A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: From Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga

by Drazen, Patrick

  Much has been made of Japan’s prolonged economic troubles, since the real estate bubble burst around 1990, as a reason to commit suicide; sensational reports have also appeared of “suicide clubs” on the Japanese internet. According to the WHO, however, things in Japan are more personal: most modern Japanese suicides seemed to be driven first by health problems, then by money problems and unemployment.

  In classic Japanese lore, and even in the pop culture of anime and manga, there are many more reasons for suicide, involving everything from romance to schoolyard bullying. The Buddha, in an early incarnation as a rabbit, killed himself by jumping into a fire so that an elderly sage might find nourishment in him. Love is usually high on the list of reasons, as in this ghost tale from the 14th century collection known as Shintoushuu (Tales of the Gods):

  19. The Glorious Princess

  Back in the fifth century, an elderly childless couple lived at the foot of Mount Fuji. One day, the old man was wandering through the bamboo grove behind their house when he met a beautiful little girl. She seemed to have no idea where she came from, so the old couple took her in. They named her Kaguya-hime (Princess Glory) because she seemed to give off a beautiful light of her own.

  As she grew older, she also grew more beautiful. Word spread of this lovely woman, and men from all over the province sought her hand in marriage. At last, she agreed to marry the governor of the province. They lived together happily, but, soon after the girl’s adoptive parents had died, she surprised her husband by telling him that she was not human. “I am the Immortal Lady of Mount Fuji,” she told him, “and I came down to earth to bring happiness to the old couple who raised me. Now I must go home.”

  She gave her husband a small wooden box. “You can find me at the top of Mount Fuji; come and look for me there if you miss me. Or, look inside this box.” And, saying nothing else, she disappeared.

  The governor, who loved her deeply, could not be consoled. He looked in the box, which contained the special incense known as Incense to Recall the Soul. However, when he looked into the box after burning the incense, he did not see Kaguya, but only a shadowy spirit. He climbed to the top of Mount Fuji, where he found a small lake with an island in the middle. However, steam rose up from the lake, so that he could not see Kaguya on the island either. With this final disappointment, the governor walked to a cliff, held the box of incense to his heart, and threw himself off.

  Still, the governor and his princess were reunited in death; the two of them became the god of the mountain. Even though there is only one god of Mount Fuji, sometimes it would appear as a man and sometimes it would appear as a woman. And, when the governor threw himself off the cliff, the box of incense burst into flame, and the clouds of burning incense became the smoky clouds that stay near the summit of Mount Fuji, symbolizing love and longing for many people.[19]

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  Suicide is generally considered one of those sensitive subjects in the west that are kept away from children. However, the subject often appears in Japanese pop culture, and is presented with a surprising frankness even to a very young audience. The anime series Ojamajo DoReMi, a sunny little comedy about a group of grade school girls who are also witches in training, has a scene in the second episode of the so-called “Sharp” season[20] that is jarring to someone who isn’t ready for it. The witches have spent the better part of a day trying to care for a baby for the first time, and as fifth-graders they were worn out very quickly; they had to call for help from the mother of the main witch-child Doremi. When the exhausted Doremi comes home, she skips dinner and goes to soak in a hot bath. While she’s in there, her mother comes into the bathroom and gets into the tub with her daughter.[21] When Doremi asks her mother if she was such a handful as a baby, the mother tells her that she had dreams of being a concert pianist, and that, when she injured her hand in an accident, she was so depressed at abandoning her dream that she wanted to commit suicide. The only thing that saved her, she said, was getting pregnant with Doremi. No matter how much Doremi cried, her mother said, she heard those cries and even regarded Doremi’s kicks in utero as an encouragement: “Mother, do your best; I’ll always be beside you.”

  One of the most popular manga in Japan in recent years had a main character who became a ghost after committing suicide. And this suicide-ghost, who befriends a sixth grade boy, was not driven to death by health concerns or romantic or financial problems, although he had recently lost his job under unfair circumstances. This man committed suicide over a game.

