A Gathering of Spirits: Japan's Ghost Story Tradition: From Folklore and Kabuki to Anime and Manga (6 page)

This story is set in Mino province, and tells of a Zen monk named Musou Kokushi, who lost his way in the mountains while on a pilgrimage. He continued to wander aimlessly until, just at sunset, he saw a small hut on top of a hill. He recognized it as an anjitsu, a hermitage just big enough for one person, where a Buddhist monk could pass the night in solitude.

When he got there, however, he found that the hermitage was already occupied by an elderly, fierce-looking priest. Still, Musou asked if he could stay there for the night; the old priest harshly told Musou “no,” but directed him toward a small farming village in the next valley. Musou soon found a group of five or six houses and asked for the headman of the village. He was shown to a room in one of the houses, and was given food and bedding. Exhausted by his travels, he went to sleep early that night, but was awakened just before midnight by sounds of crying. A young man with a lantern came into the room, and told the monk that the young man who stood before him was formerly the family’s eldest son; now, he was head of the household, for his father had died shortly before the monk had arrived. Now, according to the custom of that village, everyone would leave before midnight and not return until sunrise. “Strange things happen in a house with a corpse,” the monk was told. Musou was not afraid of spirits and said that he would keep watch through the night. The young man asked him to report on whatever happened; then the family left the village.

Musou recited the funeral service for the deceased father, and sat in meditation with the corpse. In the depth of the night, as he sat, Musou saw something that made no noise and had almost no physical form. This large shadowy thing approached the head of the corpse and began to swallow it, burial robes and all. It also devoured the offerings left with the corpse; then, it vanished as quietly as it had come.

In the morning, Musou told the others what he had seen. None of the villagers were surprised about what happened to the corpse; it had been happening for many years. Then Musou asked, “Why don’t you have the old priest perform rites for the dead?”

“What old priest?”

“The one who lives in the hermitage on the hillside.”

“What hermitage? No priest has lived near here for years.”

Musou now understood everything. He made his way back to the hermitage where he had been so rudely treated by the elderly priest; this time, though, the priest invited him in, apologizing profusely.

“There’s no need to apologize. I found the village and was well received by them.”

“No, I apologize for letting you see me as I truly am. I am not a priest, although I was one many years ago. I was the only priest in this part of the country, and I was kept very busy performing funeral rites. But, while I performed the rites, my heart was not in them; I would think about the food or clothing I would receive in payment. When I died, I was instantly reborn as a Hungry Ghost, as you saw last night. I beg you to perform a service of blessing for me, so that with your prayers I may finally escape this existence.”

Before Musou could reply, the priest and the hermitage vanished, and Musou found himself in the tall grass, kneeling beside what seemed to be the tomb of a monk.

xxx

Some ghosts seem especially real, since they’re based on figures from Japanese history. One of the favorite subjects seems to be warlord Oda Nobunaga, who ruled Japan in the late 1500s; his wars of conquest went a long way toward forging the modern nation of Japan. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing depends on one’s point of view.

The 2002 anime series
Mirage
of
Blaze
, based on a manga by Kiwabara Mizuna, is a combination ghost story and history lesson (and a story that walks up to the edge of the Boy Love genre without actually jumping in), since its mostly male, present day bishounen (pretty-boy) cast is in the middle of re-enacting one of the major disputes of Japanese history: the 16
^th
century conflict between Oda Nobunaga and his trusted general Mitsuhide.

 15. Remembering Mother

Walt Whitman said that, if you told history the right way, there’d be no need for romance novels. Certainly, the story of Nobunaga and Mitsuhide is one of the most memorable in any national history. Through an amazing act of callous disregard, Nobunaga used Mitsuhide’s mother as a hostage during negotiations with the enemy, but broke his word and killed the negotiators from the opposite side. In behaving this way he allowed Mitsuhide’s mother to be killed in exchange. Mitsuhide hid his outrage, bided his time, and, when his troops were later called upon to fight for Nobunaga, instead turned against him.

This TV series gave rise to a sequel OAV series:
Mirage
of
Blaze:
Rebels
of
the
River’s
Edge
. This series also looks to early Japanese history through reincarnations (some of which are gender-bending) of some of its major figures; in this case, members of the Houjou clan of the mid-1500s, who continue battling for power hundreds of years after their death.

 16. The Return of Nobunaga

One of the few anime of Takashi Shiina’s manga
GS
Mikami
to come to the United States featured Oda Nobunaga as the villain. As it explains later in this book, ghosts do not always maintain their own identity, especially if something has powerfully affected them when they lived in this world. In this case, Nobunaga has turned from a ghost to a monster; specifically, a vampire. He drinks human blood by the pitcher (and keeps stuffing his chained-up victims with veggies to make sure the blood supply is uninterrupted.) Typical of Shiina’s style, even some of the scariest bits are also openings for broad humor.

