Week 3: J-Horror

I personally found A Wild Sheep Chase to be quite interesting and unusual.  As someone who loves the Japanese Horror genre for movies the pacing of the genre didn't take me by surprise. The difference between Eastern and Western writing really comes through in this story seeing there's a large amount of symbolism in Japanese Culture. This story centers around the middle-aged man who works in the advertising industry of Japan and throughout this book goes on a journey of self discovery. I felt this story really invoked the feeling of classic Japanese folklore which prioritizes the lesson above all else so much so that the characters don't even get names. While reading you feel as though you yourself are in the position of the protagonist rather than an outsider relating to "insert name here" making the story more immersive. This is something I find value in since the ability to make a player feel immersed in a video game is a difficult aspect to harness. You could feel everything the protagonist went through first hand and on a more personal level. I'd also like to add that I enjoyed the grey area of "good and evil" that this book conveyed seeing as it didn't lean towards either or. Every action felt balanced out by another much like the Buddhist belief of karma, good actions are rewarded in the future and bad actions will reap future punishment or misfortune. If I had to think of a game I could relate this story to I'd have to recommend Life is Strange which has several karma based elements.