  20. For the love of the game

  Hikaru Shindo is eleven years old, doesn’t do well at school; the word “slacker” applies here. At least it did, until Hikaru found a game board in his grandfather’s attic while rummaging around for antiques to sell (his grades being so bad his parents cut off his allowance). The small wooden table was meant for playing go, an ancient Japanese territory-capture game. At first, Hikaru sees stains on the board that others cannot see, then hears a voice that others cannot hear.

  Enter the ghost: Fujiwara no Sai. Dressed in elaborate courtly robes of the Heian period, he was no less than a go instructor to the Emperor and his household. A jealous rival, however, challenged Sai to a game, and not only cheated but accused Sai of cheating. Sai lost his composure, lost the match, lost his position at court and his reputation; two days later, he threw himself into the river. Death, however, was not the end.

  Sai is clearly a wronged servant in the Okiku mold (Okiku’s story is featured in chapter 10). But his ghost doesn’t stick around in order to see justice done or to wallow in misery. Sai loved the game of go so much that he could never get enough of it. He especially longed for the chance to make one specific play, the so-called “Divine Move”. However, being tied to a game board, Sai’s ghost was at the mercy of whoever owned the board, even if it meant the owner seldom or never played the game.

  When Hikaru lets him out and about, staying close to Hikaru by taking up residence “in a corner of his soul,” Sai sometimes reacts with the amazement and even childishness of someone trying to take in centuries of change. Jet planes, push-button umbrellas, vending machines, the Internet—these are just some of the changes Sai observes and absorbs (some changes more easily than others).

  Sai had previously waited in the go board for hundreds of years, until he was discovered by a very different child from Hikaru, Honinbo Shusaku.

  Sidebar: Honinbo Shusaku

  Honinbo Shusaku (1829-1862) is considered by many to be the greatest go player of the 19th century, if not in the entire history of the game. Shusaku was born Kuwahara Torajiro on June 6, 1829, the son of a merchant in a village north of Hiroshima. By the age of six he was already known as a prodigy. Lord Asano, the daimyo (lord) of the region, heard of the child’s abilities. After playing a game with him, Asano became his patron, and allowed him to get lessons from his own personal trainer.

  In November 1837 Shusaku was sent to Tokyo (then still called Edo) to become a student of the Honinbo school. Two years later, Shusaku was awarded a diploma at age 10. In 1840, during a visit back home, he was awarded a yearly stipend by Lord Asano. Arriving back in Edo in September 1841, Shusaku was given the name we now know him under. In 1844 he left for another stay at Onomichi, this time staying there for eighteen months.

  In July 1846, at age 17, during his travel back to Edo, Shusaku met Gennan Inseki, of whom it is said that he was strong but had the bad luck of living in a time when there were several other extremely strong players.

  Back in Edo, Shusaku was asked to become the heir of Shuwa, who was to become the next head of the Honinbo house, but he refused because of his obligations towards Lord Asano and towards his own family. After some mediation, the Asano clan relinquished its claim, so in early 1847 Shusaku could become Shuwa’s heir.

  Later that year, Josaku died, and Shuwa became the new leader of the Honinbo house. Shuwa was already recognized as the strongest player of the day. In 1848 Shusaku was officially recognized as Shuwa’s heir, s
till no more than 19 years old.

  In 1862, a cholera epidemic broke out in Edo, and several disciples of the Honinbo house caught the disease. Shusaku was active in caring for the sick, which resulted in his catching the disease himself. On August 10, 1862, only 33 years old, he died.

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  All this would seem to confirm Hikaru’s original hunch: that the go board in his grandfather’s attic was an antique. After all, he can see where the wood was stained by the blood of the dying Shusaku. However, he’s the only one who can see those stains.

  At first, Hikaru would seem to be the least likely person to help Sai reach his goal. He doesn’t know anything about go; furthermore, he doesn’t care. But, in order to keep Sai from pestering him, Hikaru begins taking go lessons (in exchange for Sai’s help with his history homework), and is gradually drawn into the game on his own. This is another example of a common theme in Japanese pop culture: young people would do well to look to their history and revive the arts and traditions of the past.

