Chester Watson’s A Japanese Horror Film is a masterpiece in story telling. The Los Angeles rapper is part of a long lineage of monotone spitters who pride themselves more on their pen than their presence, combining the rap-as-chess intricacy of GZA (whose samurai fascination he also shares) with the absurdist splatter of MF Doom and the philosophical free-associations of R.A.P. Ferreira. Watson credits Earl Sweatshirt for making him start rapping as a teen, and on his earliest releases there was no mistaking that debt, but the two artists’ visions have diverged as they’ve entered their twenties. Where Earl's introspective raps have continued to retreat ever inward, Watson uses his to build something more fantastical and conceptual.