is the main antagonist of the Ju-On and The Grudge horror franchises. Kayako's fictional history alternates slightly between continuities, but all depict her as the vengeful ghost of a woman killed by her husband Takeo along with their son Toshio in a murder-suicide after he came to believe she was having an affair, before the spirits of all three are bound to their family home, haunting and killing all to enter over varying periods of time, ranging from days to years.
Kayako Saeki has been played by a number of actresses in films, including Takako Fuji in Katasumi (1998), Ju-On: The Curse, Ju-On: The Curse 2 (both 2000), Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), Ju-On: The Grudge 2 (2003), and the American remake films The Grudge (2004) and The Grudge 2 (2006), Misaki Saishō in Ju-On: The Beginning of the End (2014) and Ju-On: The Final Curse (2015), Kyōka Takizawa as a child in the American The Grudge 2, Aiko Horiuchi in the American The Grudge 3 (2009), Anna Moon in the American Tales from the Grudge (2006), and Junko Bailey in the American The Grudge: The Untold Chapter (2020). American adaptations expanded the character's backstory, with the character only cameoing in the 2020 film as her "grudge" is transferred to other spirits. The character also appears in Kōji Shiraishi's 2016 crossover film Sadako vs. Kayako portrayed by Runa Endō, alongside The Ring antagonist Sadako Yamamura, both serving as principle inspirations for the webtoon series Erma.
History and characteristics
Japanese timeline
In the Ju-on timeline, as revealed in the official novel written by Kei Ohishi, both of her parents were present albeit highly neglectful, causing Kayako to often feel depressed and lonely.
Kayako spent most of her free time with her cat Kuro and was highly anti-social. In the first installment of the Ju-on franchise, Ju-on: The Curse, Kobayashi's wife Manami [sic] remarks that she remembers Kayako from college and that she found her "creepy". Kayako became highly jealous of Manami and even tried to curse her but failed and eventually gave up. When she attends university, she meets Shunsuke Kobayashi, with whom she falls deeply in love. After the accidental deaths of her parents which didn't seem to faze her, Kayako marries Takeo Saeki, the only person who understands and cares for her, and together, they have a son named Toshio. By now, Kobayashi is Toshio's school teacher, and she falls in love with him again.
She writes of her feelings for him in the journal she kept all her life; in most variations of the story, Takeo ends up finding and reading her diary. He becomes obsessed with the idea that Kayako is cheating on him with his son's teacher – or worse, Toshio could not be his son, but Kobayashi's. When she gets home that day, he violently attacks her upstairs, pushing her against the wall. Toshio is in his bedroom drawing and hears the noise and coming outside, watches the violence which is occurring below through the banisters. Kayako tries to run away while Takeo chases her, but he pushes her down. She sprains her ankle, stumbles, and falls, and has to go down their house stairs by crawling. After much effort, she makes it to the front door, only to find Takeo slowly walking behind her, watching her suffer. He then snaps her neck to a 90-degree angle and crushes her throat, takes her to their bedroom and puts her in a trash bag. Kayako is still alive, but paralyzed, capable only of letting out a croaking moan. Takeo stabs her multiple times (an event that is not shown explicitly in either Ju-On: The Grudge or The Grudge, but heavily hinted at, as Takeo is shown lowering a box cutter to her face in the former, and dragging her bloody body in the latter). Then, he puts her body in the far corner of the attic, through an attic door in the ceiling of their bedroom closet.
After her death, she becomes an Onryō because of the painful and torturous nature of her death. In the novel, her spirit first claimed Toshio, possibly to save him. In the American films, Toshio is drowned by his father in the bathtub along with his pet cat.
Sadako vs. Kayako
Kayako appears in the 2016 film Sadako vs. Kayako, along with the onryo from the Ring series, Sadako Yamamura.
Through a rumor, it is explained that Kayako was repeatedly stabbed to death by her husband before he drowned their son, Toshio, and hung himself. Ever since, Kayako's and Toshio's spirits haunt their household, killing anyone who sets foot inside.
Suzuka Takagi moves in next door with her parents, where she already experiences supernatural visions of the foreboding house.