  The shifting relationship between Hikaru and Sai is the backbone of the series. Sai is eager to return to his roles as player and teacher, and sometimes throws Hikaru in over his head. But, as Hikaru gains understanding of go, he begins to assert himself, needing Sai’s guidance less and less (although Hikaru is perfectly capable of getting himself in too deep at times). This leaves Sai with decidedly mixed feelings: pleased that the pupil is successful, but uneasy about his new place in this new Japan once Hikaru no longer needs him. But that’s a much later installment in the story.

  While Hikaru and Sai seem an unlikely couple brought together by fate, the similarly unlikely team that created the manga was brought together by an editor at Shonen Jump. Like Hikaru, writer Yumi Hotta knew little about go, but, while playing a game one time against her father-in-law, she thought that a manga about go had possibilities. She drafted a scenario and sent it to Shonen Jump’s annual Story King Award. It didn’t win—and neither did the artwork of Takeshi Obata, who was a runner-up for the Tezuka-Akatsuka Award, also sponsored by Shonen Jump. An editor assigned to Obata found Hotta’s story, and realized that the two artists would complement each other. The addition of go master Yukari Umezawa as a technical advisor completed the creative team.

  The manga debuted in late 1998 and ran for 189 episodes, giving rise to a popular 75-episode anime series broadcast on Japanese television from 2001 to 2003. Once the series ended, Obata struck gold with the popular, edgier manga series Death Note.

  Entertaining as well as educational, Hikaru no Go also inspired what one writer called a “micro-renaissance” for go in Japan and other Asian countries, even generating interest in go in the United States. It’s a tribute to the manga/anime that, since the series appeared, anime conventions in America, in addition to spaces for screening anime, playing video games, and selling and displaying fan artwork, usually set a room aside as a go parlor.

  Sai is certainly one of the most “kid-friendly” ghosts, in every sense of that word. Knowledgeable yet emotional, wise and naïve at the same time, understanding of both the game of go and the way to think while playing it, he is a ghost who poses no threat at all to Hikaru.

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  In another story from the anime series Gakkou no Kaidan[22], the suicidal ghost is hardly as benevolent as Sai.

  21. The Da Vinci Code

  “Da Vinci” is the name given to a ghost, formerly an art teacher who had killed himself, haunting the art studio at the Miyanoshita family’s old elementary school. He had been imprisoned in a painting of the old school building by a talented student artist: Satsuki’s mother. Fortunately, she left a diary detailing all of the ghosts and spirits she’d subdued and how; unfortunately, the book is a little too full. Satsuki didn’t have a chance to read that, if anyone painted the same scene that Da Vinci had, the ghost might be free to strike again. When he strikes, he paints a picture of someone (usually a pretty girl) who’s never heard from again.

  The next day, the entire school knows about Da Vinci: overnight, bloody red paint has dripped out of the studio window in the painting of the old school building. Something similar happens to the real old school; the principal goes in to investigate what he thinks is rain water, and the kids watch the principal—until they realize that a student named Momoko is missing. Da Vinci has apparently selected her to be his next model.

  The notebook says that Da Vinci can be put to sleep by burning incense and chanting a spell; unfortunately, they have no incense and the spell is smudged. The kids get a little help from other ghosts in the school: the walking Ninomiya statue, the human-faced dog, and Toilet Hanako all bring bundles of incense. Da Vinci, meanwhile, is painting Momoko, telling her that, in a painting, her beauty will never decay. When the kids burst in, he takes Momoko into the older painting. Satsuki and her friend Hajime are the only ones who follow. But they find another student who apparently wandered into the painting; he gives Satsuki a gift, although they never met. They hear a noise, and find a radio broadcasting Japan’s World Series—the 1973 World Series. They realize that the two paintings of the old schoolhouse have linked present and past. They get the ultimate proof: they meet Kayako, Satsuki’s future mother, although just a fifth grader here. They head for the studio to rescue Momoko and re-enchant Da Vinci; he tries to escape by diving into the painting; however, back in the present, the painting had been tossed into the incinerator by the janitor. Da Vinci returns to the past in flames, where Satsuki and her mother are able to subdue him.

