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Ho, boy. The Ring franchise is my favourite horror series of all time, and I've absorbed most installments in Japan's staple horror series. But, there is a lot to unpack whilst tackling Sadako Yamamura's world. There are six books, thirteen movies (one which isn't out til May 2019, plus one short film), two TV series, and video games! It is impossible to sort this all out into one timeline, as there are many different continuities, though all draw sources from Koji Suzuki's 1990 novel. Still, let's dive down the well to make sense of the many incarnations of Sadako and her cursed videotape - with some brevity.

There are least 10-11 continuities in this franchise, due to all of the unrelated films and disjointed timeline.

Timeline #1 - The Novels: Consist of Koji Suzuki's six novels - Ring, Spiral, Loop, Birthday, S, and Tide.

-Sadako Yamamura is the daughter of psychic Shizuko Yamamura and scientist Dr. Ikuma. Her mother committed suicide when she was young.

-As an adult, Sadako joined a theatre troupe, as seen in Birthday, placing that at the start of the timeline. She predicts the creation of the videotape.

-When her dad gets tuberculosis, Sadako cares for him at a hospice in Hakone. She is raped by Dr. Jotaro Nagao, who discovers she is a hermaphrodite, and throws her down a well to her death.

-Sadako creates the Ring Virus from a strand of smallpox, and predicts her own death, resurrection, and how it will occur.

-Ring takes place in 1990. Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist, investigates his niece's mysterious death, connecting it to an urban legend of a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it seven days later. Asakawa and his pal, Ryuji Takayama, both watch the tape and uncover Sadako's past, til they find her corpse in the hidden well. However, Ryuji dies of a heart attack, caused by the virus. Asakawa realises he was spared because he copied the tape and showed it to Ryuji. His wife and daughter watched the tape, so he rushes to make copies to show them to someone else.

-Spiral follows, taking place a week later. Mitsuo Ando is a mortician whose son Takanori drowned about a year ago. He has to perform an autopsy on Ryuji, eventually learning of the videotape. Asakawa and his family die in a car crash, cause Sadako is evil! Ando later watches the tape, and has sex with Ryuji's girlfriend Mai Takano. Mai mysteriously becomes pregnant, disappears, and is found in an air duct. It turns out she has given birth to a resurrected Sadako, revealing the true purpose of the Ring Virus. Sadako and a resurrected Ryuji convince Ando to let the virus be spread through Asakawa's journal-turned-book-turned-movie, and they will resurrect Takanori. Humanity is doomed!

-Loop is a bit of a weird one, as it takes place before, during, and after Spiral. The story goes full Matrix, revealing the world of Ring takes place within an artificial reality as part of the LOOP Progam. Yes, really. Sadako is like a biological computer virus. The Ring Virus is extracted into the real world, mutating into a form of cancer. The resurrect Ryuji, as a baby, is also removed and becomes Kaoru Futami, a medical student. He eventually learns of his origins and returns to LOOP as Ryuji to stop Sadako.

-S as it is called, came out years after Loop, where Ando's son Takanori is now an adult. It appears the end of mankind was averted by Ryuji/Kaoru under the alias of Seiji Kashiwade, who may or may not have murdered several women who carried the Ring Virus within them. Takanori's girlfriend, Akane, is the daughter of one of these women, which technically means she is the granddaughter of Sadako.

-No idea was happens in Tide, since it lacks an official English release yet, but I'd assume it occurs after S.

...

Timeline #2 - The Japanese Trilogy: Consists of the original Ring Cycle, including the upcoming 2019 Sadako film.

