For this story to carry its full meaning, the reader first must understand the Japanese Buddhist funeral. Once the body is cremated, the ashes are not merely dumped into an urn. The family members take chopsticks and pick the largest bone fragments out of the ashes, passing them from person to person so that each has a chance to pay final respects. The last bones to go into the urn are those of the skull; even a corpse is allowed to have some dignity at the end, and not be buried “upside-down.”
When the boy’s mother was cremated, however, all that came out of the oven was a layer of fine ash, with no bone fragments at all. The mortuary worker explained that he’d seen this often among those who’d lived through the atomic bombing; low-level radiation sickness gradually weakened the bones so that they were consumed by the fire.
The now-grown-up boy, however, was saddened and angry and horrified. He could not pay his final respects to his mother, since her bones were gone. In his anger and sorrow, he decided to use his career to speak out against the evils of atomic warfare that had prevented him, and so many others, from paying respects to their ancestors. The boy kept his promise, growing up to be manga artist Keiji Nakazawa, whose magnum opus was Hadashi no Gen (Barefoot Gen), a semi-autobiographical account of his life in Hiroshima before and after the atomic bomb.
xxx
Of the several types of Japanese ghosts, the best-known and most easily understood is the jibakurei, a spirit who died violently or in emotional distress, which tied the ghost down to one location. The poor wife above whose husband abandoned her to take a job in a distant province is actually a fairly benign example; we’ll meet many others, especially in modern tales created for manga or the movies. These spirits include the woman who threw herself down a well in grief over finding her child dead (in the manga Ghost Hunt), the psychic girl who was thrown down a well by her own father (in the movie Ringu), the dead servant Okiku whose ghostly voice can still be heard coming from the bottom of a well, and a student who died in a storm while trying to protect her sister’s garden (from the manga and anime Negima!).
Here are a couple of stories of jibakurei. First, from the Konjaku, is a classic example of a sudden and violent death:
12. A Bolt of Lightning
Long before Kyoto was built, an armed soldier was going along on horseback when a fierce thunderstorm suddenly came up. The rider decided to take shelter under a very tall pine tree. However, a lightning bolt hit the tree, splitting it in two. It also split the rider and his horse in two, turning the rider into a ghost.
Since that time, the city of Kyoto grew around the spot, but, if anyone built a building on the spot where the soldier was hit by lightning, awful things usually happened. You can find the place north of Third Avenue and east of the East Tooin Palace. The building there now is called Demon Hall.
xxx
The next story appears in the Uji shuui monogatari (A later collection of Uji tales)[13], written in the early 1200s. Like the previous story, it tells you almost exactly where to find the haunted house at the center of the tale, as if daring the listener to go inside.
13. Attached to the House
The story is told of a great house near the intersection of Takatsuji and Muromachi streets in Kyoto. The woman who inherited the house from her father lived there with two servants, who were also sisters. The elder sister was married and lived with her husband; the younger entertained guests in her room at the front of the house’s west wing.
The younger sister fell ill and died when she was only twenty-seven years old. They left her body in her room while the older sister and the rest of the household figured out what to do with it. They decided to take the body to the crematory at Toribeno. They put the body in a coffin, put the lid on the coffin, then loaded the coffin onto a carriage.
When they got to the crematory, they noticed that the lid on the coffin was crooked, and that the coffin seemed lighter. This was because there was no body inside it! They retraced their steps, and there was the younger sister’s body, in her old room.
The mourners talked all night about what to do, and finally decided to try again to cremate the body. Early the next day they put the body into the coffin, put the lid on the coffin again, then waited to see what would happen. By sunset, though, they were truly frightened to see that the body was out of the coffin and back in the younger sister’s room. They simply couldn’t move it.
One frustrated mourner scolded the body: “This is what you want? You like it here? Then we’ll leave you here!”
