To get you a bit in the Halloween mood, Saetori decided to upload a lot of Halloween and horror related posts! This time we will dive into some of the most scariest Japanese legends, monsters or tales. Do you have to guts to read them all?
10) Gozu (cow head)
This story is rather creepy. A teacher tells a group of bored students a story using a cowhead. The students want the teacher to stop, but somehow he can’t. The next day they find the kids in the schoolbus, on the side of the road, all having foam around their mouths, and not remembering anything that happened the night before..
What did we learn? exactly, leave the cows alone…
9) Aka Manto
I think most of us agree that using a public bathroom isn’t something fun. After reading this story the fear for public bathrooms might even become worse!
The Aka Manto is an urban legend about a malicious spirits who kills people at .. there we go, public bathrooms! The spirit will ask people if they want red or blue paper. In some versions of the story he will ask you to choose between a red or blue cape, in both versions the end will be the same.
If you answer with red, you will be sliced until everything is red, the color of your blood.
If you answer with blue, you will be strangled until your body is blue from oxygen debridement.
If you decline to make a choice, he will take his leave.. or so they say.
8) Okiku, the doll
Nowadays many people love to see possessed dolls, don’t they? With movies like Annabelle hitting high notes on charts, dolls like Okiku are left in the shadows.. or are they?
Okiku is named after it’s previous owner, who used to live in Hokkaido. The doll can be found inside the Mannenji Temple in Iwamizawa. Apparently Okiku got this doll as a gift from her older brother. She cherished the doll and they were inseperatable.. untill Okiku died. Afterward the family noticed the hair of the doll grew, and they believed the spirit of the little girl went into the doll. However, even though the story is quite creepy, this doll doesn’t have a violent past like most of the dolls we know..
7) Hitobashira or Human pillars
Hitobashira is practiced formerly in Japan. It is a human sacrifice where people are buried alive under or near big buildings, such as dams, bridges and castles. This is done as a prayer to the god so that the building would not be destroyed by natural disasters, such as floods or earthquakes, or by enemy attacks. However, the term Hirobashira can also refer to workers who were buried alive under inhumane conditions.
6) Jorogumo, The Spider woman.
As if spiders alone weren’t scary enough, Japan took it to another level! This is a type of Yokai, A creature, ghost or goblin from the Japanese folktales. It seems that this spider can shapeshift into a beautiful woman. There are many stories about this Jorogumo, they all involve seducing man in some way.
For me nothing would be more scary than a human eating woman spider.. (extreme fear of spiders over here!)
5) Kuchisake-onna
So this is one of the more well known stories. A woman wearing a masks ask kids if she is beautiful, the kids say yes. Then she removes her mask and ask it again. Her mouth is sliced open, like the Joker from the Batman movies. Of course the kids, which would be terrified, answer no. Then she slice them up.
How her mouth got sliced open, you ask? a common story describes that in the Heian period, her husband found out that she was having an affair with another samurai. He used a sword to cut her mouth from ear to ear and asked, “Who will think you are beautiful now?”
I guess you will think twice before you call someone ugly now, won’t you?
4) The fatal fare
A lonely taxi driver is riding along a road at night. Suddenly a person appears from the darkness, calling the taxi over. Once the person is set on the backseat it will give an address the driver had never heard off. The driver mentions this but is assured the person will give the directions. After driving around for a while, following sometimes insane directions, the driver will grow uneasy. Then when he turns around to ask the passenger where they are, the passenger had vanished. When he turns back, he find himself drive off the edge of a cliff and dies. Thank god i am not a taxi driver..
3) Tsurara Onna or icicle wife
One day an lonely man falls in love with a woman. They soon called each other husband and wife. One day the man notices the woman never bathes. So after confronting her but not getting answers he was fed up with it all. He dragged her to the bathroom and threw her in the tub. After an hour he noticed it was very quiet. When he decides to check upon her, she was gone.
Thinking she ran away the man was heartbroken but decided to move on and eventually fell in love again. Winter came and icicles were growing from the house. one particle big one, actually. The man went outside to get rid of the icicles, however when he gets outside he noticed the big icicle was his old wife!
His new wife heard him shriek, and as she hurried outside, she found him dead, in a pool of blood, with an icicle stuck through his eye, right into his brain..
That’s what you call a cold blooded murder..
2) Kune Kune
This is a more modern urban myth about a distant apparition seen on widely extended rice or barley fields on hot summer days. They say it is an indiscernible white object, like a strip of paper of a loose textile sheet, that shimmers and wiggles as if it is moved by a strong gust of wind, even if the day is windless. They say that anyone who tried to get closer or tries to touch it either went insane or died. It might be based on local Japanese ghost stories where scarecrows come to life at night.
However, i wouldn’t take the risks!
1) Tomino
If you read this verse out loud, you will die… or so they say! The story goes about Tomino who dies and falls into hell.. (I am not gonna try this … Sorry guys!) Luckily we have this nice Vocaloid version as well..
Can i have my mommy?
We hope you enjoyed those 10 creepy stories, and let’s hope they won’t disturb the well needed night rest!
Sources: Wikipedia, Google
Images sources: Wikipedia, google (we do not own any of the pictures)
