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

by Drazen, Patrick

  The story can be read to mean that the main reason that Kikuko was still haunting the inn was because she did not have a yasashii (kind, compassionate) spirit. When she appeared to Takuya, she tells him, “Brother, poor brother, it’s so sad; you’re going to die soon.” The look on her face, however, is anything but sad. Still remembering his mean behavior toward her, she looks very happy delivering the news of his imminent death. As the old lady tells Takuya, “Kikuko was still angry with her brother when she died.” But if she were only angry, then Tadaomi’s death would have been sufficient. The conflict had to be resolved for her to find peace, and, Japanese pop culture being what it is, the conflict was resolved in favor of love, kindness, and compassion.

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  Kikuko would have been a good candidate to become a zashiki. Legends of zashiki warashi (the name literally means “room child”) vary from place to place, but, despite its human appearance, it isn’t a particular person’s ghost. Rather, it’s a good luck spirit who appears and behaves in a child-like manner. Generally speaking, the zashiki warashi blesses whatever house it occupies, and a house which loses this spirit falls on hard times. There are minor ghostly happenings that come along with the good luck—music coming from empty rooms, footprints appear in ashes—and usually only children or family members can see the spirit. It must be acknowledged and respected, although too much human attention can drive it away.

  It’s worth noting that the ghostly little girl was still at the inn when the boys and their father left. Since zashiki warashi can be either boys or girls, it’s possible that this ghost has stayed around to bring luck to a family that needed it.

  45. One Hundred Hiccups

  One story in the Boy Love manga known in Japan as Ghost! and in English translation as Eerie Queerie records a zashiki encounter. The cast members of this manga by Shuri Shiozu attend an exclusive boys-only high school; in one episode the students go to a rural hotel for a four-day field trip. The old landlady[53] at the equally old inn at first denies that the inn is haunted; the students, however, have already heard rumors that severed feet wander the halls at night, or that they might encounter a woman in a bloody kimono. A few oddities do occur, but they’re far tamer and seem like traditional poltergeist tricks: pebbles fall from the ceiling, and at dawn all the pillows in the room where the boys sleep have stacked themselves into a pyramid. Mitsuo also gets a severe case of hiccups, and hears a voice telling him that he will die if he hiccups one hundred times without stopping.

  The supernatural activity is actually by a zashiki warashi, whose presence brings good luck to the inn—if only by reputation. Landlady Okiku admits that simply the rumor of a zashiki at the inn, which has had to compete with more modern tourist hotels, has brought more business, if only from curiosity-seekers. It’s been a balancing-act, however. The zashiki would flee the inn with too much attention or the wrong kind; Okiku took it on herself to scout out playmates for the zashiki, which explains Mitsuo’s non-lethal case of hiccups.

  The reader is told that this particular legend survives in the Tohoku region of Japan, the northernmost prefectures on the main island of Honshu.[54]

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  46. “Who are you?”

  An adult manga story by an artist who uses the pen-name “Senno Knife” is titled “Zashiki Bokko.” In this case, the spirit is a female, who watches over and blesses a small mountain inn next to an onsen. The word “bokko” is an archaic reference to a young woman. This particular spirit, who goes by the name “Koyuki” (child of snow) is interested in Masao, the youngest son of the family that owns the inn; he’s been away at college for four years, and the family is afraid he’ll follow the path of his brothers. “Once you go to the city,” they tell him, “you’ll never want to come back here.”

  Unknown to his family, he has an incentive to come back: Koyuki, who he met in a cave in the hot springs. He discovered her there one day, attractive and nude, and she told him, “When the time is right, I’ll do it with you.” The night he returns from college, just as Masao decides to look for Koyuki, she comes to his room and takes him down to the onsen cave. They strip and have sex. Masao fleetingly wonders, “Koyuki, who are you?” before realizing “It doesn’t matter who you are, if you could always be by my side.” In the end, Masao decides to stay at the inn. We can certainly understand the incentive.

