Toshiden: Exploring Japanese Urban Legends: Volume Two

by Tara A. Devlin

  As an interesting side note, Chiyoda City, where Akihabara can be found, is actually considered one of the safest regions in all of Tokyo. The Chiyoda, Minato, and Shibuya wards are where most foreign companies have their offices, and are therefore more modern and high-tech than the outlying areas of Tokyo. If a large earthquake were to strike, the areas along the Arakawa River and Sumidagawa River in the west are considered to be at the most risk, due to their old wooden buildings and densely gathered light-steel structures.

  Medical

  Human-faced Carbuncle

  A young man went to Tokyo University’s culture festival one year. He was looking at the medical facility’s exhibit and chatting to the professor when the professor asked him if he would like to see their medical forensics room.

  The man was greatly interested and followed the professor. “If you’re unsure, this is your last chance to leave,” the professor said and then went into the room. The man followed him in. He saw numerous dead bodies floating in formalin, all lined up. Several of them were deformed, and there were jars of all sizes.

  “Let me show you something special,” the professor said and directed the man to a single glass jar. Inside was a clump of brown flesh about the size of a fist.

  It was a human-faced carbuncle.

  Apparently, it had been removed from a woman’s knee in the middle of the Meiji Era, so not even the university had a record of the full details behind it.

  ABOUT

  The human-faced carbuncle, known in Japanese as jinmensou, is actually a yokai that’s been around since at least the 1600s. Monk and author Asai Ryoui wrote about one in the ninth volume of his Otogi Bouko. The story goes that a peasant who lived in what is now modern day Ujishi City, Kyoto Prefecture, started to gradually become sicker and sicker. Six months passed when his left leg started to swell. Aside from being extremely painful, the swelling also happened to resemble a human face with eyes and a mouth.

  Somewhat intrigued, the peasant tried putting sake in the swelling’s mouth. It turned red, like it was drunk. He tried feeding it food, and the swelling ate it. He discovered that when he fed it, his pain receded, but when he stopped, the pain came roaring back. The peasant was soon nothing but skin and bones. He visited various doctors, but none could help him. He prepared himself for the worst.

  It was then that a pilgrim came to see him. He revealed that he knew how to heal the swelling, so the peasant sold all his fields to pay the man. The pilgrim used the money to gather various ingredients, then one by one put them in the swelling’s mouth. The mouth swallowed them all except for the fritillaria verticillata flower, which it refused. The pilgrim then ground the flower into a fine powder and forced it into the mouth. 17 days later, it was completely gone.

  Sightings of these human-faced swellings continued over the years, although recent improvements in science and medicine have some claiming that the origins of this yokai stem from elephantiasis. There are numerous wooden carvings and illustrations of the human-faced carbuncle from history, but how did one end up in Tokyo University?

  The story is, of course, just a story. Is there a chance that Tokyo University has something that resembles a human face cut from another human’s body? Possibly. The university is one of the largest in Japan with a long history, which is how these stories come to life in the first place. Where there’s medical research, there are rumours, and that’s why stories like this one continue to thrive.

  Diet Capsule

  “With one single pill, you too can easily lose weight!”

  There was an ad in a fashion magazine proclaiming that with a single, suspicious pill you could easily lose weight. Of course, most people would smell it for the shit it was and skip over it, but for one troubled young woman, who had tried anything and everything to lose weight, she was drawn in.

  ‘Although, I doubt this one will do anything either…’ she thought.

  A few days later, her capsule arrived.

  “This capsule is extremely effective, so only take one. However, please refrain from alcohol or spicy foods, as they may react badly with it.”

  The woman was suspicious, but she swallowed the capsule anyway. Its effects were even better than she imagined! The weight melted off her, even without exercise, and she could eat as much as she wanted. She went from the shape of a round pear to that of a model.

  It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however. Shortly after swallowing the pill, the woman was troubled by stomach pains. The thinner she got, the worse the pain grew. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore and went to see the doctor.

  After examining her, the doctor was shocked. It turned out there was a tapeworm, several meters long, living in her intestines. Inside that capsule had been a tapeworm egg.

  ABOUT

  It’s not known when this legend spread to Japan specifically, but the tapeworm diet itself has been around since at least the Victorian Era. In their efforts to fit the Victorian ideal of beauty, women underwent many horrific procedures and diets to achieve their desired look. One of these was the tapeworm diet, which is exactly what it sounds like: swallowing a tapeworm and letting it live inside you so it consumes what you eat and you don’t put on weight. Sadly, the tapeworm diet didn’t die with the Victorian Era, but continues to live on to this day.