-Some parts of Sadako's past in the film cycle are omitted or altered. Sadako murdered a journalist named Miyaji for questioning her mother's psychic powers, leading to Shizuko's insanity and eventual suicide. It was Sadako's father, Dr. Ikuma, who threw her down the well. Ring 0 is the first marker in the timeline, taking place in 1960s. A shy Sadako is part of a theatrical troupe, falls in love with the soundman Hiroshi Toyama, but is haunted by an evil twin and eventually becomes the victim of an angry mob orchestrated by Miyaji's sociopathic wife. The evil twin was created by Sadako murdered Miyaji as a child, locked up and drugged by Dr. Ikuma. Both Sadakos merge into one, murders the entire troupe, though Miyaji commits suicide, and Dr. Ikuma throws Sadako down the well. Ring 2 confirms Sadako was actually alive in the well for thirty years based on sheer will.

-Asakawa is reimagined as Reiko Asakawa, Ryuji is her ex-husband, and they have a young son named Yoichi. Ring occurs in 1997, and follows the plot of the book more or less. At the end of Ring, Sadako crawls out of Ryuji's TV and murders him. Reiko, realising why she was spared, races off to save Yoichi.

-Ring 2 occurs a week or two after the first film. Mai Takano searches for Reiko Asakawa to learn why Ryuji died, eventually learning Reiko's father died to save Yoichi, who is now mute and being influenced by Sadako's psychic energy. Reiko is later hit by a truck. Mai, Takano, Sadako's uncle Takashi, and scientist Dr. Kawajiri try to exorcise Sadako's energy from Yoichi but it doesn't quite work. Ryuji's ghost appears and pulls it off, but Mai and Yoichi are chased by Sadako, who appears to give up and lets them escape the well. In a subplot, Reiko's snivelling colleague Okazaki chickens out on watching the tape, leading to the death of a teenager, whose ghost drives him into madness.

-The 2019 film Sadako takes places years after Ring 2, serving as a true sequel to the original film. Mayu Akikawa is a young doctor who becomes aware of Sadako after a young girl is brought in to hospital. The girl lived in an abused home, having a connection to Sadako, summoning her to defend her from her mother. The apartment burnt down and was said to be haunted. Mayu's brother Kazuma, a vlogger, snuck into the girl's home and vanished after encountering Sadako. The only returning character is Masami, the friend of Reiko's dead niece Tomoko. Masami has been in the loony bin for years, and is killed by Sadako to wrap things up. Mayu learns Kazuma is being held in the Oshima Island cave where Sadako was born, full of angry spirits of dead children. Mayu tries to save Kazuma, but Sadako drags him to hell, then coming for Mayu at the end of the film. It's better than it sounds.

...

Timeline #3 - The Japanese Movie Retcon: Consists of Ring and Spiral.

-Ring's original sequel, Spiral, came out at the exact same time in cinemas. But, because no one saw it or really liked it, so it was retconned. It followed the story of the second novel, leading to Sadako's resurrection and the inevitable doom of mankind. The only difference is that Reiko and Yoichi die offscreen in a car crash.

...

Timeline #4 - Sadako 3D Timeline: Consists of Ring, Sadako 3D, and Sadako 2.

-The alternate timeline made with Sadako 3D. It could be considered a sequel to Ring 2, but has little connection or consistency with the timeline, and cannot work as a sequel to Spiral, as the resurrected Ryuji nor Sadako appear. Sadako is trapped in her video once again, plotting with artist Seiji Kashiwade to find a perfect host to possess and spread her curse. She picks Akane Akayuma, who has her own psychic powers. Sadako 2 takes place five years later, Akane and Takanori Ando having wed and had a daughter named Nagi, who was meant to be a new vessel for Sadako. But, Akane contained Sadako within her body, but was rendered comatose. Akane later awakens, but is murdered by a vengeful cop, unleashing Sadako, but Nagi is saved by Takanori's sister Fuko. There is also a vague subplot involving the curse instantly killing people via suicide, and Sadako have possessed other little girls.

...

Timeline #5 - The American Remake: Consists of The Rings, Rings short film, The Ring Two, and Rings.

-The American remake follows the basic outline of Japanese films with elements from the other films are sprinkled about. Naomi Watts plays Rachel Keller, Reiko's American counterpart, has a creepy son named Aidan, and works with her ex Noah to uncover the mystery of the cursed videotape.

