Guro, Gore, Gurotopia, and The Gurotroopers

Recently, among The J-Topians, "Guro" (Japanese pronunciation for gore "grotesque") was becoming a trend. I don't really remember who started this Guro Phenomenon in J-Topia but I think it triggered by a conversation via Facebook about Junji Ito's avant garde (like Tomie, Uzumaki,and Gyo) between me, Toqie-chan, Hiki-chan, and Edo-kun. Funny enough, after "a little" of my sinful influences included (LoL) in the process by lend them some of my Junji Ito stuffs, "the guro virus" has spread amongst J-Topia with a kind of velocity which can make light-of-speed becomes envy. This "infection" is still happening until now. Thus, in the scheduled gathering in the Friday last week, we (plus Crux-senpai and Taiyou) even talked about ghost stories, horrors, thriller, scary gores, and some other stuffs like that. In the same day, a new "community" which supposed to be "J-Topia's Dark Twin" or "J-Topia's Counterpart" was born officially (?). We call the Gurotopia, which can be shortened as G-Topia. And I call the members of G-Topia as The Gurotroopers (ROFLMAO).

Are We Really Insane?
Well, I can't really complaint for the birth of this new community, because I also like to read guro (yeah, I like to READ them as manga, not to WATCH them as movies, I can't stand it >_<). But, why many otaku and "common" people like to watch guro? Are we really insane or what? I can't deny the fact that many people watch guro only to show off or to be said "cool" (Indonesia: keren-kerenan), though I still don't understand what is the "coolness" for watching guro and what can be showed off about that? Like I told Edo yesterday, people who think they are "cool" are just the same with people who like hardcore rock musics and banging their head when they listen to the rock music. It is just so...absurd, and just piercing into my ears without leaving any traces of beauties in them.

To be honest, I have a little phobia of blood. So, why do I read guro? Well, I don't read guro for overcome that phobia - I think it is a good phobia ^^. I read guro because I always want to study humans. Yeah, maybe not WE who are really insane, but I AM, LoL...

Are We Really Psycho?
Did I tell you it isn't "we"? ^^ Well, okay, let's just assume it is "we"...and yeah, maybe it's true that we're psycho. But, only to disappoint a little, we will still more sane than common people for sure...

Why?

Well, like I said above, we don't read or watch guro just for fun or to play around. We are living serious, and I can tell you again that we watch guro to understand humans better.

With watching guro, we're invited to empathize and sympathize with the characters in the guro stories. We're "diving" in their curiosity, feels of horrors, hurts, and melting along with what experienced by the characters.

"Guro" is, like I always say, are the shortest path to understand humans via Otakuism way. I just talked about the way of touka koukan here, and guro, if read or watched with full understanding, will help you to experience Touka Koukan in faster time.

"Guro" is an extreme epitome of what humans can do. To see a human kill other humans, cut their organs, slash their head, scatter their brains, and even rape them after he/she kill them with utmost cruelty is an extreme experience. It's hard to bear, and strikes right into your very nerves. In an odd way, it is a purifying experience - a catharsis. In Greek tragedy, you had to experience pain and suffering in order to be purified, and this is what happens in "guro". You dive deep into the dark side of your psyche, you observe the inherent evil of human nature. You are shocked, repulsed, and destroyed. Then you return back to the real world, and nothing is the same any more. These things can happen. It is terrible to imagine what one human being can to to another, but it can happen. It is important to face the ugliness and the evil of human being. It is a merciless, but necessary reminder. This is the "Touka Koukan" experience that you will get through the guro.

Ero Guro...?
"Do gores always come along with erotisme?" is a common question when we realized that almost all of guro authors used the beautiful girls as the hardcore subjects or objecst in their stories.

Well...the true answer is "no". There are some guro which not including sexualism in the story. But, it's also true that guro often come along with eroticism (and we call it Ero-Guro). The explanation of this phenomenon is just the same with "Roller-Coaster Effect." It has been said that

If you want a girl to fall in love with you, just put her in the Roller-Coaster.

It maybe seems absurd, but in many cases, it works! This happens because the roller-coaster will trigger the adrenaline of the girl to rise up...and higher adrenaline means higher passion to ...well, you already know that one ^^ This one has been proven by many studies and researches.

So, guro authors put those hot and cute chicks note only to "soften" (or even "harden" ?) the thrilling situations, but also to gain more of your sympathy toward the character. Well, it's like the authors already knew that cute women will attract more sympathies and attentions to the story itself.

And the second reason is because the equal characteristic between guro and ero. Both of them are the honest realities which always hidden in our common society. Both of them are the times when human's consciousness mixed up with their animality. Both of them are vulgar, beautiful and ugly in the same time, and exposing the utmost limited territory of creature who called as "humans". With those same characteristics, ero and guro suits each others perfectly.

Is Horror=Thriller=Guro?
Another common question. The answer is a "no" for sure. Horror or thriller is "the situation which makes people become afraid, scary, and not having good feelings." Horrors/thrillers is always more subjective than objective, because it's very possible that what thrills one people won't work for other people.

In the other hand, gore means "graphic violence visually depicted, especially the realistic depiction of serious physical injuries involving blood, flesh and bone matter" or we can call it "sadist". Gore is not just a situation, but also a "special" depiction that full of bloods and disturbing matters. And there is a possibilities that not all persons will be thrilled by gore/guro.

But it must be admitted that guro is indeed a horror for almost all people, including us The Gurotroopers. To see that a human can "hurts" and "slices" the other humans is very horrible, because we become know what "a man can do and can't do." Humans basically are emphatic creatures, and horror authors take benefits from this situation by including guro in their works for creating more suspense. Guro complements horror and ghost stories perfectly because most of humans began to fear and afraid if something started to look can harm or kill them. A normal ghost who only has chains and iron balls in their legs is a boring baby's diaper, but a ghost who can haunt around then curse, slice, kill, and eat you is a big disaster, isn't it?