They took up the floor of the front room, dug a hole, and lowered the younger sister into it. They filled in the hole, leaving a large mound. Then everyone moved out of the house, since nobody wanted to stay there with the corpse of the sister. The house fell into ruin and eventually disappeared, but nobody lived anywhere near the mound. Terrible things happened to anybody who lived near it. After about fifty years, somebody built a shrine over the mound, and they say that the shrine is still there.
xxx
There are two things to note about this story. As said above, the younger sister’s spirit is rooted to the spot where she died, even though there wasn’t any violent trauma as with the soldier struck by lightning. The story did note, however, that, although the younger sister was unmarried and had no consistent lover, she did entertain “occasional, casual visitors.” Perhaps it was memories of pleasure, rather than pain, that kept her attached to that place.
Second, we are reminded that there is a way to deal even with persistent spirits: perform a good work of some kind. Recall the disciple of the Buddha who was advised to perform good works to free the spirit of his mother from the realm of the Hungry Ghosts. Of course, you could also be aggressive about it and recruit an exorcist to deal with the spirit. Just be sure that the spiritualist you hire is strong enough to deal with the spirit, because it could turn into quite a struggle. In any event, one thing that you seldom hear in Japan, even in the 21st century, is that “there’s no such thing as ghosts.” Most Japanese know better.
xxx
14. The Hungry Ghost
The nature of compassion, especially in Buddhism, is to reject hatred, disgust or revulsion, as they get in the way of enlightenment. This is the case in a story from Kwaidan by Lafcadio Hearn; the story is titled “Jikininki,” which means “man-eating spirit.”
This story is set in Mino province, and tells of a Zen monk named Musou Kokushi, who lost his way in the mountains while on a pilgrimage. He continued to wander aimlessly until, just at sunset, he saw a small hut on top of a hill. He recognized it as an anjitsu, a hermitage just big enough for one person, where a Buddhist monk could pass the night in solitude.
When he got there, however, he found that the hermitage was already occupied by an elderly, fierce-looking priest. Still, Musou asked if he could stay there for the night; the old priest harshly told Musou “no,” but directed him toward a small farming village in the next valley. Musou soon found a group of five or six houses and asked for the headman of the village. He was shown to a room in one of the houses, and was given food and bedding. Exhausted by his travels, he went to sleep early that night, but was awakened just before midnight by sounds of crying. A young man with a lantern came into the room, and told the monk that the young man who stood before him was formerly the family’s eldest son; now, he was head of the household, for his father had died shortly before the monk had arrived. Now, according to the custom of that village, everyone would leave before midnight and not return until sunrise. “Strange things happen in a house with a corpse,” the monk was told. Musou was not afraid of spirits and said that he would keep watch through the night. The young man asked him to report on whatever happened; then the family left the village.
Musou recited the funeral service for the deceased father, and sat in meditation with the corpse. In the depth of the night, as he sat, Musou saw something that made no noise and had almost no physical form. This large shadowy thing approached the head of the corpse and began to swal
low it, burial robes and all. It also devoured the offerings left with the corpse; then, it vanished as quietly as it had come.
In the morning, Musou told the others what he had seen. None of the villagers were surprised about what happened to the corpse; it had been happening for many years. Then Musou asked, “Why don’t you have the old priest perform rites for the dead?”
“What old priest?”
“The one who lives in the hermitage on the hillside.”
“What hermitage? No priest has lived near here for years.”
Musou now understood everything. He made his way back to the hermitage where he had been so rudely treated by the elderly priest; this time, though, the priest invited him in, apologizing profusely.
“There’s no need to apologize. I found the village and was well received by them.”
“No, I apologize for letting you see me as I truly am. I am not a priest, although I was one many years ago. I was the only priest in this part of the country, and I was kept very busy performing funeral rites. But, while I performed the rites, my heart was not in them; I would think about the food or clothing I would receive in payment. When I died, I was instantly reborn as a Hungry Ghost, as you saw last night. I beg you to perform a service of blessing for me, so that with your prayers I may finally escape this existence.”