  47. For a potato chip

  In Jigoku Sensei Nube, a manga with artwork by Takeshi Okano and story by Sho Makura, fifth grade teacher and part-time exorcist Meisuke Nueno begins one episode on a Sunday morning; with no school and bored to death, he heads for a pachinko parlor where he uses his exorcist abilities to manipulate the game and clean up, winning a lot of prizes (mostly alcoholic). On the way home, though, he gets hit by a falling tool from a telephone lineman. His luck swings from bad back to good when he sees, over near a garbage dump, a very little girl, looking like a doll in traditional kimono. He immediately recognizes her as a zashiki warashi and offers her a potato chip, which she happily accepts. Nueno chats happily with the spirit, which none of the passers-by can see.

  The next morning, the zashiki warashi is waiting in Nueno’s classroom, sitting on the teacher’s desk. He announces a pop quiz, and all of the students get perfect scores. He puts them through gym class, and even the smallest and weakest students do perfectly. It seems the zashiki warashi is still trying to help. The last straw comes when Ritsuko Takahashi, a very pretty teacher, walks up and asks Nueno out on a date.

  Nueno takes the zashiki warashi up onto the roof of the school, feeding it chips, and then has to break it to her: she made the entire class happy inside of ten minutes, but people have to seek out their happiness, and can’t have it given to them. In short, he says, they don’t need her. He knows he’s hurt her feelings, but all he can do is watch as she runs off of the roof.

  Sometime later, as school is letting out, a student dashes out into traffic in front of an oncoming truck. He would surely have been hit and killed, if not for the zashiki warashi; she caused a five-car pile-up, but saved the student. Nueno sees the zashiki warashi, asks if it’s exhausted from saving the student’s life, and offers some of his own psychic energy to her. This is all it takes to make her happy again. She disappears. Nueno is surprised when snowflakes start falling; warm snowflakes. He looks down the road and sees the zashiki warashi (having taken one last chip) happily running down the road, presumably looking for someone else to help.

  48. Gift Exchange

  Finally, we see a zashiki warashi (actually more of a zashiki bokko) in the CLAMP manga and anime xxxHolic, created for young adults (a seinen manga) and published from 2003 to February 2011, making it one of CLAMP’s longest-running titles. It’s the tale of Kimihiro Watanuki[55], a high school student whose highly developed psychic abilities (a family legacy) enable him to see spirits. This poses a problem; he’s basically a good guy, and can’t help trying to aid whatever spirit he finds; most of the time, though, he considers his gift a nuisance. He stumbles across the curiosity shop run by a self-described witch named Yuko Ichihara; she offers to remove his ability to see spirits—for a price. Since he can’t meet the price, he agrees to work at the shop. The catch, of course, is that he’s going to keep seeing spirits until he earns enough to pay Yuko’s fee (she never explains until the end how much it is or how far along Watanuki is to earning the right amount; this makes her kind of a spiritual loan-shark).

  This particular ghostly encounter (the manga version) starts late on the night of February 13. Even after working during the day for Yuko, she orders him to make chocolate pudding cakes for herself and her two childlike assistants. As Watanuki rather loudly reminds Yuko, she didn’t have any ingredients for a chocolate pudding cake, so he had to go out shopping first—in cold and rainy weather—before he could start cooking. By the time he’s finished, it’s midnight, the start of Valentine’s Day. Yuko sends the leftovers to clients in another dimension, but is happily frank in admitting that she sent the gift on Valen
tine’s Day so that her clients would feel the need to reciprocate on White Day.[56] Watanuki is still bitter about the whole thing, since the Valentine tradition in Japan has girls cooking chocolates to give to boys they like. He feels better, however, when he realizes that he can take the last leftover cake and give it to the cute but mysterious Himawari, on whom he’s had a severe crush ever since he first saw her.

  But things do not go according to plan. First, Himawari isn’t in school on Valentine’s Day, having caught a cold. Moreover, the pudding cake, and even the accompanying cup of hot chocolate, are devoured instead by Domeki, star athlete and apparent rival with Watanuki for Himawari’s attention. To make matters worse, on this day when girls are supposed to give chocolates to guys, Watanuki hadn’t received any chocolate at all; Domeki, meanwhile, has to carry his gifts home in a shopping bag. Their argument is interrupted by a young girl, who looks to be about twelve years old, wearing a parka and hood over her dress. She speaks as if she had meant to give a chocolate gift to a special person, but has apparently misplaced it. Suddenly, however, she reaches through Domeki’s coat and into his stomach, pulling the pudding cake out, whole again.

