: The book is praised for returning to the "roots" of the franchise after the more sci-fi-heavy Loop and S . It serves to bridge the gap between the supernatural elements of the original Ring and the biological/technological explanations introduced later.
While Kōji Suzuki is globally synonymous with the technological horror of the Ring franchise—a curse transmitted via VHS tape—his literary oeuvre reveals a far deeper and more varied engagement with the unsettling forces that lurk beneath the surface of modern life. In his 1994 short story Tide (originally Shio ), Suzuki strips away the circuitry and static of cursed videos to confront a more ancient, primal, and arguably more terrifying source of dread: the sea. Through a masterful blend of psychological realism and subtle supernatural intrusion, Tide explores the inescapable pull of past trauma, the fluid nature of memory, and the guilt that, like the ocean’s tide, can erode the foundations of the self. koji suzuki tide