| Ju-On: Origins | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Based on | Ju-On by Takashi Shimizu |
| Written by |
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| Directed by | Sho Miyake |
| Starring |
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| Composer | Kuniaki Haishima |
| Country of origin | Japan |
| Original language | Japanese |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 6 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Producers |
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| Editor |
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| Camera setup | Hidetoshi Shinomiya |
| Running time | 26–31 minutes |
| Production company | W Field |
| Original release | |
| Network | Netflix |
| Release | July 3, 2020 |
Ju-On: Origins (呪怨：呪いの家, Ju-On: Noroi no Ie) is a Japanese horror streaming television miniseries based on the Ju-On franchise, the first installment in the franchise not to feature reoccurring antagonist Kayako Saeki.[1] The series premiered on Netflix on July 3, 2020.[2]
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Main article: List of The Grudge characters |
| No. | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Episode 1" | Sho Miyake | Hiroshi Takahashi, Takashige Ichise | July 3, 2020 | |
| In 1988, paranormal investigator Yasuo Odajima appears in a talk show featuring actress Haruka Honjo, who relates a personal experience with the supernatural. Haruka's boyfriend, Tetsuya Fukazawa, is scouting for a potential house to move into upon marrying her. After a visit to one particular house, a woman in white carrying a baby begins haunting him. High school student Kiyomi Kawai transfers to a new school upon the urging of her abusive mother, Mina. Kiyomi is invited by her newfound friends, Yoshie Minakami and Mai Hyodo, to go to the same house visited by Tetsuya. The girls are joined by Yudai Katsuragi, a male student from a neighboring school. It is revealed that Yoshie and Mai are luring Kiyomi to be raped by Yudai. | |||||
| 2 | "Episode 2" | Sho Miyake | Hiroshi Takahashi, Takashige Ichise | July 3, 2020 | |
| While Yudai is raping Kiyomi, Yoshie takes photos to blackmail her from reporting the act and Mai disappears. Kiyomi encounters the woman in white and screams, then throws herself sexually onto Yudai, apparently possessed by the ghost. In the days after, Kiyomi snatches her rape photos back from Yoshie and dates Yudai. Yoshie follows a lead to a night club to find Mai. She meets Mai, who leads her away. Kiyomi lures her teacher, Noguchi, to have sex with Mina. Afterward, she blackmails Yudai into killing Mina by threatening to report the rape. Haruka attends Tetsuya's funeral after he mysteriously dies. Tetsuya's mother, Michiko, reveals that she and her son are spiritually aware. That night, Michiko is haunted by Tetsuya's ghost. | |||||
| 3 | "Episode 3" | Sho Miyake | Hiroshi Takahashi, Takashige Ichise | July 3, 2020 | |
| In 1994, Kiyomi and Yudai have changed their identities and are married with a five-year-old son, Toshiki. Yudai is abusive to Toshiki and frequently beats him up, attracting the attention of child protection agent Kimie Ariyasu. A year later, Odajima pursues Haruka again to ask her if she knows the location of the cursed house. Haruka decides to retake the case and visits Michiko, who agrees to perform a séance and ask Tetsuya's ghost. Although he gives the location, he warns the two women not to go into the house. The house itself has new occupants, a couple named Nobuhiko and Keiko Haida. Nobuhiko is cheating with Chie Masaki, a pregnant woman. Unbeknownst to them, Chie's husband, Keiichi, has been spying on them for a while. Meanwhile, Yudai's domestic abuse hits its nadir when he hits Toshiki with a telephone, sending him into a persistent vegetative state. | |||||
| 4 | "Episode 4" | Sho Miyake | Hiroshi Takahashi, Takashige Ichise | July 3, 2020 | |
| Odajima, Haruka, and Kimie team up to solve the haunted house case. Odajima admits that he used to live in the house and was motivated to write a book about it after his family died not long after they moved there. Before then, the house was occupied by a man named Hiroshi Sunada, who raped a woman. The woman killed him and gave birth to their baby, but it disappeared. Nobuhiko and Chie plan to murder their respective spouses so they can be together, with Chie drugging Keiichi so she can kill him. Before doing so, she reveals that her baby was fathered by Nobuhiko. Her plan goes awry when Keiichi puts up a fight. Keiichi overpowers Chie and murders her. He proceeds to cut open her womb and take the unborn fetus. With it, he goes to the Haida residence, where Nobuhiko has committed suicide after killing Keiko. Keiichi buries the fetus in the house's backyard. An unknown woman invites him to have dinner before he returns home, finding that Chie's womb now contains a ringing telephone. Keiichi surrenders to the police, but he is attacked by the ghosts of Chie and their unborn child, the latter of whom eventually kills him. Meanwhile, Yudai is haunted by Toshiki's spirit. | |||||
| 5 | "Episode 5" | Sho Miyake | Hiroshi Takahashi, Takashige Ichise | July 3, 2020 | |
| Yudai visits Kiyomi, from whom he is estranged, to ask her for drugs. She tells him that Toshiki is not their biological son, but rather a baby she adopted from the cursed house. Kiyomi then drowns Yudai in the bathtub before going to the house, where she has a breakdown. She is comforted by her long-dead friends Yoshie and Mai, who invite her to go with them. Odajima, Haruka, and Kimie continue pursuing the case and search for Kiyomi. After finding Yudai's corpse, Odajima, Haruka, and detective Kosaka go to the house to find photos of Kiyomi's rape in the living room. Odajima experiences visions of his childhood, in which his sister, Kazuha, was lured into the attic by the woman in white, who gave him her baby. It is revealed that the house seems to function beyond time and space, as the baby was in fact Toshiki, whose kidnapping by Kiyomi somehow happened in Odajima's past. | |||||
| 6 | "Episode 6" | Sho Miyake | Hiroshi Takahashi, Takashige Ichise | July 3, 2020 | |
| In 1997, the cursed house was sold to Yusaku and Tomoko Morozumi. The two initially refuse to heed Odajima's warning about the danger of the house, but later ask for his help after experiencing visions of the Haida murders, where it is revealed that Tomoko was the woman who invited Keiichi for dinner. Odajima and Haruka summon Michiko to conduct another séance, this time in the house's attic. Tomoko is terrorized by Sunada's spirit and sent to the hospital. Michiko's séance ends with her meeting the woman in white, causing her to scream in horror. It is then revealed that the house has a mechanism in case the people who inhabit it do not succumb to violence; when Yusaku attempts to leave house, he spontaneously explodes. Toshiki wakes up from his coma and, to her surprise, communicates with Kimie. The episode ends with Haruka burying the cassette tape containing the talk show interview with Odajima in the cursed house's backyard. When she is about to leave, Sunada grabs her from behind. | |||||
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 85% of 13 critic reviews were positive, with an average rating of 3/5, giving it the highest critic score of the franchise.[3] Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com said "The idea of brutal violence cursing a place or person now comes to Netflix in the form of a 6-episode prequel series called 'Ju-On: Origins,' and it proves that there’s still some life in this concept."