  These days, like the urban legend above, you can buy pills that have a tapeworm egg inside. You swallow the pill, the egg hatches in your intestines, and then you’re on your way to weight loss city. In 2013, a woman in Iowa visited her doctor and admitted she bought a tapeworm pill off the internet, and she’s hardly alone. Khloe Kardashian suggested she wanted to get a tapeworm to lose weight on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Tyra Banks spoke to women on her talk show in 2009 who said they would be willing to swallow tapeworms if it meant losing weight, and in 2010, Hong Kong’s Department of Health warned people against buying parasite eggs online to lose weight. Popular Italian singer Maria Callas is perhaps one of the most famous people accused of using the tapeworm diet to lose weight, although she denied ever swallowing one willingly for that purpose (she instead was unknowingly infected with one while eating).

  A tapeworm inside your intestines will help you lose weight, of course. But there’s also a good chance it will kill you, not to mention the diarrhoea, abdomen pain, nausea, fever, fatigue, bacterial infections, and neurological issues that come along with it. You would think it would be common sense not to buy a mystery diet pill claiming to solve all your weight problems without any effort, but as they say, common sense isn’t very common anymore. Never buy a random pill off the internet and swallow it, no matter how badly you might want to lose weight.

  Game Brain

  Do you like video games? Of course, video games are fun, but if you play them constantly, it’s dangerous for your health. If you play games every day for a long period of time, I want you to listen carefully to what I have to say, because it’s likely that you already have “game brain.”

  Games use simple, repetitive actions, and those lower the capacity of your brain’s frontal regions. This leaves you in a state not too dissimilar to dementia. Playing games for too long will leave you unable to control yourself, making you quick to anger and more likely to commit crimes. The only way to avoid game brain is to stop playing games immediately and live a healthy life.

  ABOUT

  If you made it this far without laughing, you’re a better person than I am. This urban legend sprang to life thanks to a professor from Nihon University named Mori Akio. In 2002, he published a book called The Terror of Game Brain. He performed an experiment looking at the effect of playing video games on the human brain and determined that playing for a long period of time had a negative effect on brain waves. This lack of activity in the brain’s prefrontal region meant that video gamers had less control over their emotions and creativity than people who didn’t play games. As a result, they experienced more fatigue and inability to concentrate, were quicker to anger, and had problems socialising with
others.

  You’ve no doubt seen this argument provided yourself in your own country. Video games are evil and they’re making our children criminals. There is, of course, no evidence that this is true, and it wasn’t long until scientists challenged Mori’s beliefs, as well as the experiment itself. Some brain specialists argued that Mori used unreliable measures and misinterpreted the data. Others suggested that fatigue was the real cause, not gaming.

  THE EVIDENCE AGAINST

  Kawashima Ryuta, a Japanese neuroscientist, released a book in 2003 called Train Your Brain: 60 Days to a Better Brain. He later turned this book into a video game called Brain Age: Train your Brain in Minutes a Day!. He argued that Mori’s idea of “game brain” was merely a superstition, and he continues his work on video games to this day.

  In 2005, Baba Akira, a professor from the University of Tokyo, held an interview with ITMedia. He mentioned that the term “game brain” was only used in Japan and that, if you mentioned the term to someone overseas, they would laugh at you. He argued that because the media took Mori’s claims at face value without doing any research or critical thinking themselves, they caused an entire generation of parents to worry over nothing.

  Baba argued that there were two major problems with Mori’s experiment. First, his method of measuring brain waves. Mori performed his test on university students and elementary school students who were out enjoying a campus festival. He used a simple machine to measure their brain waves, but brain waves aren’t something that can be so easily measured. You can’t just stick a hat on someone like in a manga and accurately measure their brain.

  Secondly, Mori’s claims that the alpha and beta waves of the prefrontal cortex of the brain simplified while playing games, resembling that of dementia patients, was a poor explanation. Baba argued that as people get used to playing games, the activity in the prefrontal cortex naturally cools down. Another part of the brain takes over because it’s no longer a new action, so this isn’t evidence that games are turning brains to mush, but evidence that the gamers were growing accustomed to the movements of the game.

  Habu Yoshiharu, a professional shogi player, had his brain waves recorded and showed very little activity in his prefrontal cortex while playing. By Mori’s logic, Habu, an extremely intelligent man, also suffered from game brain and wasn’t just well accustomed to the game he made his profession. In fact, the same could be said for anyone who was skilled at something, not just games.

  Several Japanese professors and neuroscientists, such as Tsumoto Tadaharu, have come out over the years to dismiss the idea of “game brain,” and most now regard it as pseudoscience. However, the splash it made in the media when it was first revealed was so strong that the idea still persists in Japan today. It makes sense to not allow children to play video games for 10 hours straight, but it’s not because of the dementia and criminal behaviour it will cause in them. Even so, it might be awhile before this urban legend is finally buried for good.

  Lowering of Scalpels

  Countrywide, June is often known as the “lowering of scalpels.” It’s called this because it’s when new surgeons begin performing operations for the first time. Every April, brand new doctors begin working in hospitals, and after two months of training, June marks the first time they pick up their scalpels and begin operating for real. In general, they are given easy operations such as removing appendixes to begin with, and for that reason, June is known as the “lowering of scalpels.”

