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

by Drazen, Patrick

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  Outer space is one of the last places we expect to offer up a ghost story. These stories, especially in Japan, are often tied to a specific place and the events that happened there, and space is still too much of a frontier. However, manga artist Katsuhiro Otomo created a cosmic ghost story when he wrote a film, Memories, that is actually three short films, with a different director and a different style for each segment. The first of these stories, called “Madame’s Request” in Japanese and renamed “Magnetic Rose” for the English subtitled version, was directed by Satoshi Kon, who went on to become one of the greatest anime directors of the new generation, with a half-dozen modern classics to his name before his untimely death from cancer in 2010. His feature work includes Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and Paprika, as well as the Paranoia Agent TV series.

  84. Diva

  Late in the 21st century,[106] the four-man crew of a salvage vehicle is slowly picking its way through the space equivalent of the Sargasso Sea; instead of seaweed, though, this patch of the cosmos is crowded with derelict spaceships and various kinds of junk. It’s nothing but scrap metal, so the men were surprised to get a signal from one of the derelict ships. It seems to be a distress signal, and, as an even bigger surprise, the ship was the home of a retired opera soprano, around whom a great many rumors circulated.

  Although it’s impossible for the diva to still be alive after all these years, two of the crewmen enter the ship to investigate—and that’s when the haunting starts. Lights come up as if on a stage, and the spacemen see the diva: sometimes onstage in costume, sometimes in an open field. One man, Heinrich, sees something that couldn’t possibly have been in the ship’s database: how he bought his daughter Emily a miniature spacesuit for her birthday one year, and how she put it on, climbed up onto the roof, and lost her footing…

  There are old films and newspaper clippings suggesting that the diva’s young paramour, believed to have run off, may well have been killed by the jealous soprano. When the ship starts trying to attack the two spacemen, it’s all they can do to try to escape.

  The music for this short film was written by Yoko Kanno, one of the greatest modern writers of music for animation. Her score repeats, recycles, and sometimes distorts excerpts from the operas of Giacomo Puccini, notably Tosca and Madama Butterfly. You don’t need to know the scores to appreciate the extra dimension they add to the anime, but their inclusion is one of the creepy delights of Memories.

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  Most ghost stories start with the death of someone, and the consequences of their spirit not traveling on to the afterlife. Maburaho takes a bit of a different tack: a situation is set up in which everyone knows that someone is going to die, then it happens. It’s a romantic comedy set in a high school.

  Specifically, Maburaho was begun as a series of novels written by Toshihiko Tsukiji, with illustrations by Eeji Komatsu. The stories were serialized in Gekkan Dragon magazine and reprinted in book form between 2001 and 2006. The novels were adapted into a manga and the manga was adapted to an anime in 2003. While writing the stories, Tsukiji was asked by the Gekkan Dragon editors to change the rules and extend the life of the hero, Kazuki Shikimori. Tsujiki decided to keep with the plan, killing off the protagonist after six episodes; or, after killing him off, having his ghost keep hanging around.

  85. Only eight times

  Kazuki Shikimori was a second year high school student, but his old school wasn’t a typical high school. He transferred from Aoi Academy, one of Japan’s premier magical academies. (No points for guessing which series of books about a young British wizard was as popular in Japan as in the rest of the world.) Kazuki is rather shy and retiring, but he has a good heart and generally does the right thing. Unfortunately, being a nice guy doesn’t get you extra years in the magical world, and Kazuki is at a major disadvantage. In the universe of Maburaho, some people can only cast a few hundred spells in their lifetime, and some a few thousand. When you hit your limit, though, you don’t just become a Muggle: you die. Actually, “die” isn’t accurate enough; the magician’s body turns to dust. And Kazuki only had eight spells left in him.

