Novel Timeline

This article contains the timeline of Koji Suzuki's novels. For information on the other continuties' timelines, visit Film Timeline and American Film Timeline.

Prior to Ring

1946

• On Oshima Island, Shizuko Yamamura brings a statue of En no Ozunu (a Japanese mystic said to have supernatural powers) out of the ocean. She soon exhibits psychic powers shortly afterwards.

1947

• Shizuko leaves her home and goes to Tokyo, but is hospitalised after collapsing from a migraine brought on by her powers.
• She meets Doctor Heihachiro Ikuma, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Tokyo University. Dr. Ikuma becomes intruiged with her powers, and the two end up falling in love and having an affair, even though Dr. Ikuma is married.
• Shizuko becomes pregnant and returns to Oshima Island to spare Dr. Ikuma the scandal. Later that year, Sadako Yamamura is born. Shizuko leaves Sadako in her grandmother's care and returns to Tokyo.

1950

• Shizuko again returns to Oshima and retrieves Sadako, now three years old. Her family don't hear from her for the next five years.

1954

• Shizuko becomes pregnant, later that night, Junji Yamamura is born.

1955

• Shizuko decides to bow out of a public demonstration of her psychic powers. The press respond by labelling her a fraud, causing Shizuko to fall into a deep depression.
• Dr. Ikuma also suffers, divorcing his wife and is fired from his position. He tries to activate possible psychic powers he has by standing under waterfalls, but develops tuberculosis and is hospitalised in southern Hakone for treatment.

1956

• Shizuko, Yuri and Sadako return to Oshima Island.
• Unfortunately, Shizuko doesn't break out of her depression and commits suicide by leaping into Mount Mihara, an active volcano.
• Sadako lives with her uncle Takashi Yamamura afterwards.

1957

• Sadako correctly predicts the eruption time and date of Mount Mihara but hides her powers.

1965

• Sadako graduates high school. She moves to Tokyo and joins the Hisho Acting Troupe. She becomes lovers with sound operator Hiroshi Toyama.

1976

• Toyama catches Sadako practicing her nensha powers onto a television set, Sadako predicting the creation of video tapes.
• A spiteful member of the troupe, Okubo, broadcasts an audio recording of Sadako and Toyama being intimate. The next day, the show's director Shigemori is found dead and Sadako has vanished. The five people who heard the audio recording all die from heart attacks.

1986

• Sadako has fled to Hakone to be near Dr. Ikuma, who is still hospitalised. However, she is attacked and raped by Nagao Jotaro, a 28-year old doctor. However, he discovers her darkest secret. She has Testicular Feminization Syndrome, meaning she is genetically male despite being a girl, and she has a pair of testicals. Sadako launches a psychic attack on Nagao, and he strangles her close to death before dumping her body down a nearby well and seals her in.
• Sadako sees a vision of herself reborn within the womb of Mai Takano and dies from starvation.
• Nagao carries a strand of the smallpox virus, being the last known person in Japan to be treated for the virus. The virus was transferred to Sadako when he raped her, and the virus was mutated by Sadako's powers to create the renowned "Ring Virus". Sadako dies, but her power lingers on and transplants itself into a video cassette in the rental cabins built in the area years later.
• Dr. Ikuma passed away at some point.

Ring

1990

• September 5th: Four high school friends including Tomoko Oishi die of heart attacks a week after watching a cursed video cassette.
• October 11th: Kazuyuki Asakawa, a Japanese journalist, investigates the four deaths. He learns the four stayed at the Villa Log Cabin resort in Hakone. He learns of the tape's existence and watches it at the resort.
• October 12th: Kazuyuki turns to his friend Ryuji Takayama for help in solving the tape's origins. The two watch the tape at Ryuji's apartment. For the next five days they research on the tape and learn of Sadako and her troubled past.
• October 18th: Kazuyuki and Ryuji figure out the curse is in fact the smallpox virus which will kill the infected in seven days. They locate the well in Hakone and pull out Sadako's corpse. Kazuyuki appears to be cured of the virus.
• October 19th: Kazuyuki visits the Yamamuras on Oshima Island and gives them Sadako's corpse. Ryuji realises he has the virus and dies after calling his assistant Mai Takano.

Spiral

1990 Continued

• October 20th: The autopsy of Ryuji's body is performed by his old friend Mitsuo Ando and his assistant Miyashita.
• October 21st: Kazuyuki learns Ryuji has died, and realises the tape is a form of the virus and he was cured because he spread the virus by copying the tape and giving it to Ryuji, who did not copy it. His wife and daughter have watched the tape, so Kazuyuki drives them to the hometown of his wife's parents to show them the tape. However, they get caught in a car crash. Kazuyuki's family perish whilst he is hospitalised.
• November 5th: Ando learns Kazuyuki's family were dead before the car crash. Mai finds Ryuji's copy of the tape and watches it. The virus affects her differently, inserting Sadako's DNA into her body and Sadako begins to grow anew in Mai's body.
• November 8th: Sadako gains control of Mai's body and forces her to go to the roof.
• November 15th: Sadako is reborn, resembling Mai. Mai dies as a result.
• November 19th: Ando finds a journal report written by Kazuyuki, titled "The Ring".
• November 20th: Mai has not been heard from for a while. Ando goes to see her but spots Sadako leaving her apartment.
• November 26th: Mai's body is found inside a ventilation duct on her apartment rooftop. Meanwhile, a news reporter Yoshino, visits the aging Toyama. He is still deeply in love with Sadako.
• November 27th: Kazuyuki Asakawa passes away. Ando visits the place of Mai's death, and encounters Sadako who mentions she will need his assistance at some point in the future. Sadako then visits Toyama and helps him die peacefully.

1991

• January 14th: The virus has mutated and now Kazuyuki's journal is its main carrier. Ando and Miyashita have read the journal and now suffer from dreams of Sadako and the well, visiting Hakone where they find said well. Ando returns home where he meets Sadako, under the alias of Masako and claiming to be Mai's sister. She then seduces him.
• January 15th: Miyashita researches Sadako's past and connects her to Mai and Ryuji's deaths, faxing the information to Ando including a photo of Sadako. Ando realises he's been fooled. Sadako leaves him a note asking him not to oppose her and offers the chance to resurrect his dead son if he helps spread the virus. He agrees, and his son is reborn via his DNA being mixed with Sadako's womb.
• March: The Ring journal is published as a best-selling novel by Kazuyuki's brother Junichiro.
• June: The journal has become tremendously popular, and a film is in the works. Sadako auditions to play herself and wins. By now, over 20,000 readers have read the journal and are now infected with the virus and Sadako's DNA.

2020

• December 23th: Junji Yamamura and died from throat cancer.