San Diego Asian Film Festival 2025
In the proud tradition of JHorror that gave us the likes of Ju-On, and Ringu, comes a story about an urban legend ghostie gal who is killing boys from a certain high school.
Japan is infamous for having all sorts of tropes, stories and legends revolving around their baddies, most notably the onryo and yurei, both of which are essentially ghostly villains, usually female, who still have bad things to do here on Earth. The weeping woman story, the sorrow of the ubume, the rage of the malformed funayurei, and many others, all comprise the rich history of Japanese fascination with ghosts. And that extends to modern-day, with the schoolgirl ghost known as Toire no Hanako, or Hanako of the Toilet, usually believed to be a student who died playing an ignorant game of hide and go seek during an air raid bombing in World War II. The onryo known as Mag Mag continues these grand traditions, while putting her own nicely grotesque take on things, so make sure your love letter is still where you hid it, and let’s dive into this!
In the grand tradition of Ju-On-like JHorror, the story is told in chapter vignettes, each one with a different protagonist and a different set of problems involving the Mag Mag ghost somehow. All her victims are male, as the power in the film lies with the women, though not in any kind of solidarity fashion. In fact, one of the main plot points involves two females vying for the same guy, even after his untimely death from the destructive love -pop- of Mag Mag herself. No, the film is about obsession, mostly but not entirely centered around romantic love, and what it does, to both us and the person desired more often than not, and the bullying females have to endure, often on the daily.
So Hiroshi (Oshiro Maeda) is, or rather was, an artist, a sculptor, before his untimely demise in the loving embrace of Mag Mag. And he left behind two very different females in his orbit – Hiroshi’s actual girlfriend Rumi (Mai Fukagawa), trendy from her dyed-blond hair to her fashionably white sneakers, and our anti-heroine Sanae (Sara Minami), taking her Hiroshi obsession to Three … Extremes-like levels while digging into the many Mag Mag related deaths. What does the bullying of the ubiquitous overweight girl Yurika (Aoi Yamada), led on by her sloe-eyed crush Takuya (Junsei Motojima), have to do with the Mag Mag mythos? How about the internet influencers all living together – Yui, Hina and Haruka live with Akihito, where he cheats on each of them, with each-other. Plenty to incur Mag Mag’s wrath.
Ultimately, the Mag Mag ghost, with her Slender Man-height, prehensile scraggly black hair, bizarre pink dress and the popping, or rather kissing, noises she makes as she seeks out and crushes the life out of her male victims, is still just another victim herself. All sorts of bad things happen as the result of obsessions, and despite all her poltereist-y badassery, Mag Mag’s existence as a ghost of revenge is not the ideal “life” for anyone. And if someone happened to figure out a way to point Mag Mag’s fury at selected targets like a loaded weapon, well that’s just Mag Mag being used again. Sounds rather like bullying from beyond the grave, an irony amongst many hidden in the snarky sense of humor in the movie.
Movie Moxie absolutely loves the Grudge style JHorror movies, plus any movie that can actually make the audience have sympathy for the title monster is just freaking awesome. Director Yuriyan Retriever, a well-known comedian in Japan, attended the screening of her directorial debut film at the San Diego Asian Film Festival 2025.
Reviewed by Alicia Glass