink believing merrymakers 

find happiness in the gas 

Only to discover adulterers, men who punch glass, and drug dealers. 

    I search the mist and alleyways for love. All I 

find are games of Russian Roullette

    Meth addicted, beautiful women- kiss me, then I drop them off at dark apartments or RVs

once the sun goes down

They are the Valentine's Day Muggers- we share

one similarity, that we'd rather find elusive death

yet something drags us forward into the dark-

with no hearts, we share a strange hour

Neither one is alone- yet crushed by the 

Moon, and joined by the chants of

10,000 screaming banshees

A heart beating in a drawer

Lungs wheezing in a glass

Smoke burning at midnight

swollen knuckles, fist warmed inside 

pockets.

    I am the man alone walking from alley to alley.

I cannot find happiness in this 

world.

    To me, its only a moment on TV

when they're trying to sell you shit

you don't need.

Or a moment when you get too drunk to remember

that you have work in the morning.

I walk between monsters and rows of dead stalks

I sleep in abandoned houses, 

and burn books to stay warm.