10 scariest legends in Japan

Japanese horrors are considered the most terrible – in films, ghosts always interact with mortals, and bright and emotional characters make the picture grotesque.

In Japanese thrillers, there is an abundance of emotions, horrors, tragedies, so when we watch a movie, we often turn away – everything that happens in it is too scary.

Every culture has its own horror stories – Japan is no exception. In this country, there are terrible legends that all the inhabitants of Japan are afraid of.

10 Hitobashira

Hitobashira (“living pillar”) is an ancient ritual of sacrificing a person who was immured alive in a column for construction. It was believed that this rite would help protect the building from earthquakes, hostilities, etc.

Ancient people thought that by immuring a living person in the support of a building, his spirit would help to ward off evil forces from the building and the building would stand for many centuries. It is said that buildings in which people are sealed in columns are haunted by their ghosts.

9. Kushisake Onna

Kushisake Onna is a character in many anime and movies. Kushisake Onna translates as “a woman with a torn mouth.”

All the Japanese know the legend about this woman – she talks about a beautiful lady who was mutilated and then killed by her husband because of jealousy. Kushisake Onna returned to the mortal world to seek revenge.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the legend became most famous, and teachers in Japanese schools encouraged parents to see off and meet their children from school. If a person walks alone at night, then Kushisake Onna may appear and it will not be possible to escape from her.

She wears a surgical mask and asks the question, “Am I beautiful?” If she gets the answer: “No”, she cuts off the man’s head with large scissors. If she receives the answer: “Yes”, then she removes her mask and the man sees her mouth cut to the ears, after which the woman also cuts the stranger’s mouth.

8. Teke-teke

“Teke-teke-teke” is the sound that a moving creature makes. And it moves with the help of elbows.

The legend tells that a sweet girl was hit by a train and cut in half. Versions are different – one says that the girl herself threw herself under the wheels, the other that she accidentally fell while on the subway.

The train wheels cut the girl in half, but her upper body decided to take revenge because her anger was too great.

Despite the fact that she does not have a lower body, she moves quickly, and if someone happens to meet her, she will cut these people in half with a scythe.

7. From Tomino

 

A Japanese urban legend says that whoever dares to read a poem in its entirety will either die or be in an accident.

Everyone knows that words have powerful power, and there are those that are undesirable to pronounce. “Hell of Tomino” has a set of words that no one should read.

Even if someone does not die after reading a poem, sooner or later they will experience something bad.

The poem was written by Emota Inuhito in the book “A Heart Like a Rolling Stone”, in which there are lines about Tomino, who died and went to hell.

6. Aka Manto

After you learn this legend, it’s scary to visit public Japanese restrooms. “Aka manto” means a red cloak, and represents an evil spirit that lives in a public women’s restroom.

He may ask, “Which color do you prefer, blue or red?” If a woman chooses red, she will be chopped into several pieces, if blue, she will be strangled.

This spirit appears in the toilet when the toilet paper is over. Probably, in order to avoid encounters with this spirit, you should always have paper with you.

5. cow head

The legend of the cow’s head is a Japanese horror story that is not in books, but it is still passed from mouth to mouth. It is not recommended for anyone to know a terrible story, because you can die of fright.

Once, while traveling on a bus with schoolchildren, the teacher decided to entertain the students and began to tell them scary stories.

When he began to tell the story “Cow’s Head”, the children began to scream and asked him to stop. But it seemed that the teacher was in a trance and did not hear them – when he woke up, all the students were unconscious and foaming at the mouth. Some of them died after a few days.

4. Okiku doll

A doll named Okiku seems the most ordinary, but only at first glance.

According to legend, a 17-year-old boy bought a doll at a marine exhibition as a gift for his 2-year-old sister – the girl was delighted with her and always played with her (this was in 1918).

A year later, the girl died, the parents kept the doll and named it after their daughter, Okiku. The soul of the girl took possession of the doll, and her hair gradually became longer (although it was short when she bought it). Now the doll is in the temple of Mannenji.

3. Inunaki Village

Inunaki Village is a mysterious and completely isolated settlement from the rest of the world. It contains a large number of abandoned houses, and some of them are inhabited only by old people.

At the entrance to the village, you can see the sign “Japanese laws are not valid here”, and, according to eyewitnesses, life in this village is creepy.

For example, things like cannibalism and murder are quite normal. Electronic devices and telephones in the village do not work – there are pay phones and old shops, but you can not make calls from such a phone.

The people who went to the Inunaki village did not come back.

2. The girl from the gap

Have you ever paid attention to the gap between the closet and the wall? Bed and floor? It’s better not to look there, because one day you might notice something… look closely and see a pair of eyes that will look directly at you.

When you first meet a girl, she will ask: “Do you want to play hide and seek with me?” Even if you don’t feel like it, you can’t refuse.

The game will consist in the fact that you will not be able to look between the cracks, and when you meet the girl for the second time, you will find yourself in another dimension … or in hell.

1. Kiyotaki Tunnel

The Kiyotaki Tunnel is the most famous haunted place in Japan, built in 1927. The tunnel is 444 meters long (4 means the cursed number).

During the construction of the tunnel, workers died because of the slave and harsh working conditions, and the ghosts of these people live in the tunnel, like those who died in it.

Ghosts can be encountered at night when driving through the tunnel in a car, they can even scare you when they are in the back seat.

There is a mirror in the tunnel – if you see a ghost in it, then after looking at it, a terrible death awaits a person. Interestingly, the length of the tunnel varies depending on what time of day it is measured.

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