-Sadako Yamamura is reworked as Samara Morgan, an eight-year old who has uncontrolled psychic powers. She was adopted by horse ranchers Anna and Richard Morgan in 1970, but her powers drove them mad. Samara was locked up in the barn by her dad, and she murdered her mother's beloved horses in revenge. Anna then threw Samara down a well atop Shelter Mountain, before throwing herself off a cliff. Samara died in the well seven days later, and a cabin was built over the well. At the end of The Ring, Samara kills Noah, and Rachel spreads copies of the tape to save Aidan's life.

-The 2005 film Rings takes place in 2005, and serves as a prelude to The Ring Two. Teenagers form a subcult where they take turns watching the tape, then record whatever happens over the week, but can chicken out and hand the tape to the next person. We know this cult has existed since at least 2003, and Samara is deliberately manipulating the tape to find Rachel.

-The Ring Two occurs mere hours after the end of the short film. Rachel and Aidan moved to Oregon, but Samara soon rears her hairy head. Though Rachel burns the copy of the tape, Samara throws her own rules to the wind and possesses Aidan. Rachel meets Samara's birth mother, Evelyn, who tried to drown Samara as a baby. She tells Rachel to drown Aidan to exorcise Samara. Rachel does just that, frees Aidan, and then traps Samara within the well within her monochromatic TV land whilst uttering an awful one-liner.

-The 2017 sequel Rings proves Samara could not be contained, and she takes down a frickin' plane in the opening moments of the movie! A teenager named Julia learns her boyfriend is part of the Ring cult, and watches the now digitized video to save his life. She experiences a new version of the video, realising she must find Samara's body and cremate it. We eventually meet Samara's birth father, a rapist priest played by Vincent D'Onofrio, who raped Evelyn and kept her trapped in a cellar. Samara kills the asshole, and then possesses Julia to make her her new host, whilst the video becomes sentient and starts spreading itself online.

...

Timeline #6 - The TV Series: Consists of Ring: The Final Chapter and Rasen.

-A two-part TV series released in 1999. Though following the books, the two TV shows take a lot of liberties, and take inspiration from the 1998 film too. Kazuyuki Asakawa is back, but Yoichi is his son. Ryuji is this brooding, angsty guy who looks like he belongs in a J-pop boy band, turns out to be Sadako's son, and Mai Takano is his sister. Oh, and the cursed videotape is now a music video with subliminal imagery, and extends the deadline to fourteen days.

-Rasen expands on the story of Spiral, making Mitsuo Ando a teacher, his wife is in a health clinic after having a mental breakdown over Takanori's death, and the cursed videotape appears as a CD. Sadako plots to come back from the dead using cloning, but there is also a subplot involving a serial killer created from child abuse, who plots to spread Sadako's virus online for the fun of it. At the end of the show, Ando actually dies, but is cloned, but decides to die to stop Sadako, who end up tragically committing suicide to spite those trying to misuse her again.

...

The Other Standalone Timelines

-The remaining Ring continuities are all standalones or have vague connections to the others.

-Ring Kanzenban was the first adaptation of the novel. It is perhaps the most accurate to the story, but focuses a little too much on incest and nudity to be taken seriously.

-The Ring Virus is the 1999 Korean adaptation. It closely adapts the book, but takes obvious inspiration from the Japanese movie, down to identical shots. Sadako's Korean counterpart is called Park Euh-sun.

-Sadako vs. Kayako is a crossover between Ring and The Grudge. Originally, I thought this could be set within the main Japanese film timeline, but decided against it, since there are zero ties to past films. I theorise this is just set in another continuity set after Ring, where the characters from The Grudge exist. At the end of the film, Sadako and Kayako merge into one monster named Sayako.

-The Ring: Terror's Realm is a video game released in 2000, so it has no connection to the American remakes. It involves a CDC agent investigating the Ring Virus, which appears as a computer program.

-Ring: Infinity - I have found literally next to zero information on this game, so I just made it another continuity.

