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Yuji Toyama (遠山 雄治 Tōyama Yūji) is a major character from Ju-on: The Grudge, portrayed by Yoji Tanaka. Yuji is a retired detective who worked on the Saeki murders, and is called back as the curse's mysterious death cicle continues.

History[]

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Kayako's ghost spots Toyama.

The investigators of the Tokunaga family deaths turned to Toyama for answers. Toyama previously took on a case on a man called Takeo Saeki, who murdered his wife Kayako Saeki and presumably his son Toshio Saeki in the house five years prior. He reluctantly left his little daughter Izumi and attended the case. While viewing the security video tape from Hitomi Tokunaga's office building, Toyama saw the guard being taken into the washroom by a dark shadow. As he continued watching, he saw the black figure of a woman emerging from the washroom and walking down the corridor, until a face suddenly raised directly in front of the camera and stared into it.

Convinced that the house was the source of all the mysterious incidents, Toyama went there with gasoline, intent on burning it to the ground. While inside, he experienced a vision of his 12-year-old daughter Izumi in the future as a teenager. She is leaving the house when she stops for a while upon seeing her father as well. Toyama went upstairs and saw Izumi's friends before they are attacked by an unseen force. Back to his present time, Toyama was surprised by the ghost of Kayako crawling towards him. In fear, he half-staggers and half-falls back down the stairs. The two investigators who came with him suddenly appeared and asked him what happened. Too frightened to speak, Toyama managed to get up and scrambles out of the house as Kayako slowly creeped down the stairs towards the two petrified investigators and killed them. Cursed and mentally disturbed by the grudge, he managed to survive for some time and return back to his family, becoming a recluse, hiding and closing all the windows in his room, as his wife later testified. However, eventually, he still inevitably died from the curse.

Afterlife[]

His wife and daughter were greatly affected by his death and heavily mourned him afterwards and never really recovered. Izumi later visited the same house he was investigating and visited before dying and met him when he was visiting it through atemporal connection. Cursed and mentally disturbed by the grudge herself, just like her father was before her, Izumi eventually became a recluse too and hid in her room. She was visited by her friends and classmates, Chiharu and Miyuki, who were told by her mother that Toyama also exhibited the same behavior before his death. Izumi saw her father once again in their apartment, before she was pursued by her ghostly schoolmates and at last grabbed and dragged into darkness by Kayako's spirit, joining Toyama in the afterlife.

Etymology[]

  • The name Yuji means "hero, manly" (雄) (yu) and "cure" (治) (chi/ji).
  • Yuji's surname Toyama means "distant, far" (遠) (to) and "mountain, hill" (山) (yama).

Notes and trivia[]

  • Toyama's storyline is partly adapted in The Grudge, where Detective Nakagawa is haunted by Kayako's security video tape and goes to the house intending to burn it down. While in the Ju-on films the place remains intact, Karen manages to set fire on it after Det. Nakagawa is taken by the curse.
  • Toyama and Izumi's father-and-daughter relationship is mirrored in White Ghost, where Akane looses her father to a grudge curse as well.
  • Toyama is a rare instance of a Ju-on character whose demise is never seen on screen. He manages to ran out of the house as Kayako's ghost crawls down to him, and is never seen alive again. He is canonically deceased though, as Izumi sees his spirit before her death.
  • Actor Yoji Tanaka appeared in Kill Bill: Volume 1 alongside Chiaki Kuriyama who portrayed Mizuho Tamura in Ju-on: The Curse.

Gallery[]

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