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皆さん、こんにちは
Greetings mortals!

As today is a special day of the year, we welcome you to another article published by the Shining Nippon! This time we are back with a special Halloween edition.

There are several famous urban legends and creepy tales in other cultures, such as the Bloody Mary, the Slender Man or the Wendigo! While all deserve their respect, our Japanese yokai / evil spirits and urban legends are vastly different from them.

This dark day is a perfect opportunity to educate you a bit about this darker side of our culture, so why don´t you sit back, wait until it is dark, and close all the lights before letting me take you on a journey to hell... I mean an educational journey through the dark side of culture.



First of all, we will start with the Yokai!

Yokai are essentially spirits! While they can be good, we are going to be looking at evil spirits! And without further ado, let us get started with the very first entry in our list.

雪女 - The snow woman


The Yuki-Onna is one of our most popular Yokai, and there are also different stories about what she exactly does and what she looks like. Still, most tales agree on the part that she appears in front of men as a tall, beautiful, pale woman with long black hair. She often appears on snowy nights and targets males who are wandering around. Sometimes they do not see her until she is right in front of them. After all, her pale skin lets her blend well with the snowy landscape. Survivors say that she is one of the most beautiful women that they have ever seen. Yet her eyes can be bothersome and be enough to make some of the bravest men run in terror.


There are also reports that some people saw her floating around instead of walking.

Some stories tell tales of her freezing travellers trapped in snowstorms to death and leaving them behind as nothing but frost-coated corpses. Other legends say that she leads people around, making them follow her until they die of the cold. At other times she is holding a child and waits until a good person attempts to take the child away from her to warm and save it so she can freeze them in place.
Other stories talk of her invading the home of people on snowy nights to kill them during their sleep. Sometimes she even seduces men to kill them while sleeping with them.

In the end, the Yuki-Onna also sometimes has a slightly soft side where she lets her victims go, under the condition that they will never tell anyone about her. If they do, she will haunt them! No one knows exactly why, but there have multiple survivors who all gave different stories of why she spared them.


The second entry in our list is the Tengu.


While Tengu are in some areas considered as gods due to their compelling nature, they are still most often reported as evil spirits. Monks especially tell stories of horror about the Tengu. These yokai are strong opponents of Buddhism and will go to great lengths to destroy it. They often tell wrong rumours about Buddhism and kidnap monks to drop them in remote places in hopes of them dying alone and losing their faith. They also often possess women to seduce the followers of Buddha and rob temples.

They were often known as the harbingers of war, and spotting one from afar was a bad omen. No one is sure about their origins, but it is believed that they are the ghosts of angry and heretical priests who lost their faith. They caused a great deal of trouble during the medieval times in Japan, having gone as far as to blind an emperor.

The Tengu often kidnapped young boys and priests. If not left in the remote places, the priests were left tied up in high areas, such as on the top of a tree. Survivors of these abductions were common. However, they were not the same person as before this encounter. They usually came back in a state where they were almost dead or had gone completely mad. This was a common tactic to induce even more fear into the population.

The third and last entry in the Yokai list is the Onihitokuchi


Unlike the other two entries, Onihitokuchi is a demon. It is known to be a very tall ogre-like demon with only one eye. While no written records mention him, stories about them were nonetheless always passed down by elders telling the stories about him to the other villagers.

What makes this entry particularly scary for many is that it is widely known for eating humans. It is especially known to appear with thunderstorms to disappear with the subsequent sounds of thunder and lightning again after it ate the unfortunate ones.

There are also stories about this oni sometimes disguising itself as a man and getting close to women before marrying them. On the night of their marriage, this man would reveal himself to be the oni and eat the bride in one mouthful.

Now onto the second part of the article - the urban legends


The first entry into the list is the Aka Manto.


Unlike the stories about the yokai, these urban legends are often more modern and widely less reported. Nonetheless, they are pretty popular around some areas of Japan.
One such story is the Aka Manto which left many children and even teenagers terrified of using public and school bathrooms.

While using these bathrooms, the victims sometimes encountered another being wearing a red cape and a mask. The reports are unclear if this is another yokai or a serial killer. While this being had both female and male victims, there are still more female victims. It is known to prefer children using the last bathroom stall, which is why this one is mainly being avoided whenever possible.

Once they sit down, they begin hearing a male voice asking if they want red or blue paper. Those who say blue are suffocated to death, while those saying red will be murdered brutally so that they are drenched in their own blood. The only survivors were those who refused his offer and ran for their lives.

The second entry is Teke Teke.


This urban legend is about the ghost of an unfortunate schoolgirl who fell down the railway and got cut in half by an oncoming train. Ever since, she has become a vengeful ghost that lurks around train stations at night.

The train stations is also where she waits for unfortunate victims at night. If she sees a victim being alone, she proceeds to chase them around. Due to her not having an upper body, she travels on her hands or elbows while dragging her torso while making ‘’teke teke’’ sounds which is also where the name of the urban legend comes from.

Those who think that they can outrun her are fools. Despite missing her lower body, she is said to be quick enough to keep up with cars. The only survivors were those who managed to find a place where she could not reach quickly.

The last entry is the Red Room Curse.


Unlike the last two entries, this urban legend got its popularity through the internet. It is widely believed to be a curse. The victims start seeing a strange pop up like the one above on their screen, which asks them if they like the red room while also hearing a voice asking the same question through this pop-up.

Closing the pop-ups has never worked for its victims as they will reappear again until the voice has finished asking the question. After a while, the whole screen turns red and shows all of its past victims names.

All of its victims were found dead, and there are no survivors. There are only victims who painted their room red with their blood after stumbling upon this curse.

As usual, it is also time for a little lesson below!


雪女 - Yuki-Onna - The Snow woman
妖怪 - Yokai - Strange entities
悪 - Aku - Evil
幽霊 - Yūrei - Ghost
呪い - Noroi - Curse

And with that, I also wish you a happy Halloween!


Signed,
The ministress of Education