Description

Ho, boy. The Ring franchise is my favourite horror series of all time, and I've absorbed most installments in Japan's staple horror series. But, there is a lot to unpack whilst tackling Sadako Yamamura's world. There are six books, thirteen movies (one which isn't out til May 2019, plus one short film), two TV series, and video games! It is impossible to sort this all out into one timeline, as there are many different continuities, though all draw sources from Koji Suzuki's 1990 novel. Still, let's dive down the well to make sense of the many incarnations of Sadako and her cursed videotape - with some brevity.

There are least 10-11 continuities in this franchise, due to all of the unrelated films and disjointed timeline.

Timeline #1 - The Novels: Consist of Koji Suzuki's six novels - Ring, Spiral, Loop, Birthday, S, and Tide.

-Sadako Yamamura is the daughter of psychic Shizuko Yamamura and scientist Dr. Ikuma. Her mother committed suicide when she was young.

-As an adult, Sadako joined a theatre troupe, as seen in Birthday, placing that at the start of the timeline. She predicts the creation of the videotape.

-When her dad gets tuberculosis, Sadako cares for him at a hospice in Hakone. She is raped by Dr. Jotaro Nagao, who discovers she is a hermaphrodite, and throws her down a well to her death.

-Sadako creates the Ring Virus from a strand of smallpox, and predicts her own death, resurrection, and how it will occur.

-Ring takes place in 1990. Kazuyuki Asakawa, a journalist, investigates his niece's mysterious death, connecting it to an urban legend of a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it seven days later. Asakawa and his pal, Ryuji Takayama, both watch the tape and uncover Sadako's past, til they find her corpse in the hidden well. However, Ryuji dies of a heart attack, caused by the virus. Asakawa realises he was spared because he copied the tape and showed it to Ryuji. His wife and daughter watched the tape, so he rushes to make copies to show them to someone else.

-Spiral follows, taking place a week later. Mitsuo Ando is a mortician whose son Takanori drowned about a year ago. He has to perform an autopsy on Ryuji, eventually learning of the videotape. Asakawa and his family die in a car crash, cause Sadako is evil! Ando later watches the tape, and has sex with Ryuji's girlfriend Mai Takano. Mai mysteriously becomes pregnant, disappears, and is found in an air duct. It turns out she has given birth to a resurrected Sadako, revealing the true purpose of the Ring Virus. Sadako and a resurrected Ryuji convince Ando to let the virus be spread through Asakawa's journal-turned-book-turned-movie, and they will resurrect Takanori. Humanity is doomed!

-Loop is a bit of a weird one, as it takes place before, during, and after Spiral. The story goes full Matrix, revealing the world of Ring takes place within an artificial reality as part of the LOOP Progam. Yes, really. Sadako is like a biological computer virus. The Ring Virus is extracted into the real world, mutating into a form of cancer. The resurrect Ryuji, as a baby, is also removed and becomes Kaoru Futami, a medical student. He eventually learns of his origins and returns to LOOP as Ryuji to stop Sadako.

-S as it is called, came out years after Loop, where Ando's son Takanori is now an adult. It appears the end of mankind was averted by Ryuji/Kaoru under the alias of Seiji Kashiwade, who may or may not have murdered several women who carried the Ring Virus within them. Takanori's girlfriend, Akane, is the daughter of one of these women, which technically means she is the granddaughter of Sadako.

-No idea was happens in Tide, since it lacks an official English release yet, but I'd assume it occurs after S.

...

Timeline #2 - The Japanese Trilogy: Consists of the original Ring Cycle, including the upcoming 2019 Sadako film.