  22. Mirror and Bell

  Suicide can sometimes function as a way of focusing one’s desires, with an effect that can outlast death. The effect may not be predictable, as noted in this story from Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan, describing an incident which legend says happened about a thousand years ago.

  At that time, in Mugenyama, the priests of the local temple wanted a new bronze bell. They did what Japanese priests had done for years and years: they asked the women of the congregation to donate any bronze ornaments or utensils, which could then be melted down for the new bell. One farmer’s wife donated a mirror made of bronze which contained on its back the Shou-Chiku-Bai, designs of pine, bamboo, and plumflower intended to bring good luck. The farmer’s wife later realized that it wasn’t her mirror alone, but had belonged to her mother and grandmother. She didn’t have the money to buy back the mirror from the temple, and she could never find an opportunity to steal the mirror back. Eventually it went to the metal foundry to be melted down for the temple bell.

  But a strange thing happened. No matter how hot the furnace, there was one mirror that would never melt. Word spread about this mirror, which reflected its owner’s attachment to it more than her wish to donate it to the temple bell. The farmer’s wife was so ashamed by this public display of her selfishness that she drowned herself. First, however, she left a letter that contained, among other things, these words: “It will be easier when I am dead to melt down the mirror and cast the bell. However, whoever rings the bell so much that it breaks will receive great wealth from my ghost.”

  Nobody could say how a ghost could come by such a large amount of money, or even if the statement were true. Still, once the farmer’s wife was dead, the mirror could easily be melted and cast as part of the temple bell. Since that part of the suicide note seemed to be true, people felt that the rest of the letter would be true as well. And so they set about ringing the bell with the intent of breaking it. The bell was well-cast and very strong, but this didn’t stop people from ringing the bell day after day, no matter what the priests asked of them. The whole exercise became so absurd that the priests finally decided to get rid of the bell themselves. One night, they cut the bell down and rolled it downhill into a swamp where it sank, never to ring again.

  But this wasn’t the end of the story. Some people tried to ring a version of the bell, in hopes of collecting some of the fortune that had been promised in the suicide note. One time, a warrior named Kajiwara Kagesue of the Heike clan and his lady
companion Umegae were on a pilgrimage; their money had run out, and they beat upon a bronzed wash basin until it broke, calling out for the bell’s fortune. A guest at the inn where they were staying was so impressed that he made the two a gift of three hundred gold pieces!

  On the other hand, legend tells of a drunken farmer who heard of this couple’s good fortune and tried to get some for himself. He built a clay replica of the bell and hit it repeatedly, calling for money. As he did so, a white-robed woman with wild flying hair rose up out of the ground, handed the farmer a covered jar, and told him that she was answering his prayer “as it deserved to be answered.” Once the farmer held the jar, the woman disappeared. He rushed home to show his wife, and they both opened the jar.

  It was full to the brim, but with what? Hearn decided that “I really cannot tell you with what it was filled.” Still, the farmer was drunk and dissolute, and probably deserved whatever was inside.

  23. The Temporary Suicide

  One episode of Natsuki Takaya’s Genei Musou (Phantom Dream) manga focuses on Souichi, a boy who, to hear him tell it, has had his parents on his back “since the moment I was born.” His father (an attorney) and mother (housewife) kept the pressure on him to succeed and do well for the sake of the family. Failure to live up to these standards got him branded an embarrassment, as did his fascination with butterflies. The insects seemed to have an affinity for him, flocking around Souichi and, by his account, singing to him. When he failed the entrance exam to a prestigious high school and had to settle for a lesser school, the pressure from his parents became so great that he took a box-cutter to his neck and committed suicide.