In this case, GS (which stands for Ghost Sweeper; she’s an exorcist) Mikami has a harder mission than usual in killing the reborn Oda Nobunaga: he has two hearts, and must be stabbed through both in order to leave this world. Fortunately, Mikami receives a magic weapon: a spear from the ghost of Jubei Mitsuhide Akechi, whose mother was so casually sacrificed by Nobunaga and who slew Nobunaga in return. Nobunaga (in this story also called Nosferatu, recognizing his vampire nature) enlists the aid of a white spider demon named Ranmaru (after one of Nobunaga’s retainers who was forced to commit suicide by Mitsuhide); by biting Mikami’s face and drawing a single drop of blood, Ranmaru brings Nobunaga back to life.

Things move quickly once Nobunaga sets up his headquarters in modern-day Tokyo. The city is soon overrun by zombie victims; the Pope issues a reward of five billion yen for Nobunaga’s death. Other members of Mikami’s crew, including an alchemist named Dr. Kaos, his girl-robot assistant Marie and a werewolf named Pete, try to bring down Nobunaga. Mikami, in a brilliantly animated sequence, uses a stack of ofuda charms to avoid the web Ranmaru tried to trap her in and then slay him; the dying Ranmaru, however, adds his power to Nobunaga’s. Meanwhile, Mitsuhide possesses Mikami’s hapless apprentice Yokoshima and teaches Mikami to create a second spear to pierce Nobunaga’s other heart. Mitsuhide then personally drags Nobunaga back down to Hell.

 CHAPTER 6: HYAKU MONOGATARI (ONE HUNDRED STORIES)

One pastime of ancient Japan, which still exists today in several modified forms, is the “hyaku monogatari” or one hundred stories. Here’s how you play the game: get some friends together in a windowless room, or even one with windows if it’s at night, and light a hundred candles. Everyone takes turns telling a ghost story. It can be short or long, have a happy ending or end up with gore and death all over the place; there are, as we can already see, many kinds of Japanese ghost stories. When the story’s over, blow out one candle. By the time you get to the last couple of candles, everybody’s nerves should be really on edge. And when you blow out the last candle, everyone count off; they say that there’ll be an extra person in the room.

No wonder the Japanese associate ghost stories not with the gloomy autumn of Halloween, but with the hot and humid nights of summer; not only because of Obon, but because these stories were meant to bring on the chills.

The manga
Ghost
Hunt
(details below) begins with some high school girls playing this Japanese ghost story game. And volume 3 of the manga takes place in a different high school that’s also swarming with paranormal activity; as one student puts it, “We played hyaku monogatari to see if a ghost would really appear. Ever since then, I’ve been seeing these weird silhouettes… I see a rope on the wall, and it’s in the shape of a noose.” (vol. 3, p. 23)

This is only one work among many that invoke, one way or another, the ghost story marathon. Japan’s authors and artists, in a wide range of media, have called on it for centuries.

Katsushika Hokusai’s
Hyaku
Monogatari

Hokusai (1760-1849) is regarded as the master of the woodblock-print medium known as
ukiyo-e
. Gifted with a discerning eye, a sure artistic hand and a one-of-a-kind imagination, Hokusai’s prints have been considered the height of Japanese graphic arts, while his sketchbooks are sometimes called the first manga. In 1830 he created his own
Hyaku
Monogatari
; even though it only illustrated five stories, they reflect the height of Hokusai’s art—even when telling ghost stories.

One of the prints freezes a moment from the story of Oiwa: her disfigured face begins to appear on a paper lantern. Another is a picture of Okiku, her head reaching above the edge of the well where she died, searching for the tenth plate. (These very famous ghosts will each get their own chapter later on.)

Osamu Tezuka’s
Hyaku
Monogatari

The God of Comics (Manga no Kamisama), Osamu Tezuka, created a manga titled
Hyaku
Monogatari
which had absolutely nothing to do with old Japanese ghost stories. Drawn in 1971 and serialized in
Shonen
Jump
magazine, this manga is actually a retelling of the European legend of Faust, set in Japan’s Feudal Period. Things start out in a comic vein with a failed, cartoon-y samurai named Hanri Ichirui (Hanri evoking Heinrich, Ichirui meaning “first base”, thus using “first” as a pun for “Faust”). Ordered to commit harikiri, the cowardly samurai balks. He strikes a bargain with a witch named Sudama: she provides him with a new face and a new name (Fuwa Usuto, another play on “Faust”). He also agrees to the terms given Faust in Johann von Goethe’s drama based on the legend: if Faust were ever to declare himself satisfied with his life, he would die and his soul would go to hell.

