Animist influence and immutable corporeality: Repositioning the significance of Japanese cinematic zombies

Abstract

In terms of zombie film output, Japan’s is perhaps the second largest in the world after the United States and above the United Kingdom. Yet only a relatively small number of these films have received academic attention. Having sourced and verified an exhaustive catalogue of over 160 feature-length Japanese zombie films produced between 1959 and 2018, and through recent field work in Japan, including personal interviews with local film, media and folklore scholars and professionals, this article constructs a clearer overview of this uncharted corpus. It presents some of the most predominant cultural specificities of Japanese zombie films and their compelling narrative and stylistic heterogeneity. Previous assertions confined these films to a ‘cult’ sub-genre, restricting the Japanese monsters they feature to mere western imports; however, this article demonstrates that Japanese cinematic zombies defy simple categorization and repeatedly challenge some of the key posits at the centre of zombie studies, especially regarding their defining characteristics. The Japanese folklore and literary tradition in particular provides a new lens through which these popular fictional ‘Others’ can be (re-)examined, uncovering new significance and offering new insights into both Japanese and western cultures.