-Some parts of Sadako's past in the film cycle are omitted or altered. Sadako murdered a journalist named Miyaji for questioning her mother's psychic powers, leading to Shizuko's insanity and eventual suicide. It was Sadako's father, Dr. Ikuma, who threw her down the well. Ring 0 is the first marker in the timeline, taking place in 1960s. A shy Sadako is part of a theatrical troupe, falls in love with the soundman Hiroshi Toyama, but is haunted by an evil twin and eventually becomes the victim of an angry mob orchestrated by Miyaji's sociopathic wife. The evil twin was created by Sadako murdered Miyaji as a child, locked up and drugged by Dr. Ikuma. Both Sadakos merge into one, murders the entire troupe, though Miyaji commits suicide, and Dr. Ikuma throws Sadako down the well. Ring 2 confirms Sadako was actually alive in the well for thirty years based on sheer will.

-Asakawa is reimagined as Reiko Asakawa, Ryuji is her ex-husband, and they have a young son named Yoichi. Ring occurs in 1997, and follows the plot of the book more or less. At the end of Ring, Sadako crawls out of Ryuji's TV and murders him. Reiko, realising why she was spared, races off to save Yoichi.

-Ring 2 occurs a week or two after the first film. Mai Takano searches for Reiko Asakawa to learn why Ryuji died, eventually learning Reiko's father died to save Yoichi, who is now mute and being influenced by Sadako's psychic energy. Reiko is later hit by a truck. Mai, Takano, Sadako's uncle Takashi, and scientist Dr. Kawajiri try to exorcise Sadako's energy from Yoichi but it doesn't quite work. Ryuji's ghost appears and pulls it off, but Mai and Yoichi are chased by Sadako, who appears to give up and lets them escape the well. In a subplot, Reiko's snivelling colleague Okazaki chickens out on watching the tape, leading to the death of a teenager, whose ghost drives him into madness.

-The 2019 film Sadako takes places years after Ring 2, serving as a true sequel to the original film. Mayu Akikawa is a young doctor who becomes aware of Sadako after a young girl is brought in to hospital. The girl lived in an abused home, having a connection to Sadako, summoning her to defend her from her mother. The apartment burnt down and was said to be haunted. Mayu's brother Kazuma, a vlogger, snuck into the girl's home and vanished after encountering Sadako. The only returning character is Masami, the friend of Reiko's dead niece Tomoko. Masami has been in the loony bin for years, and is killed by Sadako to wrap things up. Mayu learns Kazuma is being held in the Oshima Island cave where Sadako was born, full of angry spirits of dead children. Mayu tries to save Kazuma, but Sadako drags him to hell, then coming for Mayu at the end of the film. It's better than it sounds.

...

Timeline #3 - The Japanese Movie Retcon: Consists of Ring and Spiral.

-Ring's original sequel, Spiral, came out at the exact same time in cinemas. But, because no one saw it or really liked it, so it was retconned. It followed the story of the second novel, leading to Sadako's resurrection and the inevitable doom of mankind. The only difference is that Reiko and Yoichi die offscreen in a car crash.

...

Timeline #4 - Sadako 3D Timeline: Consists of Ring, Sadako 3D, and Sadako 2.

-The alternate timeline made with Sadako 3D. It could be considered a sequel to Ring 2, but has little connection or consistency with the timeline, and cannot work as a sequel to Spiral, as the resurrected Ryuji nor Sadako appear. Sadako is trapped in her video once again, plotting with artist Seiji Kashiwade to find a perfect host to possess and spread her curse. She picks Akane Akayuma, who has her own psychic powers. Sadako 2 takes place five years later, Akane and Takanori Ando having wed and had a daughter named Nagi, who was meant to be a new vessel for Sadako. But, Akane contained Sadako within her body, but was rendered comatose. Akane later awakens, but is murdered by a vengeful cop, unleashing Sadako, but Nagi is saved by Takanori's sister Fuko. There is also a vague subplot involving the curse instantly killing people via suicide, and Sadako have possessed other little girls.

...

Timeline #5 - The American Remake: Consists of The Rings, Rings short film, The Ring Two, and Rings.

-The American remake follows the basic outline of Japanese films with elements from the other films are sprinkled about. Naomi Watts plays Rachel Keller, Reiko's American counterpart, has a creepy son named Aidan, and works with her ex Noah to uncover the mystery of the cursed videotape.

