Nightmare Fuel / The Rebirth of Buddha

This Happy Science film stands out from the others as not only it is set in modern-day Japan and stars a high-school girl as a protagonist, but also an anti-suicide/anti-Aum Shinrikyo tract. Therefore, this film has moments that will keep viewers up at night, especially those on suicide, so read at your discretion.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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• First of all, the film spends its first minutes literally and figuratively demonizing suicide victims by depicting them as evil wandering ghosts seeking to possess and kill the living. It doesn't help they're moaning in pain while hidden behind people and objects.
  • The first instance of this is shown in Sayako being dragged into the path of a moving train by Tokuzo Kanemoto's ghost. As she ends up witnessing the man's spirit trial, the three judges in charge of his case then lambast Kanemoto for "wasting the one life given to him by God" with his suicide. When the judges reveal he wrote derisive articles about God, religion, and the Spirit World and Kanemoto smugly replies that it's all a fraud, one of them tries to remind him he's in the Spirit World he disregarded so much. When he derided it as a sick joke in an earthly courtroom, the judges lament his refusal to admit the truth and sentence him for his sins.
    Spirit Judge: You have wasted your given life. You must pay for the consequences yourself. (strikes gavel)
    • Right after the judge strikes the gavel, a vortex opens behind Kanemoto with eerie sounds as it sucks him down back to Earth. He's visibly terrified as he futilely screams for help and holds on to his podium, which contrasts the smug, furious denial of God and the Spirit world he showed earlier on.
  • Another instance is found in Yuuki's explanation of the Spirit World to Sayako, which starts pretty mild until he goes to the topic of Hell and suicidal souls. The eerie accompanying visuals of souls falling into a dark void as he explains how they work don't help.
    Yuuki: [...] You probably saw a soul that committed suicide. They're one of the nasty ones. [...] Suicides can't go to either Heaven or Hell until they spent their expected time of life in this world. So during that time, they possess family members, or cause other people to die in the site of their suicide. It's gonna get pretty ugly from now on.

• The scene of Shunta falling ill after a demon got ahold of him while Sayako and Yuuki bickered. By the time they took him to her father's hospital, he developed a blackened, mumps-like abscess from his left cheek to his neck. The sound of his heavy, ragged breathing while in the hospital can be frightening, especially for people who were or witnessed loved ones recovering from life-threatening diseases.
  • Harry Budson being possessed by a demon as Master Sorano uses his powers to exorcize it from Shunta's body. While he willingly underwent possession to help with the exorcism, the possessed Budson's face contorting into monstrous expressions while speaking with a double voice can still scare the crap out of viewers who watch it for the first time. It becomes even worse when the demon seemingly leaves his body, only to return and warp the poor guy's body and face into a demonic imitation, complete with a skull-like face with sharp teeth until Sorano exorcizes the demon for real.

• When Sayako, Yuuki, and Shunta attend a summer festival, a fleet of UFOs suddenly appears and while the presents are amazed at such an uncommon sight, it quickly devolves into horror as the ships rain red beams on the entire city.

