Story: Suzuki Koji. Art: Nagai Kojiro. 1996.

Originally published in serial form by Monthly Magazine KC, this first manga incarnation of the Ring is quite faithful to the novel, featuring Asakawa Kazuyuki (not Reiko) as the lead character. While the dialogue is oftentimes inspired by or taken directly from the source, it is interesting to note that the manga eschews several of the novel's more unsavory aspects as regards its main characters. SPOILERS!

For example, the incident where Takayama Ryuji comes to school and brags to Asakawa about having raped a girl (later refuted but still inconclusive) is omitted, as is the scene where Asakawa meets Mai and immediately envisions her naked body in the shower.

The artwork is good (if a little flat-looking), with lots of fine lines and very minimal shading. Artist Nagai Kojiro doesn't seem very suited for horror manga, however: his approach is far more geared toward typical shonen ("young men's") manga. These qualms aside, this is an adaptation that's worth getting.

Note: The first cover is from the original out-of-print edition. The second is from the reprint, which for some reason was re-formatted into a smaller, pocket-sized edition.

Story: Takahashi Hiroshi. Art: Inagaki Misao. 1999.

This second Ring outing is an odd mishmash of movie, television, and novelized versions. The basic premise is the same as in Nakata's film: Asakawa Reiko enlists the help of her ex-husband Takayama Ryuji to solve the riddle of the cursed videotape (volume one ends with the two bound for Oshima island).

But there are plenty of deviations from the film. For example, the Ryuji in this version is hip and clean-shaven, an obvious nod to Nagase Tomoya's appearance in the Saishusho television series. Meanwhile, one of the images on the cursed video is of an old woman speaking in an unrecognizable dialect. In the novels, this person was Sadako's grandmother, who uttered the phrase often translated as "Frolic in brine, goblins be thine." Of course, this line was assigned in the film to the mysterious towel-headed man...who also appears in this manga's version of the cursed videotape!

Left-click on the picture above to see a sample page from this manga.

Story: Takahashi Hiroshi. Art: Inagaki Misao. 1999.

Ryuji and Asakawa arrive on Oshima. The two track down Nagao Jotaro, who comes clean on his murder of Yamamura Sadako 30 years earlier (Note that in this version he attempts to force himself upon her, but doesn't actually violate her as in the novel.) He points out the location of his crime as being the modern-day rental cottages, and from there on things proceed as in the movie.

Translation: Naomi Kokubo. 2003.

Four years after the publication of the Japanese version, an English-language translation was finally made available from Dark Horse and Digital Manga. While this in itself is cause for celebration, the manga's treatment is something of a mixed bag.

To begin, the choice of translators for this project was not the best. Granted, the translation was polished prior to publication (I've seen both versions), but the text in many places nonetheless remains a grammatical carbon copy of the Japanese, with dialogue that can range from circumlocutory to just plain odd. For example:

"If that video was the cursed video, well... you said someone died."
"Really?"

Similarly, the translator did not put in the amount of research something like Ring would require. On page 10, Tomoko receives a phone call from her mother and erroneously states "She said she'll be eating out and come home late." Odd grammar aside, any  Ring fan worth their salt knows that Tomoko's mother and father went to the baseball game together; mom is not out alone. Later, Asakawa's sister Ryomi intones "Tomoko was found dead inside this closet." Yes, by you. Similarly, p. 37 has a high school student exclaiming, "We're not going anywhere near a TV anymore." This is actually referring to Masami in the mental institution, who (as we saw in Ring 2) has developed a phobia of televisions. The largest gaffe of all occurs when Ryuji states, "Listen, I'm the type of guy who wants to see everything there is in this world." This is in fact a reference to Ryuji's sense of nihilism -- a more accurate translation would be, "Listen, I'm the kind of guy who'd watch the end of the world if he could," a toned-down version of his infamous "extinction" speech (see p. 91 of the hardcover translated novel).

