Toshio Saeki (佐伯 俊雄 Saeki Toshio) is a main character from the Ju-on franchise. Born on July 27, 1987 in Tokyo, Japan, Toshio is an onryō, the spiteful ghost of a boy who lost his mother Kayako Saeki, his pet cat Mar, as well as his own life all under the murderous rage of his father Takeo Saeki.
Overview
Toshio follows the resented spirit of his mother on a spreading grudge curse that sets on anyone who steps inside their house. He is the more passive ghost overall, usually just appearing and doing little other than staring and startling people with his signature unsettling cat sounds.
His ghost is trademarked by his menacing, yet innocent aspect with pitch-black, wide-open eyes, pale skin, and the haunting meowing sounds he makes. He is often spotted in just his underwear; white in the Japanese films or black in The Grudge. He is capable of posing as a living being, his skin regaining normal color.
Toshio shares a main role with his mother Kayako, becoming an icon of Japanese horror and the horror genre in general.
Biography
Japanese Timeline
Are you my real mother?
Early Life
Toshio draws as his mother is murdered.
Toshio was born to Takeo and Kayako Saeki, a Japanese couple residing in Nerima City, Tokyo on July 27, 1985 as seen in Ju-on: The Grudge. He had a teacher namedKobayashi who happened to be an old flame of his mother, but who never really noticed her.
Takeo discovered a journal in which Kayako wrote intensely about her love for Kobayashi. Blind with rage, he obsessed over the mistaken idea that Kayako was cheating on him. He attacked Kayako when she came home and violently killed her.
Death
The Ju-on film series never actually makes it clear how Toshio died, even though Kobayashi already finds him meowing and able to communicate to his mother, suggesting that her spirit took him herself. Her murder brought a curse upon the house, in which the ghosts of Kayako, Toshio, and Takeo (killed by Kayako's ghost soon after her murder) attack anyone who enters, re-enacting the murders and following the victims wherever they go.
Afterlife
Noticing his absence, Kobayashi went to the Saeki house and found a trail of blood, and Toshio acting lazy and covered in bruises. Toshio only told him his parents were "out" and later was heard talking to an unseen woman about his father, inside his room. Toshio complained that Mar was killed and told her his father had left for good. The woman promised that she would stay with him forever, to whom Toshio asked back if she was really his mother. The voice remarked to Toshio that she would always be behind him, and Kobayashi entered the room, finding Toshio alone and making several drawings of his cat. After the teacher discovered Kayako's corpse in the attic, he tried to run out of the house with Toshio, only to be surprised by her ghost, as Toshio only meowed.
Later, Rika found him with his cat inside the closet and thought he was an actual boy until she was told by Detective Nakagawa that he had been murdered years before. While the curse followed Rika, an old man noticed Toshio and started playing with him. A passerby also was able to see him as well. Kayako came back to life when the curse gripped Kyoko Harase's pregnancy. Kyoko's last vision before being possessed was Toshio repetitively calling her "mother" while in her childbed. This implies that Kayako and Toshio were reborn as one, but is not made clear.
Beginning of the End
See: Toshio Yamada
Megumi Okina with Yūya Ozeki filming Ju-on: The Grudge.
In the 2014 reboot, Toshio is actually the reincarnated self of a boy named Toshio Yamada. He still maintains his more passive role in haunting cursed victims alongside his mother. Murdered by his own family in 1995, Toshio Yamada died being tied up in a closet and left to die during a heatwave. The domestic violence that led to his death brought a grudge curse over the Yamada household, condemning anyone who stepped into it. His teacher, the police, and a photographer investigate the house and find his corpse, and when the police and teacher go to find help Toshio reanimates and kills the photographer.
As portrayed in The Beginning of the End.
When Takeo and Kayako Saeki later moved into the Yamada house, her husband's absence made Kayako incredibly lonely and although she desired to have a child they seemed unable to conceive. While sleeping, Toshio entered her body causing her to become pregnant as she wanted, being reborn as Toshio Saeki. Finally, Taeko accused Kayako of infidelity, asking if Toshio was his son. When she replied he was "only hers" he murdered her, killing Toshio as well as his cat Mar soon after.
Along with Kayako and Taeko, Toshio would go on to haunt anyone who stepped foot on the premises, often appearing right before an attack by Kayako.
Sadako vs. Kayako
Toshio is re-established as the secondary antagonist alongside his mother in the crossover with the Ringu franchise. The film seems to discard the events of the reboot and outright contradicts them. Compared to other depictions of Toshio, this version shows him to be malevolent, violent, and even sadistic.
