The Japanese are very much into their spirits. There are
hundreds of them, many harmless, many tragic, and more than a few just mischievous.
There actually aren’t too many evil spirits wandering the country… but there
are a few, and you don’t want to mess with any of them. Here are 14 reasons to
avoid Japanese relationships, Japanese bathrooms, Japanese babies and pretty much the entirety of Japan.
1) Kamaitachi
Kamaitachi, literally means “sickle weasel.” There are three
of them, sometimes brothers, sometimes triplets, who go around cutting off
people’s legs. The first weasel knocks someone down, the second cuts off the
legs, and the third sews up the wounds. They move so fast basically people
blink and then suddenly realize they no longer have legs. Admittedly, the fact
that one of the weasels takes the time to patch people up before absconding with
their limbs helps. But, if the idea that you could suddenly discover that weasels have
stolen your legs doesn’t scare you, then you’re a better man than I.
2) Joro-Gumo
The Joro-gumo is a spider-woman, but she’s not a member of
the Avengers with a needlessly complicated backstory. She’s a giant spider, with
the ability to take the form of a beautiful lady (sometimes the top half is
human, and her lower torso is that of a spider) who seduces men, wraps them up
in her webs, poisons them, and eats them. One variation of the Joro-gumo myth
says that sometimes she appears as a woman holding a baby, who asks men passing by to
hold it. When they do, they are someone surprised to discover the “baby” is
made up of thousands of spider-eggs, which burst open.
3) Teke Teke
Teke Teke is more of an urban legend than a regular myth, as
it’s reasonably new. She’s the spirit of a girl who tripped on some train
tracks and was cut in half by an oncoming train. Now she crawls around looking
for other people to share her fate, which she facilitates by cutting them in
half with a scythe. There’s a variant of the Teke Teke myth about a girl named
Reiko Kashima, who was also cut in half by a train; now she wanders bathroom
stalls and asks people on the toilet if they know where her legs are. If people
don’t answer with “The Meishin Railway,” she cuts off their legs, which is bad at the
best of times, let alone when you’re trying to poop.
4) Gashadokuro
This spirit is pretty simple — it’s a giant skeleton made of
of the bones of people who have died from starvation. They wander around, grab
you, and bite your head off, drink your blood, and add your skeleton to the
pile.
5) Katakirauwa
The ghosts of baby pigs which 1) have one ear 2) cast no
shadow and 3) steal your fucking soul if they manage to run between your
legs. I think I’d rather be chased by the giant mass skeleton that a bunch of
tiny squealing dead baby pigs, thank you.
6) Aka Manto
Another one of the many, many Japanese ghosts that murder
people while they’re trying to take a shit, Aka Manto approaches people in
bathroom stalls and asks them a simple, if perplexing question: “Would you like
red paper or blue paper?” If you say red, your flesh is sliced into ribbons
until you’re effectively red. If you choose blue, you’re strangled to death. If
you pick any other color, you’re dragged to hell. There’s a variant who asks if you
want a red or blue cape instead of paper; choose red and the skin is flayed off
your back, choose blue and all the blood is drained from your body. The point
is never go to the bathroom in Japan.
7) Tsuchigumo
Greek mythology is known for its variety of mixed-up
monsters — e.g. the manticore, which has a lion’s body, bat wings, and a human
head — but they have nothing on Japan. Meet the Tsuchigumo, creatures with the
body of a tiger, limbs of a spider, and the face of a demon. They eat unwary
travelers (actually, they eat wary ones as well, I’m sure). Once a powerful
Japanese warrior killed a Tsuchigumo and 1,990 skulls fell out of his belly.
That’s a monster who is frighteningly good at his job.
8) Kekkai
Childbirth seems difficult enough before you bring in the possibility
that you may give birth to some kind of demon/monster/thing. In Japan, these
are called Sankei, and the worst of them is the Kekkai. Basically, instead of
giving birth to a baby, a lady gives birth to a lump of flesh and blood and hair,
when immediately runs off, straight out of the vagina, and tries to burrow
underneath its mother’s home in order to murder her later. No wonder Japan’s
birth rate is declining.
9) Oshiroibaba
One of the many, many horrible demon women that apparently
wander around the nation unfettered, Oshirobaba is an old crone that goes
around asking girls if they’d like to try some of her face powder, like the
world’s creepiest Avon lady. Taking make-up from strangers is bad idea in
general, and taking it from old ladies is even dumber, because the Oshirobaba’s
powder makes your face fall off.
10) Ittan-Momen
The Ittan-Momen doesn’t sound particularly scary; it’s
basically a sentient roll of cotton that just flies around in the wind at
night, wandering around. But the Ittan-Momen is also a sadistic asshole,
because if it sees you, it will either wraps itself around your neck and choke
you to death, or wrap itself around your head and suffocate you. Again, the
idea that you can be walking back from the convenience store and suddenly get murdered by a large piece of cloths is deeply disconcerting to me.
11) Isonade
Imagine a shark. Now imagine a shark whose fins were like a cheese grater, except instead of cheese they grated your flesh. That’s the Isonade, who use their teeth and fins to both fillet you and then drag you down to the
ocean floor, if you’re unlucky enough to meet one in the water.
12) Bake-Kujira
Japan may still get in trouble for whaling, but rest assured
the country knows its wrong. Because when a whale is killed it could come back
as a Bake-Kujira — an animated whale skeleton that surfaces much like it did in
life. While spotting a living whale is considered very lucky, just one look at a
Bake0Kujira is enough to give you and your village plague, famine, fire, and/or
many other disasters.
13) Hyosube
The short, humanoid demons are tiny, belligerent, and bad
news. If you see one, you will die — and they are more than happy for you to see
them. They don’t try and hide, they wander as they want. And they’ll eat all
the eggplants in your garden, and trample your field just to be assholes.
About the only thing you can do to avoid accidentally seeing a Hyosube is
leave some eggplants out for them willingly, and even that’s a 50/50 shot at
best. Oh, and sometime Hyosube will use your bathtub, leaving behind a huge
amount of dirt, hair and scum. If you throw out the bathtub water, the Hyosube
will fucking kill you. Just buy a new tub.
14) Kuchisake-Onna
Another more modern monster, the Kuchisake-Onna is a woman
who wears a medical mask and asks kids if she’s pretty. She is, so kids say
yes. That’s when she removes her mask and reveals that her mouth has been slit open
on both sides, Joker-style. At this point, she asks if the child thinks she’s
pretty now. If the child says no, she cuts the kid in half. If the child says
yes, she slits his/her mouth exactly like hers. What’s more terrifying about
the Kuchisake-Onna is that there was a genuinely big scare in Japan in the
1970s that she was wandering about, to the point where teachers personally were
escorting children home from school.