  Domeki, who is descended from a line of Shinto priests but hasn’t had much experience with spirits, faints dead away. Watanuki can only watch as the girl, looking ready to burst into tears, rises up off the street and floats away. Just at this moment, Yuko happens by; she declares that the girl didn’t just take Domeki’s snack but also his soul. Watanuki, realizing that it was his fault Domeki got involved, wants to put things right even if he doesn’t much like Domeki. Yuko whistles up her Mokona,[57] who arrives at once flying a bird as big as an elephant. Yuko tells Watanuki to use the bird to find the girl; Domeki’s soul must be restored to him by sundown.

  Watanuki quickly sees the girl, silhouetted against the rising moon. No sooner does he get close to her than he’s attacked by five cherubs in trench coats, riding snowboards through the sky. They threaten Watanuki because “You made her cry!” Watanuki falls off of the giant bird, but is rescued by the girl spirit. She rescued Watanuki because she meant to give him the pudding cake; she didn’t seem to realize that she’d taken Domeki’s soul out of him when she took the cake. With that, she floats away, as do the cherubs, who threaten Watanuki one last time to never make her cry.

  Yuko explains that the girl was a zashiki, while the cherubs were karasutengu—crow spirits who usually hide in the mountains away from the pernicious influence of humans. However, the zashiki was a girl, doing what Japanese girls did on February 14: she gave a gift of chocolate to a boy she found to be admirable: Watanuki. This softened the blow somewhat for Watanuki; after all, not only had he baked it in the first place, but he had to give it back to Domeki to restore his soul. Even when Himawari returns to school after her bout with the cold, things don’t get better: she gives a box of store-bought chocolate to Watanuki, and an identical box to Domeki. Yuko tried to console him by reminding him that he’d also gotten chocolate from the zasshiki, even though he’d had to give it back to Domeki. (When this manga episode was animated for television, the date was changed from Valentine’s Day to the Obon festival, which made the zashiki seem confused rather than simply naïve.)

  The zasshiki appears again in the anime version on March 14, dressed in kimono, and this time Watanuki’s prepared, giving the spirit a set of hairpins for White Day (in the manga Watanuki finds her, months late, in a strange world, where he may unwittingly be serving Yuko as bait.) Interestingly, her crush on Kimihiro is understood to be natural, even in the spirit world.

  CHAPTER 18: SPIRITS, SICKNESS AND SURGERY

  We’ve already had examples of hauntings as part of sicknesses, in or out of hospitals, places where souls become detached from their bodies on a regular basis. This is a concept built into the Japanese kanji used to describe the phenomenon. The word ikiryo means “the spirit leaving the body.”[58] The reasons for the move, however, can vary. Lady Rokujo had an out-of-body experience when her lover Prince Genji got interested in another woman. Here are a few more examples; the first is an elaborate ghost story featuring one of the classic characters of the God of Manga.

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  Black Jack: Clinical Chart 6: Night Time Tale in the Snow “Lovelorn Princess”

  49. Can a surgeon heal what’s wrong with a ghost?

  In my travels I’ve witnessed both life and death. On rare occasions I’ve also encountered incidents for which I have no explanation; events that seemed to defy reason. As a doctor I place my faith in knowledge, which both time and science have proven to be true. When I am faced with things that scientific knowledge can’t explain, I find myself filled with wonder and awe. I am reminded that man’s knowledge is still far from perfect, and believe all men of science need such reminders.

  So begins the sixth OAV featuring one of Dr. Osamu Tezuka’s most popular characters: the super-surgeon known as Black Jack. He receives a commission one day by mail to heal the wife of Saburo Taneda, who lives in a small village in the mountains. The request—which had been delayed in the mail for two years—was accompanied by over 3.7 million yen in cash as a retainer.

