| BookZombie |
02-20-2011 04:42 AM |
Yes it has to do with Japanese culture and their stories. Japanese folklore is full of ghosts, and one of the classical ghost archetypes are the woman with her long, black unkempt hair, limp hands and often pale clothes. The reason for this appearance of Japanese ghosts is that Japanese women traditionally grew their hair long, but it was pinned up, however the hair was loosened for burial. The typical ghost you see in Japanese horror movies are called Yūrei. Now there are several categories of Yūrei, the one you usually see in movies are called a Onryō, they are vengeful ghosts who typically will exhort their vengeance on anyone who comes close as they becomes more spirits of vengeance than really just going after whoever wronged them. Most Onryō are seen as women, as traditionally women in Japan where at the mercy of men and they where more often brutalized or killed, and it is believed that they would then come back after death to avenge what wrongs where done to them. Onryō are very popular figures to use in stories, movies and so on in Japan, just like the typical Western vampire is popular here in the West.
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