Before Musou could reply, the priest and the hermitage vanished, and Musou found himself in the tall grass, kneeling beside what seemed to be the tomb of a monk.
xxx
Some ghosts seem especially real, since they’re based on figures from Japanese history. One of the favorite subjects seems to be warlord Oda Nobunaga, who ruled Japan in the late 1500s; his wars of conquest went a long way toward forging the modern nation of Japan. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on one’s point of view.
The 2002 anime series Mirage of Blaze, based on a manga by Kiwabara Mizuna, is a combination ghost story and history lesson (and a story that walks up to the edge of the Boy Love genre without actually jumping in), since its mostly male, present day bishounen (pretty-boy) cast is in the middle of re-enacting one of the major disputes of Japanese history: the 16th century conflict between Oda Nobunaga and his trusted general Mitsuhide.
15. Remembering Mother
Walt Whitman said that, if you told history the right way, there’d be no need for romance novels. Certainly, the story of Nobunaga and Mitsuhide is one of the most memorable in any national history. Through an amazing act of callous disregard, Nobunaga used Mitsuhide’s mother as a hostage during negotiations with the enemy, but broke his word and killed the negotiators from the opposite side. In behaving this way he allowed Mitsuhide’s mother to be killed in exchange. Mitsuhide hid his outrage, bided his time, and, when his troops were later called upon to fight for Nobunaga, instead turned against him.
This TV series gave rise to a sequel OAV series: Mirage of Blaze: Rebels of the River’s Edge. This series also looks to early Japanese history through reincarnations (some of which are gender-bending) of some of its major figures; in this case, members of the Houjou clan of the mid-1500s, who continue battling for power hundreds of years after their death.
16. The Return of Nobunaga
One of the few anime of Takashi Shiina’s manga GS Mikami to come to the United States featured Oda Nobunaga as the villain. As it explains later in this book, ghosts do not always maintain their own identity, especially if something has powerfully affected them when they lived in this world. In this case, Nobunaga has turned from a ghost to a monster; specifically, a vampire. He drinks human blood by the pitcher (and keeps stuffing his chained-up victims with veggies to make sure the blood supply is uninterrupted.) Typical of Shiina’s style, even some of the scariest bits are also openings for broad humor.
In this case, GS (which stands for Ghost Sweeper; she’s an exorcist) Mikami has a harder mission than usual in killing the reborn Oda Nobunaga: he has two hearts, and must be stabbed through both in order to leave this world. Fortunately, Mikami receives a magic weapon: a spear from the ghost of Jubei Mitsuhide Akechi, whose mother was so casually sacrificed by Nobunaga and who slew Nobunaga in return. Nobunaga (in this story also called Nosferatu, recognizing his vampire nature) enlists the aid of a white spider demon named Ranmaru (after one of Nobunaga’s retainers who was forced to commit suicide by Mitsuhide); by biting Mikami’s face and drawing a single drop of blood, Ranmaru brings Nobunaga back to life.
Things move quickly once Nobunaga sets up his headquarters in modern-day Tokyo. The city is soon overrun by zombie victims; the Pope issues a reward of five billion yen for Nobunaga’s death. Other members of Mikami’s crew, including an alchemist named Dr. Kaos, his girl-robot assistant Marie and a werewolf named Pete, try to bring down Nobunaga. Mikami, in a brilliantly animated sequence, uses a stack of ofuda charms to avoid the web Ranmaru tried to trap her in and then slay him; the dying Ranmaru, however, adds his power to Nobunaga’s. Meanwhile, Mitsuhide possesses Mikami’s hapless apprentice Yokoshima and teaches Mikami to create a second spear to pierce Nobunaga’s other heart. Mitsuhide then personally drags Nobunaga back down to Hell.
CHAPTER 6: HYAKU MONOGATARI (ONE HUNDRED STORIES)
One pastime of ancient Japan, which still exists today in several modified forms, is the “hyaku monogatari” or one hundred stories. Here’s how you play the game: get some friends together in a windowless room, or even one with windows if it’s at night, and light a hundred candles. Everyone takes turns telling a ghost story. It can be short or long, have a happy ending or end up with gore and death all over the place; there are, as we can already see, many kinds of Japanese ghost stories. When the story’s over, blow out one candle. By the time you get to the last couple of candles, everybody’s nerves should be really on edge. And when you blow out the last candle, everyone count off; they say that there’ll be an extra person in the room.