Finally, a word on the artwork. In the vast majority of cases (at least in my own experience) art for English-language versions of manga has to be scanned in stateside. The resulting images can vary depending on a number of factors -- in this case, the point at which the scanner interprets a certain shade to be gray and at which point it becomes black. While, admittedly, I wasn't that great a fan of Inagaki's artwork to begin with, the translated version's art reduces all fine lines and light grays to thick, black wedges. Compare pp. 70-71 of the Japanese version to its American counterpart and you'll see what I mean.

This review is not meant to incur the ire of Dark Horse, or to dissuade anyone from buying this manga -- as Ring fans, we owe it to ourselves to support the franchise. Hopefully later volumes will display the high level of quality we've come to expect from Dark Horse.

Story: Takahashi Hiroshi. Art: MEIMU. 1999.

The lush, flowing artwork of this manga is not only pleasing to the eye, it is eerily effective. Artist MEIMU excels at facial expressions, drawing some scenes with such horrific precision that, having read the manga first, I was disappointed when seeing them in the movie (case in point, the scene with Masami in the mental ward).

The story is a fairly solid adaptation of the film -- meaning, in the opinion of yours truly, a lot of it either doesn't make sense or isn't that compelling. MEIMU occasionally tweaks some scenes (for example, adding a touch of gore to the visage of Asakawa's belated father, and putting a tiny but horrific twist to Okazaki attempting to erase the videotaped footage), but even this isn't enough to save this adaptation from the limitations of the source story. By far the best thing about this manga is the artwork. The first 45 pages are a summarization of the Ring, and they are stunning. It's a shame that MEIMU wasn't commissioned to ink the two-volume movie tie-in.

Left-click on the picture above to see a sample page from this manga.

Translation: Naomi Kokubo & Steven Hoffman. 2004.

First thing's first -- in contrast to Dark Horse's first Ring outing, the attention to artwork in the Ring 2 is top-notch. While some of the pages are a little darker than the original Japanese, these are by far in the minority. The bulk of the manga is crisp, clear and excellently reproduced.

What's more, the Ring translator Naomi Kokubo is joined this time by Steven Hoffman, with the result that, on the whole, text flows better in the Ring 2 than in its predecessor. Unfortunately, however, this is not to say that the quality of the translation has improved; in fact, a number of lines have been startlingly mishandled.

Case in point, the scene where Ohmuta produces Sadako's corpse, and explains to Yamamura Takashi that the well Sadako was thrown into was on a piece of land that had been sold 30 years ago. "The well was sealed at the time, and there's no evidence it has ever been opened since," he intones gravely. How, then, would you explain the very body of Yamamura Sadako that you're looking at? What the Japanese actually said was that the well was sealed when the property's being sold, and evidence suggests it had remained sealed for 30 years (after which, of course, it was opened by Ryuji and Asakawa).

There are several other mistakes in this vein, but the most troubling comes when Takashi is showing Takano Mai the cave where Shizuko gave birth to Sadako (p. 152). "We call it 'Riverbed of Dice,'" he proclaims. Unfortunately, this is quite simply incorrect. While sai here is written with the same Japanese character as saikoro ("dice"), sai no kawara is completely different. In mythology it is a kind of purgatory for children, while in the real world sites bearing this name are found all over Japan, and 1) are renowned for being a symbolic bridge between this world and the next, and 2) may be used for parents to give birth to (and subsequently discard) unwanted children -- just as Shizuko attempted to do with Sadako.

Again, while Dark Horse has taken greater care with this release, there's still more care that could be taken. Sound effects continue to be untranslated, Takahashi Hiroshi's afterword from the original Japanese edition of  the Ring 2 is missing, and the translation as a whole...just isn't that strong. While the Ring 2 has enough going for it to make worth getting, DH has already shown us what they can do with other series such as Blade of the Immortal. It would be nice to see that same kind of attention paid to the Ring series as well.

Story: Suzuki Koji. Art: Sakura Mizuki. 1999.

