Tag Archives: Horror

Kesagake the Man Eater

Kesagake the Man Eater

A statue of Kesagake, the brown bear responsible for the worst bear attacks in Japanese history.

Sometimes humans get a bit cocky. After all, our big brains and ability to produce advanced technology put us head and shoulders above other animals, especially when it comes to killing power. Nobody can contest the fact that humans are the apex predator on planet Earth, but now and then nature reminds us that, when you strip away all our technology, we are nothing more than week, naked apes.

One such event occurred in Sankebetsu, Japan, between December 9 and 14, 1915, when a brown bear awoke early from hibernation and proceeded to terrorize the local population for five days.

The incident began when Kesagake, a huge Ussuri brown bear, appeared near the Ikeda homestead, in mid November, and spooked the family horse. When the bear reappeared, the Ikeda men went after it and managed to ...

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Kamaitachi–The Sickle Weasel

Kamaitachi--The Sickle Weasel

Kamaitachi, by Toriyama Sekien.

Night has fallen. You’ve had a hard day at work, and you’re walking home, cutting across a grassy field to save time. All of a sudden, a huge gust of wind knocks you to the ground. When you stand, you happen to look down and notice that your pants have been sliced open at the calf, and a closer look shows an inch long slit in your skin. There is no blood, and no pain. Yet, anyway. The pain will set in later, and you’ll suffer for days as the wound will take a long time to heal.

So what in the world just happened? Well my friend, you have just run afoul of the kamaitachi, or the sickle weasel. The critters are yokai that hang around the Koshin’etsu region for the most part. They are said to resemble weasels, with sharp, sickle like claws. Accounts of ...

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The Curse of the Kleenex Commercial

The Curse of the Kleenex Commercial

America has a whole host of urban legends surrounding television shows and movies.  Probably the most famous is the legend of the cursed movie set, which claims that for years after the movie Poltergeist was filmed, actors and producers all met terrible fates.  Similar claims were made for the cast of The Exorcist, and probably several other movies I’m not aware of.  The point is that the cursed set is a staple of entertainment related urban legends.  These sorts of stories aren’t limited to the US, however.  Japan has its own strange entry into the canon of cursed sets: the Curse of the Kleenex Commercial.

A series of Kleenex commercials aired in the Eighties that spawned the legend of the cursed commercial set.  The version of the commercial I scrounged up featured a woman in white and a baby painted to look like an ogre or a demon.  Legend ...

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Nuppeppo–The Blobby…Monster…Thing…

Nuppeppo--The Blobby...Monster...Thing...

Japanese folklore is populated by many a weird critter.  I am constantly amazed by the bizarre menagerie of monsters that Japanese believed populated their home country.  Possibly the strangest I’ve come across so far is the Nuppeppo.

The Nuppeppo is actually kind of cute, in a morbid, Tim Burton-esque way.  It is a blob of fatty flesh standing about 1.5 meters tall, with stubby arms and bulbous fingers and toes. The ink drawing of a Nuppeppo kinda reminds me of Mr. Potatohead! There’s a hint of a face in there among the fat folds as well.  It generally hangs out in lonely places, especially temples and cemeteries, and no wonder as it is purported to have a horrible smell, like rotting flesh.

Despite being the lonely outcast of the J-folklore world, the Nuppeppo are harmless.  They’re classified as yurei, but unlike many other yurei they aren’t deadly to humans, and in fact ...

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Shinigami–Angels of Death

Shinigami--Angels of Death

The Grim Reaper is probably the most widely known persona of death in Western cultures.  Most typically depicted as a scythe wielding skeleton garbed in black robes, this fearsome figure harvests the souls of the dead, escorting them to the other side to await judgment and their eternal fate.  While this symbol of death has deep roots in Western culture, stemming from the 14th century Danse Macabre imagery that became popularized when the Black Death was wreaking its havoc with European society, the Reaper has only come to Japan relatively more recently, in the form of the Shinigami.

Now, I do not purport to be an expert in Japanese folklore (or in anything, really) but as near as I can tell the Shinigami started life in the 18th or 19th century, springing forth from a variety of influences including traditional Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist beliefs that merged with Christian influences from ...

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Issei Sagawa–Japan’s Cannibal Killer

Issei Sagawa--Japan's Cannibal Killer

Police photo of Issei Sagawa

Now and then on my blog I will do a post about the worst of the worst–serial killers.  When trying to come up with a premise for this week’s post, I stumbled across the strange and macabre story of Issei Sagawa, a cannibal and minor celebrity.  Yes, you read that right: a cannibal and a minor celebrity.

Sagawa was a troubled youth who was identified by psychiatric professionals as a potential threat to himself and others early on.  While the story should have ended here with Sagawa safely medicated and locked away in a psych ward, Sagawa had one asset that many psychopaths lack–a rich father.  Unwilling or unable to see his son for the burgeoning monster he was, Sagawa’s father shipped his son off to school in Paris, France to study Comparative Literature.  It was while he was in school that he met Renee Hartevelt, ...

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