Spiral - The Ring II
Spiral - The Ring II ( Japanese ら せ ん , lawn , literally: "Spirale, Helix") is a novel by Kōji Suzuki from 1995. It is the sequel to The Ring and the second part of the Ring trilogy. The novel is about a virus that spreads using video tape.
The film Lawn appeared at the same time as the filming of Ringu 's first book on January 31, 1998.
Table of contents
The pathologist Mitsuo Ando has to autopsy his old fellow student Ryuji Takayama. During the autopsy, he found a strange ulcer on Ryuji's throat and in his heart, as well as a mysterious note in his stomach with the numbers 1 7 8 1 3 6 on it. Eventually Ando finds out that this code results in the word "ring". But not only this piece of paper, which seems to be a message from the dead Ryuji, puzzles him; the ulcer that triggered the heart attack also remains inexplicable to him. Little by little, Ando discovered the events of The Ring through a report from Asakawa Kazuyuki - and he discovered that Asakawa's theory was wrong: Although his wife and daughter copied the video and showed it to his in-laws, they died. Since then, Asakawa is no longer accessible.
But Ando is not only left with the mystery of the video, but also with the disappearance of Ryuji's assistant Mai Takano, with whom he fell in love. She found a copy of the video a week before she disappeared and watched it. The situation becomes even more mysterious when suddenly a woman lives in Mai’s apartment, posing as Mai’s sister Masako. With this, Ando begins a passionate love affair.
In the meantime, his colleagues have found out that a virus is the cause of death for the curse: the so-called ring virus. This seems to be a fusion of the smallpox virus and Sadako Yamamura's DNA and to form in the body through the sensory impressions that arise when watching the video. In Ryuji's ring viruses, you will also find a strange sequence of bases that turns out to be another code and indicates that the virus has mutated. Ando realizes too late that the virus has found a new way of spreading: Asakawa's report. So he is infected himself. And not only that, Asakawa's brother now wants to publish the report as a book. But he doesn't find time to do anything about it. It turns out that Mai became pregnant from the Ring Virus and gave birth to Sadakos. And this is none other than Masako. Ando finally receives an offer from her that he cannot refuse. But he shouldn't stop the virus for this and also wake up Ryuji with Sadako's help. Thus, humanity will soon be displaced from the Sadako Yamamura genus.
title
Spiral is derived from the DNA spiral. The metaphor of the spiral is also used in the book for two entwined snakes (the ring virus itself is later compared to snakes).
Sequels
The ring trilogy ends with a loop . The plot of Spiral is also complemented by the short story The coffin drifting in the sky from the ring 0: birthday .
Film adaptations
There have been two film adaptations of Spiral, a theatrical version from 1998 and a television series that came out in 1999.