• Tousaku Arai, leader of the Sounen Group, has an intimidating presence in most of the scenes featuring him, especially later on as we find out who he really is and his attempts to destroy Taiyou Sorano and prevent him from spreading the latter's "teachings of the mind" as the true reincarnation of the Shakyamuni Buddha. Not helping matters is that the Sounen Group is based in the real-life Aum Shinrikyo, which is infamous for the crimes committed in a bid to take over Japan until Shoko Asahara's arrest and subsequent execution.
  • When he appears in Mari Kimura's show and is asked to describe the Sounen Group in detail, he opens with a verbose speech on how the world is ailing and needs a strong leader to shape it up. What makes it nightmarish is that he lists things that are or could be happening in real life.
    Arai: The world is in chaos right now. Governments do not realize what they are doing, and although peace is the world's slogan, there seems to be no end to war. Society today is ailing. Families are torn apart. Children kill their parents, parents kill their children. In challenging times such as these, times to try people's souls, we need a strong leader that can solve all of these problems. That's my view.
  • When Sayako enters the Sounen Group's headquarters to interview Arai for her school's newspaper, she attends one of his lectures. While he starts with his usual sermon on how humans are foolish enough to destroy the world, Arai starts to become threatening when his lecture devolves into how it's a dog-eat-dog world and that the ends justify the means to survive while deriding weakness as a sin, which is basically Social Darwinism with a Buddhist aesthetic. Moreover, when Arai promises psychic powers to his followers in exchange for their obedience, they start to emanate dark energy as Sayako starts to feel ill.
• In response to Sayako defeating his UFO fleet at a summer festival, Arai's attempts to take over Japan escalated into hijacking all TV stations across the country under the pretense of an emergency news broadcast. During the takeover, Arai predicts an inescapable tsunami that will paralyze the country's cities and claim countless lives. When the citizens dismiss his predictions as lies, he adds that the signs are already present, followed by the waters rising right after he finishes the sentence.
  • The newscaster next to Arai reports that the tsunami is 200 meters in height and heading for Japan at 800 kilometers per hour. Moreover, as he reports it will hit the country in ten minutes, he also reports the tsunami's effects are already manifesting in NBK's studio as the floor fills with water. When the reporter asks Arai if there's a chance to survive, the cult leader replies that the tsunami will engulf the whole island of Japan and there's no hope. The newscaster is understandably devastated until Arai tells him the only hope for survival is to obey him in exchange for using his psychic powers to push it back.
    Arai: There is only one way. One hope for you to survive, and that is to obey me. I will use all my psychic powers to push back the tsunami. Surrender your minds! Obey me if you want to survive!
• The scenes of people being possessed by dark spirits while scrambling around and shoving each other to survive the incoming tsunami before devolving into getting on their knees and begging Arai to save them. While Mari Kimura reveals it's all an illusion and Arai is just sending psychic waves to fool those who look at him in their screens, the scenes are nothing short of nightmarish.
  • These scenes become even more frightening for those who watched the second movie. Had the Sounen Group succeeded in taking over the country without any interference from TSI, the newly converted nation would have fallen into sin even further with their teachings. This, in turn, would trigger the Earth's consciousness into causing a real inescapable tsunami that would engulf Japan, only Arai's psychic powers would not save them this time.
• ​Tousaku Arai's eventual possession after being outed as a fraud, on the run from the police, and abandoned by all his henchmen is scary to watch, especially as the demon starts speaking while Arai screams in pain as he futilely tries to keep control of his body.
  Demon: That's right. Get angry. Fill your heart with hatred. It's time to move on to your last plan, our last resort.
• ​Arai appears once again with a kidnapped Sayako and takes her to a crowded stadium in the middle of a game, plotting to have the girl proclaim him as the reincarnation of Buddha instead of Taiyou Sorano. Even when she tries to defy him after Mari, Yuuki, Harry, and Shunta come to her aid, she is deterred by the demon possessing Arai, who guilt-trips her into doing what he wants by threatening the lives of the people in the stadium and attacking her faith in Master Sorano.
  • Even when she gathers the courage to defy Arai and proclaim Sorano as the real deal anyway, he responds by stealing her soul, effectively killing her. To make matters worse, he claims a demon has possessed Sayako because she tried to tell everyone that Arai was the Buddha, before gloating about it and ignoring the people's concerns about her life.
  • In his final battle with Sorano, he becomes even scarier as he's at his angriest for having lost everything. He even attacks the people in the stadium with shadows and even using fire that makes the attendants fight each other until Sorano uses his own powers to negate them.
• The demon possessing Arai makes an appearance after his vessel is defeated, emerging as a pile of black sludge transforming into an androgynous young man with long black hair and a deathly-pale complexion wearing purple and black Buddhist robes. Apart from being a jab at Aum Shinrikyo's leader, Shoko Asahara, the design also serves as a dark, demonic mockery of the Buddha.