No wonder the Japanese associate ghost stories not with the gloomy autumn of Halloween, but with the hot and humid nights of summer; not only because of Obon, but because these stories were meant to bring on the chills.
The manga Ghost Hunt (details below) begins with some high school girls playing this Japanese ghost story game. And volume 3 of the manga takes place in a different high school that’s also swarming with paranormal activity; as one student puts it, “We played hyaku monogatari to see if a ghost would really appear. Ever since then, I’ve been seeing these weird silhouettes… I see a rope on the wall, and it’s in the shape of a noose.” (vol. 3, p. 23)
This is only one work among many that invoke, one way or another, the ghost story marathon. Japan’s authors and artists, in a wide range of media, have called on it for centuries.
Katsushika Hokusai’s Hyaku Monogatari
Hokusai (1760-1849) is regarded as the master of the woodblock-print medium known as ukiyo-e. Gifted with a discerning eye, a sure artistic hand and a one-of-a-kind imagination, Hokusai’s prints have been considered the height of Japanese graphic arts, while his sketchbooks are sometimes called the first manga. In 1830 he created his own Hyaku Monogatari; even though it only illustrated five stories, they reflect the height of Hokusai’s art—even when telling ghost stories.
One of the prints freezes a moment from the story of Oiwa: her disfigured face begins to appear on a paper lantern. Another is a picture of Okiku, her head reaching above the edge of the well where she died, searching for the tenth plate. (These very famous ghosts will each get their own chapter later on.)
Osamu Tezuka’s Hyaku Monogatari
The God of Comics (Manga no Kamisama), Osamu Tezuka, created a manga titled Hyaku Monogatari which had absolutely nothing to do with old Japanese ghost stories. Drawn in 1971 and serialized in Shonen Jump magazine, this manga is actually a retelling of the European legend of Faust, set in Japan’s Feudal Period. Things start out in a comic vein with a failed, cartoon-y samurai named Hanri Ichirui (Hanri evoking Heinrich, Ichirui meaning “first base”, thus using “first” as a pun for
“Faust”). Ordered to commit harikiri, the cowardly samurai balks. He strikes a bargain with a witch named Sudama: she provides him with a new face and a new name (Fuwa Usuto, another play on “Faust”). He also agrees to the terms given Faust in Johann von Goethe’s drama based on the legend: if Faust were ever to declare himself satisfied with his life, he would die and his soul would go to hell.
In changing the legend’s location from Europe to Japan, and telling the story in a manga, Tezuka made quite a few other changes, not least in the character of Sudama. The witch was meant to stand in for the devil Mephistopheles, but, perhaps inevitably, Fuwa Usuto and Sudama fall in love. His satisfaction with this turn of events leads to his having to commit harikiri; this time, however, he finds the courage to carry it out. As Sudama bears his soul down to hell, she rebels, releasing the soul of her beloved and watching as it vanishes into the night sky. Still, despite the title, although other supernatural events take place in the two hundred pages of the manga, there are no ghosts.
Hinako Sugiura’s Hyaku Monogatari
The late manga author Hinako Sugiura (1958-2005) was, like the creators of the Ghost Hunt manga, among the most recent to draw on the “hyaku monogatari” as a source of inspiration with her final manga series, the 1988-1993 Hyaku monogatari.
“A hyaku monogatari are the collected writings of what was a popular pastime during the Edo period. People got together, lighted one hundred candles and told ghost stories, blowing out one candle for every story. The belief was, that when the last story was told, a ghost would appear. This series (of original stories by Sugiura) is based on that old habit and is thus a collection of beautiful Edo-style ghost stories.”[14]
A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: From Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga Page 4