Atsuko Okatsuka

My mom was very abusive to them.

You know, she was the stepmom.

And so...

So it presents itself, you know, how do I, so there's, right, there's like movies about, I talk about representation and TV and movies.

And I joke that, you know, there's like, sure, there's Fresh Off the Boat, An Asian Family on TV or Crazy Rich Asians, the movie.

But, you know, when people ask like, was your family kind of like that?

And I'm like, no, it's more like, have you seen the ring?

You know, like the, you know, the bitch that comes out of the TV.

That's my mom.

So it's more like that.

We are the worst, but they made us this way.

So it's more like that, like, you know, or like Babadook or something.

This is how, I mean, even my siblings describing it, you know, my mom, I guess used to, when they would go to bed at night, she would, you know, take a kitchen knife and there's like metal bars for the framing of the bed.

I guess she would just run the knife along.

Yeah, and then she would also do it on their face, they told me.

Just this last trip back to Japan, they told me.

They're like, oh, we didn't tell you this story about your mom.

So, you know, when I joke, I joke that it's like the girl from The Ring, Samira, that crawls out of the tent.

But I mean, it's kind of.

Or Babadook lurking in the darkness, watching you sleep.