Ring by Koji Suzuki
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Horror: A video tape curses its viewers to die in seven days
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror
Key topics/tropes: Paranormal mystery
Grade: Adult
Series: Ring #1
Published: June 1991
Length: 367
Format Read: Print (translated by Robert B. Rohmer, Glynne Walley)
POV: Third, multiple perspectives
Reread: ✅ (third read)
Content warnings & important topics (More listed in Spoiler section)
Death
Murder
Summary
When his niece and three other teenagers simultaneously die of heart failure, journalist Asakawa starts an investigation to figure out the cause of their mysterious deaths. He’s lead to a remote cabin where he discovers a video tape that curses the viewer to die in seven days unless they perform a specific act. Asakawa is forced to race against time to solve the mystery of the tape before his seven days are up.
Review
Despite my ongoing grievances with Suzuki’s characterization choices (More in Spoilers), my third read of Ring held up. It’s a speedy reading experience due to the nature of the premise (a seven-day race against death), with events unfolding at a quick pace, supported by short chapters and frequent scene breaks.
Asakawa’s characterization as a skilled journalist is believable, and spending most of the book in his mind, we can see his investigative instinct at work leading up to how he discovers the tape. But once his deadline is triggered, he enlists in the help of the second main character, Ryuji, to speed up the investigation.
Ryuji is a former classmate of Ryuji, accomplished academic, paranormal psychology fanatic, and proudly self-proclaimed rapist. And this, among Suzuki’s other character choices, is primarily where the book suffers.
Ryuji, for obvious reasons, is an unlikeable character. Asakawa is unlikeable for being friends with Ryuji despite knowing the latter’s crimes, but also for his general disregard for other people. He fails to show any genuine sympathy for victims’ families (even for his own sister-in-law), seeing them only as a path to gaining clues toward solving the mystery.
But Asakawa’s biggest red flag is the treatment of his own family. He’s a workaholic, which is difficult enough on his wife (Shizu) and their 18-month-old daughter (Yoko). But early on, we see that he’s a poor excuse for a husband/man, independent of the demands of his job. Less than 50 pages in, he drops this bomb on us:
Asakawa was lost in thought, and didn’t want to be bothered. He wished his wife would act like her name, which meant “quiet.” The best way to seal a woman’s mouth was not to reply.
Right out the gate, our two protagonists are established to be unlikeable. I’m usually all for an intentionally unlikeable protagonist, as long as that writing decision doesn’t interfere with the reading experience.
My hang-up is: With Ring’s premise, you want the characters’ investigation to succeed, so that as a reader, you get to understand the tape’s mystery in full. But with Asakawa and Ryuji’s characterizations, you’re not particularly encouraged to root for these guys to succeed.
But with my four-star rating, clearly I found other factors of the book compelling enough to appreciate the book despite Suzuki’s character choices. I can’t say the writing itself stands out (might be a nuance of the translation), aside from Suzuki’s effectiveness in setting the right tone.
In urgent scenes, I felt the urgency. In spooky scenes, I felt very spooked. Mid-sentence, I’d find myself sneaking glances at dark corners of my own bedroom to make sure there was nothing lurking there. I’d pause during descriptions of scenes from the video tape, remembering my first go with the book, wondering if even just reading the descriptions would ‘infect’ me with the curse in real life.
I felt Suzuki balanced atmosphere with plot development well. The mystery opens slowly, with adequate time to get to know the characters, then appropriately ramps up as Asakawa’s deadline is triggered. For the most part, Asakawa and Ryuji’s investigative efforts follow a logical path to the reader, and with their respective professional/scholarly backgrounds, you buy into their thought processes.
The only “Well, that’s a stretch” jumps-in-logic occur when paranormal elements come in, which has to be a given. A mystery has to be 100% grounded in reality to follow concrete logic, but with the paranormal, theories can go anywhere. Fortunately, the paranormal theories here don’t go too astray and all require a reasonable suspension of disbelief for the horror genre.
Ring is written to be able to be read as a standalone, though the complete series has six books (with the final book yet to be translated to English). I feel Ring is very solid on its own, and there’s no dire need for new readers to continue through the series.
But for readers who feel particularly invested in the universe, I do recommend Books #2 and #3 (Spiral and Loop) for a more well-rounded picture of the paranormal elements. Both are also written as potential standalones, with each providing in-plot recaps of previous installments. The recaps can feel a bit info-dumpy if you read the three books in close succession, but they’re probably useful refreshers if you space the series out.
Suzuki’s been called the “Stephen King” of Japan. While I don’t feel qualified to say if that’s an earned honor or not, the Ring series holds a special place in my reader heart as the books that introduced me to Japanese horror in my teenage years, so I [biasedly] recommend Ring as an entryway to the genre.
Author Rep Notes
Koji Suzuki is Japanese.
Character Rep Notes
All characters in the book are Japanese.
More in Spoilers for Book #2.
Also by Koji Suzuki:
🚫 Spoilers ahead
Additional content warnings
Rape
Suicide
Death of a parent
Suzuki’s characterization choices
Without giving specific spoilers for the rest of the series, Suzuki has a pattern of writing male characters who treat and view female characters poorly. It runs the gamut between sexual violence, non-sexual violence, benevolent sexism, objectification, and recurring sexualization.
It’s so rampant throughout his books that I can’t help but believe he’s inserting his actual views into the story, rather than writing made-up characters who have prejudiced views.
Spoilers for Book #2 (Spiral)
The creator of the cursed tape, Sadako Yamamura, was raped by a doctor at the sanatorium where her father is convalescing. Immediately after the assault, the doctor discovers Sadako is intersex and angrily pushes her into a well, where she ends up dying.
I felt this reveal was a cheap move on Suzuki’s part. For the Ring installment, this reveal seems mostly to serve to anger Sadako’s rapist and lead to the circumstances of her death.
The biological limitations of her body does play a role in Spiral, where the characters seek to understand her motivations for creating the tape: She couldn’t bear children, but still had a drive toward reproduction.
However, each installment of the series is pitched as being able to be read as a standalone. For me, the introduction of her intersexuality, for the purposes of Ring’s plot alone, doesn’t justify the decision to write this aspect into her character as we know it.
But Ring was published in 1991, so it may just be a product of its time and I’m putting my modern reader values on it unfairly. Still feels slimy on Suzuki’s part though.