  At this point, other members of the student body take an interest in Kazuki’s well-being, and these other students tend to be girls. Yuna Miyama was a childhood friend of Kazuki’s, and as children they informally agreed to marry each other when they grew up; Yuna, being the “nice” girl in Kazuki’s life, seems the strongest candidate. This being a “harem comedy,” a genre in which one guy is enticed by a bevy of attractive females, there are at least a couple of others whose interest in Kazuki is more mercenary. In fact, two other girls are competing for Kazuki on behalf of two warring families. Kuriko Kazetsubaki and Rin Kamishiro are descended from prestigious magical families, and want to keep Kazuki alive since, if he turns to dust, they can’t get to his genes. He’s a physically weak example of a powerful magic family, and would be expected to father a very powerful magician—if he can be kept alive.

  Unfortunately, he can’t: he uses his final spell to rescue his childhood friend Yuna from a magical virus. Kazuki’s body may be gone, but his ghost continues to hang around, and even meets with another ghost, who also becomes another member of the “harem”: Elizabeth, whose family goes back centuries. She died during the Holy Roman Empire, where she met a soldier who bore a resemblance to Kuriko Kazetsubaki; eventually Elizabeth’s spirit takes up residence inside Kuriko, who has made peace with Rin in their attempts to restore Kazuki’s body and retrieve his genes.

  He’s ultimately brought back, but with a comic twist. With the wish that he have ten times his old life-span, the series ends with… ten different Maburahos, each with the same old life-span.

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  Maburaho represents at least one piece of the manga audience: high school boys. Let’s take a quick look at the other side of the gender divide.

  CHAPTER 26: GIRLY GHOSTS

  We’ve already met with a number of ghosts who were created in the realm of shojo—manga and anime created with adolescent girls in mind. Even within this limited demographic, the stories, and the ghosts within them, have been all over the map, from the sentimentality of Ai Yori Aoshi to the gruesomeness of Ghost Hunt. The titles just keep rolling out of the manga magazine publishers, and most are destined never to be seen in the west except over the Internet in scanslation (amateur, do-it-yourself renderings into English, German, or whatever the fan’s language might be). These are lucky enough to have found an official outlet in the west:

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  Heaven’s Will

  Satoru Takamiya is writer and artist of this short series that begins outside a “haunted house”. The heroine, Mikuzu, a high school student, is being teased by her friends who try to convince her that there’s no such thing as ghosts. But, as Mikuzu reflects: “Ghosts don’t exist for people who can’t see them; but, to people who can, ghouls and ghosts and fairies exist all over the place!” As if to prove her point, we see her dragging the ghost of a medieval soldier who won’t let go of her ankle.

  Meanwhile, Mikuzu has her own troubles: a guy who can’t seem to take his eyes off of her; Mikuzu and her friends refer to him as a “stalker.” As far as Mikuzu’s concerned, there’s no difference between a ghost and a creepy guy.

  86. The Possessed Piano

  Things get more intense for Mikuzu when she meets Seto (a boy her age) and Seto (his deceased sister who died seven years before and whose identity he wishes to adopt). Mikuzu is asked to help Seto in an informal ghost-busting company (strictly for the money, which Seto needs for his sex-change operation to “revive” his sister). Woven through the story is their one serious case of exorcism: they are approached by the Student Council President of a prestigious boy’s high school, who has purchased a piano that he cannot play. “Rather,” he says, “while I am playing it, I become possessed by something and lose consciousness.” He lets Mikuzu and Seto live in his house for a week while he takes a quick vacation, during which
time he expects them to exorcise whatever’s wrong with the piano.

  Things start out complicated, with Mikuzu and Seto being given matching negligees (the President not realizing Seto is a boy) and their assistant Kagari playing the piano for hours to no effect (because he’s a werewolf). Mikuzu and Kagari go to interview the grandson of the piano builder (in part so that Mikuzu find a quick solution, limiting the fee and keeping Seto from sacrificing himself to the sex-change). The piano builder, however, died just before finishing the instrument.

  One day when Seto is out of town, Mikuzu actually meets Seto’s kid’s sister’s spirit, trapped in a fan. She says to call her brother by his name, but we don’t learn what it is. When Seto returns, he finds that the demon possessing the piano seems to be getting stronger and needs to be exorcised. The exorcism itself seems to be an easy procedure involving the fan containing the sister’s spirit, but the demon isn’t subdued so easily and swallows Seto. Mikuzu follows him into what looks like a completely different house; she finds Seto; identifying the one note sounded by the piano, touching it with the fan and stating “Be released from your despair,” the piano is healed and the two are returned. The only problem is that the Student Cuoncil President doesn’t pay cash for the exorcism, but plays to Seto’s weakness for pastries.

