Sadako Yamamura is a vengeful ghost of a psychic who committed suicide and had a life of bad hygiene and teeth problems. As a ghost, she uses nensha, her most distinctive power and weapon, to create a cursed videotape. Whoever watches the tape will die exactly one week later unless the tape is copied and shown to another person, who must then repeat the same process. She also has a habit of haunting dentists and sometimes murdering them in the same process out of rage and frustration. Sadako appears as a young woman whose face is hidden under her long black hair, and she wears a white dress that has water stains on it that is also frayed at the end. This appearance is typical of yūrei. Specifically Sadako is a type of yūrei known as an onryō bound by a desire for vengeance. Sadako has a variety of psychic powers plus powers like super speed, phasing, teleportation, levitation, etc. Sadako's human appearance reveals a young Japanese woman with beautiful features and long black hair, but who was very introverted, very complicated, negligent and lonely. She killed herself by a drug overdose in 1996.