Episode 33: Hyaku Monogatari

Hyaku Monogatari means 100 Stories. The legend goes that each individual will tell a short ghost story, and after the telling of the 100th story, a real ghost will appear.

We celebrate this tradition by telling 4 scary tales from different regions of Japan.

• A car harbors the ghosts of those who died in it (Gumma Prefecture)

• A creature haunts Lake Iruka (Aiichi Prefecture)

• A spurned woman’s curse attacks at a shrine (Kyoto Prefecture)

• A young girl sees ghosts at the cliff where her idol died (Wakayama Prefecture)

Episode 34: Otsuya

The Japanese Sandai Kaidan are the three “great ghost stories” of Japan.

We begin with the first of these three tales, the Botan Doro (“The Peony Lantern”). This is the story of Otsuya. A sad love story doomed to become a terrifying ghost story.

Their love was forbidden, yet they could not live without each other. What happens when death takes one of them and comes for the other?

Episode 35: Oiwa, Part One

Perhaps the best known of the Sandai Kaidan is the story of Oiwa, who returns from the grave to seek vengeance on those who plotted against her. This tale is often summarized. But the complete tale is poignant, terrifying, and deserves to be heard in full context. For the first time in English, we tackle this story.

Oiwa’s deformed mother and her father meet a tragic end, and Oiwa vows vengeance on the son of the man responsible for their death. But not knowing his identity, she marries him through a matchmaker set up by her grandfather. But her husband and the rival of her grandfather hatch a plot to end Oiwa. They plan to take her family estate for themselves and allow her husband to marry his lover.

Episode 36: Oiwa, Part Two

As the plot against Oiwa unfolds, her tragic fate comes for her. Sold to a brothel, she is ill-treated, tortured and eventually learns of the betrayal. Death comes next.

But Oiwa will not let the grave stop her from seeking revenge. If karma does not get the plotters first, she will.

Episode 37: Okiku and the Well

The third story of the Sandai Kaidan is perhaps the most influential on modern media, as portrayed in movies like “The Ring” and “The Grudge.” A ghost climbing out of a well for revenge, based on a true story, is just as terrifying today as it was centuries ago.

Otsuya and the Peony Lantern

The Fate of Otsuya

Nineteenth Century Rendition of Oiwa

The actual well of Okiku (Himeji Castle) (Photo by Heath Havey)