-Sadako Yamamura is reworked as Samara Morgan, an eight-year old who has uncontrolled psychic powers. She was adopted by horse ranchers Anna and Richard Morgan in 1970, but her powers drove them mad. Samara was locked up in the barn by her dad, and she murdered her mother's beloved horses in revenge. Anna then threw Samara down a well atop Shelter Mountain, before throwing herself off a cliff. Samara died in the well seven days later, and a cabin was built over the well. At the end of The Ring, Samara kills Noah, and Rachel spreads copies of the tape to save Aidan's life.

-The 2005 film Rings takes place in 2005, and serves as a prelude to The Ring Two. Teenagers form a subcult where they take turns watching the tape, then record whatever happens over the week, but can chicken out and hand the tape to the next person. We know this cult has existed since at least 2003, and Samara is deliberately manipulating the tape to find Rachel.

-The Ring Two occurs mere hours after the end of the short film. Rachel and Aidan moved to Oregon, but Samara soon rears her hairy head. Though Rachel burns the copy of the tape, Samara throws her own rules to the wind and possesses Aidan. Rachel meets Samara's birth mother, Evelyn, who tried to drown Samara as a baby. She tells Rachel to drown Aidan to exorcise Samara. Rachel does just that, frees Aidan, and then traps Samara within the well within her monochromatic TV land whilst uttering an awful one-liner.

-The 2017 sequel Rings proves Samara could not be contained, and she takes down a frickin' plane in the opening moments of the movie! A teenager named Julia learns her boyfriend is part of the Ring cult, and watches the now digitized video to save his life. She experiences a new version of the video, realising she must find Samara's body and cremate it. We eventually meet Samara's birth father, a rapist priest played by Vincent D'Onofrio, who raped Evelyn and kept her trapped in a cellar. Samara kills the asshole, and then possesses Julia to make her her new host, whilst the video becomes sentient and starts spreading itself online.

...

Timeline #6 - The TV Series: Consists of Ring: The Final Chapter and Rasen.

-A two-part TV series released in 1999. Though following the books, the two TV shows take a lot of liberties, and take inspiration from the 1998 film too. Kazuyuki Asakawa is back, but Yoichi is his son. Ryuji is this brooding, angsty guy who looks like he belongs in a J-pop boy band, turns out to be Sadako's son, and Mai Takano is his sister. Oh, and the cursed videotape is now a music video with subliminal imagery, and extends the deadline to fourteen days.

-Rasen expands on the story of Spiral, making Mitsuo Ando a teacher, his wife is in a health clinic after having a mental breakdown over Takanori's death, and the cursed videotape appears as a CD. Sadako plots to come back from the dead using cloning, but there is also a subplot involving a serial killer created from child abuse, who plots to spread Sadako's virus online for the fun of it. At the end of the show, Ando actually dies, but is cloned, but decides to die to stop Sadako, who end up tragically committing suicide to spite those trying to misuse her again.

...

The Other Standalone Timelines

-The remaining Ring continuities are all standalones or have vague connections to the others.

-Ring Kanzenban was the first adaptation of the novel. It is perhaps the most accurate to the story, but focuses a little too much on incest and nudity to be taken seriously.

-The Ring Virus is the 1999 Korean adaptation. It closely adapts the book, but takes obvious inspiration from the Japanese movie, down to identical shots. Sadako's Korean counterpart is called Park Euh-sun.

-Sadako vs. Kayako is a crossover between Ring and The Grudge. Originally, I thought this could be set within the main Japanese film timeline, but decided against it, since there are zero ties to past films. I theorise this is just set in another continuity set after Ring, where the characters from The Grudge exist. At the end of the film, Sadako and Kayako merge into one monster named Sayako.

-The Ring: Terror's Realm is a video game released in 2000, so it has no connection to the American remakes. It involves a CDC agent investigating the Ring Virus, which appears as a computer program.

-Ring: Infinity - I have found literally next to zero information on this game, so I just made it another continuity.