5 Japanese Folk Horror Stories

Looking from the outside, one could imagine Japan as a foreign world. Their culture is vastly different than anything conceived in the West, likely due to the long distance and their isolated nature, which gave them time to develop something different. They're still human, though, and like humans, have the same root fears which birth their stories. Here are a few of them.

5: The Ghost of Oyuki

This is a famous painting of a female yurei, which is what they call their ghosts. This one was painted by Maruyama Ōkyo, founder of the Maruyama-Shijō school of painting. According to the inscription, the artist had a mistress at the Tominaga geisha house, who died young, and he, naturally, mourned her death. One night, the woman appeared at the foot of his bed, and he couldn't get the image out of his head, so he painted her as he saw her, pale with black eyes and long, disheveled hair.

4: The Speaking Skull

Back in 1300, from a temple in the Nara prefecture called Kanko-ji, lived a monk named Doutou. He did well for his community, even paying out of his own pocket to have a bridge constructed, so he was loved by the people.

One day, Doutou walked across the valley with his disciple, Manryo. On the path, he notices a skull that had been covered in mud, bitten, scratched, and nearly broken, with only bits of flesh left hanging on. Saddened by the abuse the skull came by, Doutou commanded his disciple to take it high up the path and prop it up next to a tree. Manryo did as he was asked and hid the skull with branches.

Later that year, a man requested entrance, having come down from the mountains to see with his own eyes that who they called Manryo. Once they met, the man told him that he was greatly indebted and that, having brought nothing, if Manryo would follow him home, he would be repaid. The disciple didn't understand, but given the enthusiasm, went anyways.

Before him was a great feast, and the man told him to eat up and began to devour the food himself. Manryo wondered what he'd done, but the man wouldn't answer and would shove food down his mouth if he tried to ask. Once he was full, the man's face changed and he beckoned the disciple to flee with him, for the brother who had murdered him had arrived home, and Manryo managed to put the pieces together.

He was unable to run, though, and when the door opened, he saw not the brother but his son and mother, who was surprised herself and asked what a monk was doing in her house. He told her the story, and when he looked over his shoulder, found nobody there. The mother listened with shock, though, and was angered at having had one son kill the other, and so she took her grandson to be forgiven for his father's sins.

3: The Hunger Gods

The Hidarugami are said to be the spirits of those that have starved to death in the mountains. Due to the lonely and suffering nature of their deaths, they turn to vengeful spirits and wander looking to make others suffer.

If you run into a Hidarugami, you'll suffer strong hunger, fatigue, and numb limbs, you won't be able to move and you'll collapse. If you're killed, you join their ranks and wander the mountains looking for hikers to murder by starvation, but you can prevent this by eating a mouthful of rice or grains.

There are variations of this ghost through Japan, with the ones in the Shiga prefecture forcing you to rip people's stomachs open to search for undigested food, in the Mie prefecture, they'll also attack livestock, and in Kochi, Nagasaki, and Kagoshima there are small shrines that are said to ward them off from attacking.

2: The Inviting Ghost Hand

You wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, for a glass of water, anything really, and out of the wall, a ghostly hand sticks out, beckoning you to come. When you walk into the room, though, it's empty, and you most likely encountered somebody who died in that very room but had little strength to manifest itself. Usually reading a prayer at the closest temple in their name will fix the issue.

1: The Blind Female Musician

Although ghosts by themselves can make a story dreadful, this one's true horror. This was in the Kyoho era. A samurai named Kanji was making his trip to the capital at Edo when he stopped at an inn along the way, and from his room, heard the most beautiful voice in his life. It came from the next room and belonged to a goze, a blind woman who made her living from wandering the country and playing her music.

He imagined she must be as lovely as her voice, so he hid and ravaged her. She wasn't easy on the eyes, though she was pretty happy thinking she finally found love, and so the man traveled with her briefly, before pushing her into a ravine, thus murdering her. He went on and never looked back.

The next year, he made his trip to Edo, and when he stopped at a temple in the mountains, she appeared to him. "I have no eyes, but I see you now," she told him.

He was dragged from his bed to the graveyard. She stopped, embraced him and pulled him into the earth. The monks heard noises and followed the trail, and after getting their shovels, dug into the grave, where they saw Kanji's body wrapped by a woman's corpse.

Japanese horror is different from Western horror in the sense that it's more subtle. There are fewer monsters, per se, and more spirits of people who died in gruesome manners, so their apparitions are their final emotions repeating themselves through history. We'll go through folk horror from other regions, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, be nice to people and pick up the skulls you find in the middle of the road (or don't if you don't want your fingerprints at a crime scene); you never know when you'll need to get along with a ghost.

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