  When Black Jack and his child assistant Pinoko arrive in the mountains during a blizzard, they seek shelter in a Buddhist temple—and are immediately whisked back to feudal times. Black Jack now must heal a princess whose malady is symbolized by an elaborate serpent tattoo that circles her body. He also gets caught up in a romantic extended triangle: a princess is in love with one of her retainers, a soldier whose lower social position prevents them from being together. At the same time, the princess is also sought after by Mr. Rokushouji, a wealthy Imperial bureaucrat who abandoned his first wife to pursue the young and beautiful princess. The first wife, Lady Kaoru, has gone to the temple, shaved her head, and become a Buddhist nun, but has not forgiven her husband for abandoning her; she sets her own plot in motion with the assistance of Abumaru, a young man who is loyal to her. Things do not end well: ultimately, the princess, her beloved retainer, the bureaucrat, the Buddhist nun, and the nun’s devoted young man are all dead.

  This ghostly encounter, which by unfolding around Black Jack seems to echo the “Earless Hoichi” episode of Kwaidan, may seem like a digression from the doctor’s real business. However, once the older drama has played out, Black Jack finds himself back in the present day. He locates the ailing but still living Mrs. Taneda, whose husband was killed in a construction accident shortly after he sent the money to Black Jack two years earlier. Her condition can be cured, but only in a hospital with proper surgical facilities. As they leave, Black Jack meets Mrs. Taneda’s neighbors, a woman and her teenaged son—who bear a strong resemblance to the Lady Kaoru and her young devotee Abumaru, just as Mrs. Taneda resembles the princess and her husband resembled the soldier. And what of Mr. Rokushouji, the wealthy bureaucrat whose cold abandonment of his wife helped set the feudal tragedy in motion? At the beginning of the anime, Black Jack has to ask directions to the village from a trucker hauling logs. We never see the trucker, but, by going back to the beginning and replaying this scene, we realize that he is speaking in the voice of Mr. Rokushouji.

  In essence, the older tragedy had to play itself out, presumably again and again, with the ghosts of those involved until things could be resolved properly through the intervention of someone like Black Jack. Unlike Hoichi, Black Jack was not a mere spectator to a ghostly pageant; the ghosts showed him what they had done to cause such enduring bad karma, which he had to fix, just as he surgically healed Mrs. Taneda. The whole story is summed up—although the viewer may not realize it at first—by Lady Kaoru; when Black Jack apologizes to her (the Buddhist nun who ran the temple where Black Jack took shelter) for his unexpected visit, she simply says, “All of us become lost in our travels from time to time.” Some, it seems, become lost because of their actions, and some become lost in order to help others find their way home.

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  Black Jack also ran into another patient who w
asn’t exactly human.

  50. On a snowy night

  The story takes place on the night of a raging blizzard. Black Jack is home alone when there’s a knock at the door of his isolated house. He answers; nobody is outside. He shuts the door, and finds two people suddenly in his house: a man and a woman, in modern dress. The woman asks Black Jack to operate on their mother. “I’m not a regular doctor,” he tells them, and demands a fee of ¥30 million. No sooner does he ask than the money is on the table, in cash. The young people are talking to the doctor’s examination table as if their mother is on it; Black Jack can’t see anyone there.

  He goes through the motions of trying to operate on someone who he can’t see, while his visitors tell him he’s doing a brilliant job. Finally he declares that he’s finished and the mother will be fine. The woman finally tells Black Jack about the patient: name, Aya Matsumoto, age 45, and that the two are her children; their names are Eiji and Maniko. Mother was to take a tour of the northern island of Hokkaido, until her passenger jet was struck by a missile from a nearby military base; it crashed to earth, setting off a fire in the nearby village’s shitamachi.[59]

  It’s only after Black Jack defends his invisible patient to some local hunters and police that the voices of Eiji and Maniko return. They invite Black Jack to accompany their mother on a journey much farther than Hokkaido; when he refuses, the millions of yen blow out the door and into the snowy night.

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  We’ve already seen how, in Akachan to Boku, a character can open the door to the spirit world when fever or other illness weakens the connection to the real world. Another example appears in xxxHolic, the manga by CLAMP and its animated version. On a hot summer night Yuko arranges for four people to tell ghost stories; it was supposed to be a hyaku monogatari session, but cut down to four stories told by each of the four participants—sixteen stories instead of the full hundred. However, the spirits are so active that the partiers don’t even make it to the fourth story. Nobuhiro Watanuki gets to tell only one story, and, in the manga, his turns out to be elegantly creepy:[60]