  Like many shoujo manga, this one is rather vague, complicated and seems to be unfinished. The issue of Seto’s sister and his death-wish are left unresolved, as are relations between Seto, Mikuzu and Kagari. This unresolved state of affairs is considered poetic and aesthetic, focusing on emotion expressed through the action.

  Bound Beauty (Shibariya komachi)

  The Japanese view of the universe depicts destiny as, among other things, a scarlet thread tied around one’s little finger, linking one (especially romantically) to someone else. This is part of the yubikiri “pinky swear” gesture still common in Japan. The manga by Mick Takeuchi centers on a high school girl named Chiyako who can actually see these threads; not only that, she does a little “insider trading” with this information, making money by telling romance fortunes.

  Haruka

  Toko Mizuno’s manga Haruka—Beyond the Stream of Time (a translation of Harukanaru toki no Naka de Hachiyoo Shoo) has appeared in Japan’s LaLa and America’s Shojo Beat magazines. The manga’s been criticized as a recycling of Yu Watase’s similarly plotted Fushigi Yugi. However, this manga was inspired not by another romance manga but by a romantic video game. The series runs to fifteen tankobon volumes in Japan; only the first two volumes are available so far in America, and animated versions in both countries.

  87. A Killer Koto

  The lead character, Akane Motomiya, starts out as a modern high school student who’s goodhearted, a bit naïve, and who gets an increased scope to use her abilities when she is carried back a thousand years to the Heian period of Japan’s history. This means that she gets involved with the war between the Taira and Heike clans. She also gets involved with the Eight Guardians—a bevy of young good-looking guys.

  She meets one of the guys under special circumstances. Akuram, of the Oni (Demon) clan, summoned Akane back to Heian-era Kyoto, and has caused other problems to keep her and her Guardians busy. In one plot enacted over two manga episodes, Toji temple finds itself in possession of a Japanese table-harp or koto. Even though koto come in a variety of sizes, this one has eight strings, is deemed to be too heavy in the lower register, and its music actually kills the monk who sets out to play it. It doesn’t end there, however; the monk’s ghost, filled with anger at being killed, continues to play the koto, intent on killing others.

  Akane cannot help this time, having been stricken with a sleeping curse by the sound of the koto. Before this, however, she meets a monk playing an elegy for the dead monk on a flute; this monk flutist is Eisen. The Guardians (not all eight of them have appeared at this point) need to play the koto themselves, to establish which string is the problem. The focus this time is on Eisen, the younger brother of the Heian Emperor, who abandoned his claims on the throne to become a monk. As an accomplished musician, he’s the Guardian who solves the problem of the eight-stringed koto by preparing to play it, even though it may cost him his life to do so.

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  Phantom Dream (Genei Musou)

  One of the early works of Natsuki Takaya, better known for the wildly successful manga Fruits Basket, this 1994-1997 story, serialized in Hana to Yume Planet Zōkan has some of the comedy but all of the drama of her later work. It tells of Tamaki Otoya, high school student and Shinto priest in training. The latest in a line of such priests, Tamaki doesn’t merely help disturbed souls to find peace after death; he knows that these spirits could do some serious damage if driven by frustration and vengeance. For backup and general guidance, Tamaki can look to his mother and his girlfriend Asahi. His mother is the last remaining member of the family (his father and grandfather having passed on), leaving Tamaki as the head of the shrine.

