FLASHBACK: Ring by Koji Suzuki (1991)

June 6, 2020 Chris Well

The basis for several adaptions in manga, film, and TV, the Japanese mystery horror novel RING was written by Koji Suzuki and published in 1991. (Scroll down or click here for details on the whole series.)

In RING, A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure. A hardworking journalist, intrigued by his niece’s inexplicable death, launches his own personal investigation. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan Tokyo teeming with modern society’s fears to a rural Japan—a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic—haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape’s mystery before it’s too late—for everyone—assumes an increasingly deadly urgency.

The novel was the first in a trilogy, followed by SPIRAL (1995) and LOOP (1998). These were followed by the short story collection BIRTHDAY (1999), and the follow-up volumes S (2012) and TIDE (2013)

Selling more than one million copies, RING was remade as a 1995 TV movie, a 1998 theatrical film, a television series, and two international film remakes of the 1998 film. There was a manga adaption of the original novel, and a second manga that combined elements from the novel, film and television versions.

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My series review of The Ring Trilogy by Koji Suzuki. There is some good and some bad, and some series and movie comparison.

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Complete Koji Suzuki’s RING series In Order

Ring (1991)

A mysterious videotape warns that the viewer will die in one week unless a certain, unspecified act is performed. Exactly one week after watching the tape, four teenagers die one after another of heart failure. Asakawa, a hardworking journalist, is intrigued by his niece’s inexplicable death. His investigation leads him from a metropolitan Tokyo teeming with modern society’s fears to a rural Japan—a mountain resort, a volcanic island, and a countryside clinic—haunted by the past. His attempt to solve the tape's mystery before it's too late—for everyone—assumes an increasingly deadly urgency. Ring is a chillingly told horror story, a masterfully suspenseful mystery, and post-modern trip. The success of Koji Suzuki’s novel the Ring has lead to manga, television and film adaptations in Japan, Korea, and the U.S.

Spiral (1995)

Dr. Ando who has yet to recover from his son's death at sea, conducts an autopsy on an old friend who has died under unusual circumstances. The corpse, that of cynical philosophy professor Ryuji Takayama, has something to tell him. And Ryuji isn't the only one who chooses to make a reappearance in this story. You don’t know what the RING is yet. The terms of the curse of the videotape undergo a jaw-dropping reconfiguration in this novel, the horror master’s stunning reinvention of his own bestselling tale. Spiral is written as a stand-alone work; for Ring fans, its' a sequel that redefines the word.

Loop (1998)

Learn the final truth about the Ring! In this third volume of the Ring series, everything you thought you knew about the story will have to be put aside. In Loop, the killer mimics both AIDS and cancer in a deadly new guise. Kaoru Futami, a youth mature beyond his years, must hope to find answers in the deserts of New Mexico and the Loop project, a virtual matrix created by scientists. The fate of more than just his loved ones depends on Kaoru’s success. Loop is written as a stand-alone work though it is best enjoyed by fans of Ring and Spiral. The author's own favorite of the trilogy, this astounding finale is an emotionally resonant tale that scales conceptual heights from an angle all its own. Fiction about fiction has rarely been so gripping.

Birthday (1999)

Birthday is Ring-master Koji Suzuki’s return to the Ring universe, a collection of short stories focusing on the female characters with a theme of birth. An exploration of extraordinary circumstances from the perspective of memorable women, this expansion of the Ring, Spiral, and Loop world was adapted into a hit movie less than a year after the book’s publication.Thirty years before the tragic events of Ring, Sadako Yamamura was an aspiring stage actress on the verge of her theatrical debut. The beautiful and ravishing Sadako was the object of every male’s desire involved with the company including n the director. There was one thespian she was interested in, but… Fast forward past the events of Ring, Ryuji Takayama’s distraught lover, Mai Takano is struggling in the wake of the professor’s mysterious demise. Mai visits Ryuji’s parents’ house to find the missing pages of his soon-to-be published article. There she is drawn to a curious videotape and a fate more terrifying than Ryuji or Kazuyuki Asakawa’s.Reiko Sugiura questioned the purpose of bringing a child into a world where there was only death. She already lost one son, and the father of her unborn child, Kaoru Futami, had disappeared in search of a cure to the deadly disease that threatened all life. Despite Kaoru’s to meet again in two months, he has not returned. Despondent but driven for answers Reiko is led to the Loop project, where she will discover the final truths of the Ring virus.

S (2012)

Twenty-one years after the legendary bestseller Ring, which spawned blockbuster films on both sides of the Pacific, and thirteen years after Birthday, the seeming last word on iconic villain Sadako and her containment, internationally acclaimed master of horror and Shirley Jackson Award-winner Koji Suzuki makes his much-awaited return to the famed trilogy’s mind-blowing story world with a new novel, S. Takanori Ando, son of Spiral protagonist Mitsuo, works at a small CGI production company and hopes to become a filmmaker one day despite coming from a family of doctors. When he’s tasked by his boss to examine a putatively live-streamed video of a suicide that’s been floating around the internet, the aspiring director takes on more than he bargained for. His lover Akane, an orphan who grew up at a foster-care facility and is now a rookie high-school teacher, ends up watching the clip. She is pregnant, and she is—triggered...

Tide (2013)

From the Ring Wiki: Cram-school math instructor Seiji Kashiwa is a creation of the supercomputer LOOP, and the biological information implanted in him reflects the lives of Ryuji Takayama, who appeared in both Ring and Loop, and Kaoru Futami, who appeared in the latter volume; but due to a system error , portions of his memory have become lost. One day, student Rie Yoshina comes to him for advice regarding her friend Haruna Tajima, who inexplicably fell into a coma after seeing a female dogu figurine of the Jomon Period (ca. 12,000–300 BCE) depicting the release of a snake. It is a baffling story, but as he listens to Rie's account, Seiji senses intuitively that it is a message directed at him. As if guided by some unknown force, he begins going back over the events that took place in Ring. The reader learns about the conflicts between Shizuko Yamamura and her daughter Sadako, who were central to the events; about the early years of the ancient ascetic who gave Shizuko her special powers; and about the surprising secret of Ryuji Takayama's birth . . . In the process, Seiji becomes one with Ryuji, and begins filling in the missing pieces of his memory. At the same time, he comes to feel a connection with the unbroken tides of human passion and memory that have ebbed and flowed since time immemorial, and in turn, to understand why he has been given life in this world.

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