Kaori Fujino

Nails and Eyes is the novella of this short collection and the main focal point. In this story a young preschool aged girl (Hina) with repressed memories and severe trauma from her mother’s death narrates her absentee father’s moving on with his mistress and attempt at establishing normalcy. Told through an omnipresent second person we learn the inner lives of both Hina and the mistress' newly turned stepmother.

The horrific circumstances of Hina’s mother has left her with an understandable amount of damage. Constantly chewing her nails, an inability to use portions of the home especially the balcony, a quiet and docile attitude, all of this raises little concern from the father or her young stepmom. The stepmother in her mid-twenties is still ill defined, lacking any real passion or much interest in much of anything. She is more a passive passenger in life letting the world wash over her. Nothing but her nearsightedness sets her apart. Hina is clearly transfixed eyes as a metaphor and with this woman's contact lenses that allows her to see the world more clearly. This metaphor leads into the climax of the story that involves both nails and eyes in one of the most fear inducing scenes I’ve ever read (Can’t stand putting things in my eyes) after the stepmother stupidly moves Hina out of the way for a meeting with a jilted lover. Action and natural reaction of a creepy child with untreated mental illness that is beginning to manifest itself in violent acts.

Nails and Eyes is a perfect portrayal of the creepy child horror trope from the perspective of the child. How the lack of action to traumatic situations leads down a road to destructive, disturbing acts. The child is always watching and learning, how they process those observations without the proper reference frame. This slowly breaks their fragile psyches and they are unable to process their emotions in a healthy manner. Fujino captures the unsettling effects of ready-made family suffering from trauma that a woman coasting through life is wholly unprepared for. There’s more to this story that gets left unsaid, which only adds to the disturbing conclusion.

Fujino’s other stories in this collection are disturbing and creepy in their own right. She is great at establishing unsettling atmospheres and playing with horror tropes that typically railroad the story to one direction. Their flaw is that they end too early with too many unanswered questions. Leaving the reader wanting more is typically a good thing. I really hope more of her work is in the translation pipeline, I need more Japanese horror.… (meer)