Modern Urban Legends
Not every yokai is old. These legends spread through schools, magazines, and the internet: a woman who hides her mouth, a girl in the school toilet, a train station that is not on any map. Most pages ask the reader's first question: is it true?
These yokai are new. Most were born after about 1950, in schools, magazines and internet forums. Few have an old picture. Many have no known author.
Some spread by word of mouth. Others began as one writer's post online. Children told of Hanako-san, the girl in the third toilet stall, from about 1950. Kuchisake-onna, the masked woman with a slit mouth, began in Gifu in December 1978. By June 1979 the story covered Japan, and police cars went out. Kisaragi Station began as one night of forum posts in January 2004.
So the first question is fair: is it true? Most pages below try to answer it. They show where the story was first recorded, and what really happened. Sometimes something did: a school rule, an arrest, a sold-out train ticket.
A few are older than they look. Talk of Aka Manto had spread by 1940. In 1810, a showman in Edo charged money to see a puppy with a human-looking face. In 1887, the scholar Inoue Enryō wrote about testing Kokkuri-san. He said the players' own hands moved it.
Each page below lists its sources.
Tsuchinoko
槌の子A short, thick snake shaped like a wooden mallet. Japanese towns have offered reward money for one since 1989.
elusive
Kesaran-pasaran
A white puff that drifts through the air. Keep it in a paulownia box and feed it face powder, and it brings luck.
benevolent
Jinmengyo
人面魚A carp in a temple pond whose markings looked like a human face, and the 1990 media storm that made it famous.
harmless
Kashima-san
カシマさんHear her story and she visits in a dream or by phone, asking riddles. Answer wrong and she takes a part of your body.
menacing
Hikiko-san
ひきこさんA tall woman in a tattered white kimono who drags children away on rainy days, said to have once been a bullied girl herself.
vengeful
Satoru-kun
さとるくんA boy you summon by calling your own phone from a payphone. He calls back within a day and creeps closer each time, until he says he is right behind you.
mysterious
Okiku Doll
お菊人形A bobbed Japanese doll at a Hokkaido temple whose short hair is said to have grown down to its shoulders after the little girl who loved it died.
eerie
Teke-teke
テケテケThe ghost of a woman cut in two by a train, who drags herself on her arms with a 'teke teke' sound.
menacing
Kotoribako
子取り箱A small wooden box from a 2005 forum story, said to be a curse. Researchers find no such tradition in Shimane.
ominous
Kokkuri-san
狐狗狸Fingers on a coin, a sheet of yes and no, and a fox, a dog, and a tanuki written over a foreign game.
deceptive
Kisaragi Station
きさらぎ駅A train ride, told live on a forum in 2004, ends at a station that is not on any timetable.
eerie
Jinmenken
人面犬A dog with a man's face that outruns cars on the highway and tells people to leave it alone.
mischievous
Hitori Kakurenbo
一人かくれんぼHide-and-seek played alone, with a stuffed doll, from a set of instructions posted in 2007.
eerie
Akai Manto
赤いマントA voice in the school toilet offers red paper or blue paper, and in the typical version both answers kill.
sinister
Turbo Granny
ターボババアAn old woman who runs alongside speeding cars on all fours, a paper reading 'Turbo' taped to her back.
swift
Hasshaku-sama
八尺様A woman about eight feet tall stands on the other side of the hedge, and the sound she makes is po, po, po.
ominous
Hanako-san of the Toilet
花子さんKnock three times on the third stall of the third floor, ask for her by name, and a small voice answers yes.
eerie
Kunekune
A white thing writhing far out in the rice field on a windless day; look at it long enough to understand what it is and you stop being able to think.
eerie
Kuchisake-onna
口裂け女A masked woman who asks 'Am I pretty?'—then removes the mask to reveal a mouth slit ear to ear.
menacing