  ABOUT

  In contrast to other parts of the world, the Japanese school and business years begin in April. Fresh workers will generally spend the first few months of the working year undergoing training and acclimatising to their new work environment. While this legend references doctors and the mass number of surgeons performing for the first time around June, it’s applicable to any profession. Most new workers won’t really start doing their jobs until around June, and mesu oroshi, or lowering of scalpels, can be used more figuratively for all new workers diving in for the first time.

  Sleep-talking

  Every now and then people talk in their sleep. However, you mustn’t talk back to them. If you do, they will die.

  ABOUT

  This is a fairly popular “common sense” urban legend in Japan. You mustn’t talk to somebody who is sleep-talking, otherwise they will die. Of course, if somebody is talking to you in their sleep, you may be tempted to talk back. It’s rude not to answer, and if somebody appears to be afraid or concerned, even in their sleep, it’s human nature to want to help. But, according to this legend, you shouldn’t. Why? Well, there are various reasons. Let’s take a look at some.

  NO TALKING

  The first reason is the belief that when somebody is talking in their sleep, it’s because they’re talking to a ghost. It makes sense that you wouldn’t want to interrupt that and bring the wrath of the spirit down upon you. However, it’s believed that if you interrupt a spirit having a conversation with a sleeping person, the spirit won’t take their anger out on you, but the person sleeping instead. They will take that person’s spirit with them when they leave, presumably to finish the conversation elsewhere, and so the person will die.

  Even if the spirit doesn’t steal their soul away, interrupting their conversation may still shorten that person’s lifespan, cause them mental damage, or cause them to simply never wake up again and spend the rest of their natural life in a coma.

  A spirit stealing a soul away because their conversation with a sleeping person was interrupted is hardly very scientific, however. While this particular belief has been around for a while, a slightly more scientific explanation claims you shouldn’t speak back because you’ll be interrupting their REM sleep, and this isn’t a good thing either.

  When we sleep, we pass in and out of REM and non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep is the deep phase where both the brain and body are at rest. REM sleep, on the other hand, is more shallow. The brain is actively working while the body is at rest. It’s during this time that people may sleep-talk, and if you reply to them, you are essentially messing with their sleep, which will leave the person feeling even more exhausted when they wake up. Or, so the belief goes.

  Long before scientific studies into sleep and what goes on in the brain were conducted, people had no idea what was happening when someone started to talk. It made sense that they were probably talking to a ghost. Then, as science progressed, maybe they weren’t talking to ghosts, but it still wasn’t good to reply because you would mess with their sleep schedule instead.

  At any rate, it’s probably best not to converse with people when they are sleep-talking; first, they’re unlikely to make much sense, and second, that’s your precious sleep time as well. If their sleep-talking is that bad, then it might be time for a visit to the doctor, but simply replying to them won’t cause them to die like this legend would have you believe. Like many urban legends, it was born long ago due to lack of understanding and spread enough that, even today, it (ironically) refuses to die.

  Cup Noodles and Blood Donations

  Cup noodles are wildly popular the world over. In Japan especially, young people eat them on a near-daily basis. But amongst these people, there is something strange taking place, and it’s taking place in their blood.

  A young man went to donate blood one day. However, before the nurse could take any, she said, “I’m afraid you can’t donate today.”

  The young man had never had any problems before, so he asked her why. The nurse was reluctant, but finally she answered.

  “We found oil floating in your blood. By any chance, do you happen to eat cup noodles every day?”

  ABOUT

  This legend started to spread on the internet just recently. There are plenty of reasons not to eat instant ramen every day; high amounts of sodium, few nutrients, MSG, etc, but discovering oil in your blood from eating too much isn’t one of them. You can still donate your blood, and who knows, if you’re in an area that pays for donations, maybe you can aff
ord a meal better than cup noodles afterwards as well!

  If you believe the rumours, oil in your blood isn’t the only problem eating too many cup noodles causes. Another common legend goes as follows:

  While sales of cup noodles are on the rise the world over, something opposite is happening within our bodies. That is, men’s sperm counts are decreasing.

  This isn’t exclusive to cup noodles, but many fast foods contain chemical seasonings. They are weakening people’s reproductive processes. As a result, it’s becoming difficult to ignore the effect it’s having on men’s sperm counts.

  Various studies have been done over the years connecting dropping sperm counts and nutrition. One study performed by Baylor University and Harvard discovered that eating instant noodles two or more times a week was linked to several health issues, including the potential for miscarriages and lowered sperm production. Once again, it makes sense not to base your diet around instant noodles, but in this case, there may be at least a little truth behind the legend.

  Helmet

  A group of friends were on a bike trip when one of the men slipped and fell, colliding head-first with a guardrail. He hit the rail with incredible speed, and his friends panicked, rushing over to him.