If the movie had been made with the same care as this amazing adaptation, there would have been no Ring 2, and Rasen would not be the "forgotten sequel." Thoroughly disregarding the movie tie-in, this Rasen strives to be a true adaptation, with the character of Asakawa again featured as the male Kazuyuki.

The manga is also faithful to the origins of the "cursed videotape," making heavy use of medical terminology to explain the biological reasoning behind the Ring Virus (see the FAQ for more). As an added bonus the artwork by Sakura is simply outstanding, with clear, sharp lines benefitting that much more from the black-and-white comic medium.

The manga does stray from the source material in the fourth act, adding a different spin to Ando's relationship with Sadako (who never appears as Masako in this version) and overall making Sadako appear far more malefic than her counterpart in the novel. This gripe aside, Rasen is nonetheless a compelling and well-devised adaptation of the source material.

See the scripts & translations page for a translation of this manga.

Story: Suzuki Koji. Art: MEIMU. 1999.

An extremely well-written trilogy of stories, each with its own protagonist relating events from their own perspective. The final scene ties all the stories together as Sadako, within the well, forsees her own rebirth decades later through the death of Takano Mai.

Of the manga's three short stories, two of them ("Floating Coffin" and "Lemonheart") are directly from the book. However, while the novelized Birthday contained the short story "Happy Birthday" (an account of Futami Kaoru in the Loop world), the manga chose substitute this with "Sadako," an original story.

Floating Coffin  In Rasen, Takano Mai stumbles across the Sadako tape and isn't seen again until her body is found cast into a drainage well. This first-person retelling of those events chronicles Mai's growing fear that something has invaded her body, and that death awaits her in the form of a coffin hanging suspended in the sky (the title of this story, Sora ni Ukabu Hitsugi, translates literally to "coffin that floats up to the sky").

Lemonheart  The basis of the feature film Ring Ø: Birthday, this story has a 47-year-old Toyama Hiroshi (Sadako's love interest) being approached by newspaper reporter Yoshino Kenzou. Acting on behalf of his colleague Asakawa Kazuyuki, recent victim of a car accident, Yoshino questions Toyama about his relationship with Yamamura Sadako 24 years ago. There is no twin "sister" in this version (as in Ring Ø), but instead a kind of second personality that hardens as Sadako feels her time running out.

Sadako  A primer on the life of Yamamura Sadako and her mother Shizuko, composed of snippets of events we have and have not seen before. The middle part of this story overlaps with "Lemonheart," expanding on Sadako's relationship with Toyama and her awareness of her own impending doom. The final scene has her being assaulted and cast into the well by Nagao Jotaro, where as a last-ditch effort at survival Sadako hits upon the idea of fusing her DNA to the smallpox virus to create the Ring Virus (see the FAQ for the full story).

Story: Suzuki Koji. Art: MEIMU. 2000.

The story begins in the present, with rumors of the cursed videotape continuing to spread. Flash back to 30 years ago, to a frail young Yamamura Sadako during her days with the Hisho acting troupe. As mysterious deaths abound, an intrepid reporter seeks to expose Sadako as the daughter of the infamous Yamamura Shizuko...

Ring Ø is a fine adaptation, but even with MEIMU utilizing his trademark tweaks (for example, some rather horrifying images of Aiko from the Hisho Acting Troupe), the artwork seems somewhat flat, and lacking its usual ferocity. Story-wise, this version follows the film rather closely, but is interesting in that it tacks on an epilogue not in the original film. Inside the well, the deeply foretelling lines that Sadako spoke in the play echo within her mind, as slowly her power begins to build. Flash forward to the future, where the teenager glimpsed at the beginning of the film sits now at home, blithely sliding the cursed tape into her VCR.

Story and art: Ochazuke Nori. 2000.

This 12-page mini story from the movie guide The Sadako recounts key scenes from Ring and Ring Ø, illustrating the event of Sadako's "division." Cool, manic artwork by Ochazuke Nori, itself a pretty manic pen-name (a popular dish that translates to "Seaweed topping on rice soup.")

See the scripts & translations page to download this manga.