The character spoofed in Scary Movie 4.
When three school bullies force a schoolboy to enter the Saeki house, Toshio has the boy lure the bullies in and murders them all while Kayako kills the boy. Keizo and Tamao arrive at the house but do not enter, with Keizo throwing a stone to drive Toshio away.
That night, schoolgirl Suzuka thinks she sees one of the kids inside the Saeki house and goes inside herself. She sees Toshio and her screams prompted her parents to rush in, but Toshio kills her father by tearing his head off as well. Keizo arrives in time to save Suzuka, although she is already cursed.
Yuri and Suzuka agree to team up for Keizo plans to trick Kayoko and Sadako into fighting each other to the death. When Toshio appears, Sadako drags him inside the TV with her hair prompting Kayako to attack her and they brutally confront each other. At first, both spirits seem to overpower the other but ultimately the bout ends in a stalemate. Keizo's plan to trap the two spirits in Sadako's well also fails, resulting in his brutal death, Yuri's body being possessed, and both Kayoko and Sadako combine into a horrific, more powerful entity: Sadakaya. As it attacks Suzuka and Tamao, Toshio appears behind them, taunting their fates (which are ultimately left unknown.)
American Timeline
Early Life and Death
Kayako fell in love with an American professor named Peter Kirk. After discovering her inner feelings towards Peter, her husband Takeo became obsessed with the idea that he was not his son, killing her in a rage. He subsequently killed Toshio as well as his cat Mar by drowning them in the bathtub before hanging himself in Toshio's bedroom. The spirits of the boy and the cat then merged and formed a demonic entity that haunts anyone who enters the Saeki house, alongside Kayako's angry spirit.
Following Kayoko's address from her letters, Peter went to the Saeki house and found Toshio acting lazy and covered in bruises in the middle of a complete mess. Peter later discovered Kayako's corpse and saw Takeo's hanged body. He ran from the house but later committed suicide. Karen Davis eventually found him trapped in the closet with his cat, thinking he was a living boy until told he had been murdered there three years before.
Hauntings in America
The curse then reached a Chicago apartment building, following a young girl who had stepped into the house and returned home, in an attempt to run away from the ghosts. There, Toshio posed once again as an ordinary boy that enjoyed playing with Rose's toys, such as the Mr. Potato Head she gave him. Her older sister Lisa also met him in his ghostly form but also mistook him for a human being. Not long after, his true nature was revealed. Toshio's ghost supposedly vanished after the banishing ritual performed in the building by his aunt, Naoko.
He does not appear in The Grudge (2020), only being indirectly mentioned and featured in a photograph.
Etymology
- The name Toshio means "talented, handsome" (俊) (toshi) and "hero, manly" (雄) (o).
- Toshio's surname Saeki means "help, aid" (佐) (sa) and "chief, count, earl, uncle, Brazil" (伯) (eki).
Trivia
- In the Kei Ohishi Ju-on novelization of the film, Toshio hides in the attic from his father. Instead of coming after him, Takeo slams the cupboard door shut, leaving Toshio to starve to death.
- However, whilst in the attic, Toshio encounters the body (and the ghost) of his mother, so it is unknown if he did indeed starve, or if Kayako claimed him.
- Also in the novel, Toshio buries his own cat in the dirt, after both of their deaths.
- However, whilst in the attic, Toshio encounters the body (and the ghost) of his mother, so it is unknown if he did indeed starve, or if Kayako claimed him.
- In the Japanese films, Toshio is six years old at the time of his death. Meanwhile, in the American films, he was either seven or eight years old (the online newspaper article that Karen reads states Toshio's age as seven, but a link to another online article on the search engine she uses states Toshio's age as eight).
- Toshio attended the press release of Shimizu's 2011 film Tormented.http://news.livedoor.com/article/detail/5724723/
- Yūya Ozeki, one of Toshio's actors, was reportedly terrified of cats, which made filming scenes with the cats used to play Mar rather difficult.
- The character is parodied by Garrett Masuda in Scary Movie 4. Bill Pullman also spoofs Peter Kirk in this film, as the boy's father.
- Takeo killed Toshio in the Japanese films as he wrongly suspected that he was Kobayashi's child and not his. Given that his American counterpart Peter Kirk is Caucasian, this was likely not the case for the American films. The implication is that Takeo killed Toshio because he walked in on him killing Kayako, and had to kill him because he was a witness to his crime.
References