The climactic scene of Ringu, in which Sadako climbs out of the well where she died and then drags herself out of the television to kill Ryuuji, is clearly meant to evoke the later ending of Okiku and the Nine Plates. Numbers also figure importantly into both stories, both with Sadako’s deadline and Okiku’s desperate search for the tenth plate. Using a concrete number, once again, evokes the feeling of a ticking clock. Because of the popularity of both Yotsuya Kaidan and Okiku and the Nine Plates, such connections became easy to spot for Japanese viewers.
Jay McRoy, in his article on Japanese horror cinema, wondered at the prevalence of females in the role of onryou:
Similarly, recent films… recall, and, in the case of more contemporary offerings, articulate the complex, paradoxical, and increasingly protean role of women within Japanese culture. Depicted as both ‘a source of danger to the norm and the very means of perpetuating that norm,’ such texts frequently position women as ‘both symbolically dangerous… as well as the source of all that is Japanese,’ through their vengeance, they simultaneously balance the scales of a perceived sense of justice, evoke fears of social change or the return of a ‘monstrous past,’ and expose the inequities inherent within a largely patriarchal culture. (“Nightmare Japan,” pgs 2-3)
Such an analysis is a better fit to characters like Oiwa and Okiku, or the modern Kayako. During the course of their lives, they are in positions of powerlessness – namely, housewives and servant girls - according to the constructs of Japanese society. But Sadako’s position is not at all powerless. She is shown to kill a reporter with a thought during a scene where her mother is threatened. (She is also not technically a woman in the Ring novel series; she is actually intersexed. But the stories differ enough that Ringu can be considered separate.)
But even though Sadako does have this horrifying power in life, it does not save her from her death at the hands of Dr. Ikuma. While his relation to her was dubious, he still had custody of her during part of her childhood, putting him in a patriarchal position over her. McRay’s analysis may apply to Sadako in some fashion, but it also shows that Sadako is an evolution of the trope. Death does not necessarily give her an advantage: she could have grown stronger over the years, and eventually enjoyed the same power in life. Sadako shares this longing for her lost potential with her victims: Tomoko, a bright high school student, and Ryuuji, who was slowly growing close to Reiko again.
It could be argued, however, that this technique isn’t inherently Japanese, and merely a technique used in a Japanese film. But the difference in values between a Japanese story and a Western story is clear, both in kaidan and modern Japanese horror. Once Japan entered the Meiji Restoration, several of the kaidan stories, such as Okiku and the Nine Plates, went through major changes as Western influences became more and more prevalent, mostly to give the stories a romantic twist. In the new version, Okiku is a more romantic spirit, not an onryou. This shift following the Meiji era can be seen in other kaidan tales: one of these is Botan Doro, or The Tale of the Peony Lantern.
The Edo period version of this tale was adapted from a didactic Buddhist tale to make it more Japanese: the ghost is not an onryou, but merely a lonely spirit seeking companionship. She seduces an old widower and kills him to secure herself someone to share her afterlife with. The Meiji Restoration version of the story is, once again, very romantic, and involves a young student whose lover is killed in a flood. His lover comes back from the grave to visit him nightly. Eventually, he dies to be with her, and his servants find his corpse smiling peacefully. Because the Meiji period was so rife with Western traditions, the reasons for this switch are clear: Western ghost stories are often more tragic than horrifying, and the idea of love conquering death is a very common one.