  88. The Twins Who Weren’t Alike

  A third person comes into the picture in the first chapter: a tall and statuesque girl named Mitsuru. Growing up, she had been a friend to both Tamaki and Asahi, but now she is aloof and standoffish. The reason becomes obvious pretty quickly: somewhere along the way, her body has become home to a jaki, a spirit that feeds on negative emotions like jealousy or anger. It’s tied to Minoru, Mitsuru’s twin sister who recently died after spending most of her life sickly, in bed, and alone. At first, Tamaki and Asahi assume that Minoru was the source of the negative spiritual energy, resentful of her isolation and her sickly condition. However, the resentment is from Mitsuru herself, feeling the guilt of getting the life that should have been shared with her sister. Asahi volunteers to take Mitsuru’s bitterness and jealousy into herself, because “I’m just bubbling over with love inside.” Minoru appears to actually move the dark feelings from Mitsuru to Asahi, who volunteered to ease her friend’s heart because “Minoru-chan won’t be able to rest in Heaven if you don’t find peace here.”

  The bottom line: this series is based less on any internal rules of supernatural cause and effect than it is on the traditional notion that girls are supposed to be yasashii (kind, generous, compassionate). Sometimes, guys manifest these behaviors (see Seto in Heaven’s Will, above, or Ichiro in the suicide chapter).

  CHAPTER 27: TRAIN GHOSTS

  More accurately, this isn’t the ghost of a train, but a ghost that has come into being because of a train.

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  89. Got legs?

  In this story from the 90s manga Jigoku Sensei Nube, the spirit of a girl cut in half by a commuter train has become a teketeke, which gets its name from the sound it makes getting around with half its body missing.

  One of Nueno-sensei’s fifth grade students, Makoto Kurita, has been listening to some high school kid telling tales about the teketeke. It started out as a young girl who tried beating a train across the track, and lost; she was cut in half at the waist. Now, her ghost wanders the streets looking for her legs, and it’s said that anyone who even hears the legend of the teketeke is doomed to die in three days. Makoto is pretty frightened by this story, but the high school student offers to help… for ¥100 (about a dollar). The older student gets the money, tells Makoto “You’re on your own,” and takes off.

  Makoto then enlists the help of his teacher and some of the other students; they keep watch and, sure enough, late one night the monstrous teketeke appears; torso cut off at the waist, dragging her entrails on the ground, wanting to cut off Makoto’s legs to replace her own. Nueno steps in, protecting Makoto with his demon claw while asking, “Listen, Makoto; why can’t this person rest in peace? Why is she saying these things?” Makoto looks, and sees tears on the horrible face of the teketeke. He realizes that this monster was once just a kid who wanted to live like a kid; she got caught up in the bitterness of her fate. Makoto prays for her to find peace, and she vanishes.

  The prayer hasn’t healed the teketeke; it merely spared Makoto. In the a
partment of the high school student, we see him counting the money he took from Makoto, among others, laughing at the younger students for believing in ghost stories. He stops laughing when the teketeke appears… and the final scene shows the ghost moving through the alleys of the city, dragging the older boy’s bloody pair of legs behind her.

  2009 appeared to be a big year for the teketeke, with two Japanese feature films due out featuring this particular ghost.

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  We’ve already met the crew from Yoshiyuki Nishi’s manga Muyo to Rouji no Mahouritsu Soudan Jimusho (Muyo & Rouji’s Bureau of Supernatural Investigation). In this, their first case, they tackle a variant of a teketeke, and find that (no surprise) the best weapon to use against it is, again, compassion.

  90. The Girl on Platform 5

  When a troubled, taller than average young girl named Rie comes to their office, Muyo deduces that she has ghostly parasites attached to her legs. Sure enough, he makes visible a pair of fox-spirits wrapped like furry snakes around Rie’s lower legs. This is a violation of spirit law, and Rouji carries out the punishment: banishment.

  Rie’s case, which has her disturbed enough to lose sleep over, is based on a rumor. If one goes to platform 5 of the Hashiki Station on the JR line, the ghost of a girl appears. This is bad enough, but the ghost is also reputed to grab people by the ankles and pull them off the platform, into the path of an oncoming train. Rie in fact can put a name to the ghost: she’s convinced that it was once her classmate, Taeko Okazaki. They befriended each other when they made the transition from junior high to high school; they became very close friends. Yet Rie says, “I killed her.”