Tag Archives: supernatural

Heikegani–The Samurai Crab

Heikegani--The Samurai Crab

Artist’s impression of a heikegani. Remarkably, it’s pretty close to the reality.

The year was 1185, the place a tiny bay called Dan-no-ura. Two great fleets faced one another; on once side, the Heike clan, imperial rulers of Japan, and on the other the Minamoto, upstarts fighting to control the throne. At stake was control of all Japan. After a half-day of fighting, the Heike were routed, and their 6-year old emperor drowned to keep him out of Minamoto hands. Minamoto Yoritomo went on to become the first Shogun, or military ruler, of Japan.

A strange story arose in the wake of the battle. Locals told a legend about crabs in the area with strange patterns on their shells, said to resemble samurai masks. Legend held that the crabs were the reincarnations of samurai slain at the Battle of Dan-no-ura.

See what I mean? Credit: Nasir Sadeghi.

The crabs do bear an ...

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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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Jorogumo–’The Whore Spider’

Jorogumo--'The Whore Spider'

A Jorogumo, surrounded by her children.

One day a logger was going about his work. Since logging is an exhausting business, seeing as how this was Edo period Japan and the chainsaw hadn’t been invented yet, the man decides to take a short break. He hears the crash of a waterfall nearby, and decides that sitting on the stream bank and watching the waterfall would be a pleasant way to spend his lunch break.

However, no sooner has the man settled himself and unpacked his food than a strange something attaches itself to his foot! Puzzled, the man pulls the stick substance off. He sees that it is something like spider silk. He sticks the stuff to a nearby log. A moment later, the log goes zipping across the stream bank, only to disappear beneath the churning waters of the waterfall. Not a little spooked, our logger decides it’s best to ...

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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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