J Horror

Though I will admit I have read a good bit of Murakami, I don't think he quite qualifies as J-horror. I think he falls into the category of "Magical Realism" similar to Kawabata's "House of Sleeping Beauties"

I already spoke about Uzumaki which I feel is a pretty solid example of Japanese horror. I find that there is no real "enemy" that things simply exist, whether it be good or bad, things simply exist in Japanese horror. The natural world collided with the supernatural world, and the outcome simply created what we consider horror. This is such a common thing in J-horror. It's all a mixture of pure coincidence or circumstantial things. It's not because someone committed a grave sin or anything along the lines of that. The reasoning behind the events can be as simple as "Oh, it's Wednesday. Supernatural things always happen on a Wednesday around here." Uzumaki also ends with a stereotypical jhorror ending, where no one really ends up happy. Things simply are, things that went wrong just went wrong and that's the end of that. The death of everybody in the village was a bittersweet thing, but that particular ending felt at home in the genre.

 After Chris Phelps spoke about Homonculus I went home and read that as well and found it rather fascinating. It was more of a trip into supernatural realism as well. Dealing mostly with the psychological aspects of horror; it was rather fascinating. Lots of guilt and sex, pretty entertaining, don't know if I'd consider it horror but that's just my western definition of the genre I suppose.

Oh and if we're talking asian horror, I'd recommend I Saw The Devil, Chaser, or any other Korean thriller. I find them to be pretty incredible, works of art in fact.