Kegare makes J-horror epidemiological, not theological

Western horror is theological: the threat targets internal moral states — guilt, lust, pride. You can be saved by faith, exorcism, repentance, virtue. The rules are legible. The genre punishes deviation from a moral code and rewards conformity to it.

J-horror operates on kegare (穢れ) — amoral spiritual pollution. You're not doomed because you sinned; you're doomed because you walked into the wrong house, touched the wrong object, were in proximity to death. The threat is contagious and spatial, not moral. Ju-on spreads because it's pollution, not punishment. There's no purification rite, no exorcist to call, no virtue that protects you. The only defense is avoidance — and avoidance always fails.

This is why the line lands: "American horror is theological. J-horror is epidemiological." One asks what did you do? The other asks where have you been?

Source claim: J-horror's kegare model makes evil a spatial contagion rather than moral punishment — proximity, not sin, determines doom.