In changing the legend’s location from Europe to Japan, and telling the story in a manga, Tezuka made quite a few other changes, not least in the character of Sudama. The witch was meant to stand in for the devil Mephistopheles, but, perhaps inevitably, Fuwa Usuto and Sudama fall in love. His satisfaction with this turn of events leads to his having to commit harikiri; this time, however, he finds the courage to carry it out. As Sudama bears his soul down to hell, she rebels, releasing the soul of her beloved and watching as it vanishes into the night sky. Still, despite the title, although other supernatural events take place in the two hundred pages of the manga, there are no ghosts.

Hinako Sugiura’s
Hyaku
Monogatari

The late manga author Hinako Sugiura (1958-2005) was, like the creators of the
Ghost
Hunt
manga, among the most recent to draw on the “hyaku monogatari” as a source of inspiration with her final manga series, the 1988-1993
Hyaku
monogatari
.

“A hyaku monogatari are the collected writings of what was a popular pastime during the Edo period. People got together, lighted one hundred candles and told ghost stories, blowing out one candle for every story. The belief was, that when the last story was told, a ghost would appear. This series (of original stories by Sugiura) is based on that old habit and is thus a collection of beautiful Edo-style ghost stories.”
[14]

Describing Sugiura’s manga as “Edo-style” is an understatement. Her work deliberately drew on the influence of the masterpieces of ukiyo-e woodprints. Sugiura herself, the daughter of kimono makers, usually wore kimono, and in other ways avoided the trappings of modern life. Don’t look for the large eyes of manga; these eyes are classical slits.

Ghost
Hunt

Fuyumi Ono’s
Akuryou
(
Evil
Spirits)
novels, written for young readers, draw on the hyaku monogatari as well in their manga incarnation (with artwork by Shiho Inada) and published and animated in Japanese and English as
Ghost
Hunt
. In the beginning of the first episode, Mai Taniyama and her fellow high school students are telling ghost stories, not with candles, but with flashlights. The payoff is the same: they turn out the light, then they count off, with the possibility (maybe the hope) that a ghost will have joined the group. One extra person does appear… but more on that in other chapters.

Kaidan
Hyaku
Monogatari

In 2002 Japan’s Fuji TV network broadcast an 11-week TV series,
Kaidan
Hyaku
Monogatari
(One
Hundred
Ghost
Stories
). These were retellings of classic ghost stories, with the added kick of CGI (computer generated imaging) taking the special effects to a new level. These stories include the tale of Oiwa and her faithless samurai husband, the
yukionna
(snow woman), “Earless” Hoichi, Princess Kaguya, and the haunting of “Shining Prince” Genji, among others, all of whom can be found in these pages.

There’s even a musical version of the game.
The
Kaidan
Suite
is described as a musical interpretation of hyaku monogatari, and seeks to recreate the mood of an Edo-era evening in which ghost stories were told by candlelight. While drawing from traditional Japanese musical systems and narration, the
Kaidan
Suite
also borrows from 20th-century classical and jazz improvisation to capture the emotional pacing of hyaku monogatar
i
. As in many traditional Japanese ghost stories
,
feminism is a distinct subtext of the suite; numerous examples are concerned with injustices against women.

Kousetsu
Hyaku
Monogatari

In 2003 the anime production company Geneon (formerly Pioneer) produced a 13-episode OAV series which became available in English translation in 2004. Variously titled
Requiem
of
the
Darkness
and
Requiem
from
the
Darkness
(both titles appeared on Geneon’s own website), neither is an accurate translation of the original title:
Kousetsu
Hyaku
Monogatari
(
Rumor
of
the
Hundred
Stories
). This series is about the act of collecting and writing ghost stories; at least, that’s how it starts.

Natsuhiko Kyougoku, principal writer for the series, is a Japanese Renaissance man, having written novels and motion pictures as well as launched a quarterly supernatural-themed magazine,
Mystery
. He collaborated for this series with two other writers of Japanese horror films, Hiroshi Takahashi (creator of the internationally famous film
Ringu
) and Yoshinobu Fujioka (who worked on one of the
Tomie
horror films based on a manga by Junji Ito), as well as Satoshi Kon collaborator Sadayuki Murai. The series is directed by Hideki Tonokatsu, who also directed a special in the
Lupin
the
Third
anime series.

Kousetsu
Hyaku
Monogatari
is set in the mid-1800s, as the Edo period is coming to an end. An earnest young would-be writer, Momosuke, travels around Japan, soliciting ghost stories for his first work, a
Hyaku
Monogatari
. In his travels, though, he meets three strange companions. The leader of the trio, Mataichi, is a short man who dresses as a Buddhist priest but professes to have no beliefs at all; he will do whatever he’s hired to do. Nagamimi, in contrast, is a huge man, although he defers to Mataichi’s leadership. They’re accompanied by Ogin, a voluptuous young woman who carries a puppet.

The artwork is singular, in that it barely resembles what fans in the west have come to think of as anime. There is very little following of Japanese stylistic conventions, especially in drawings of characters’ eyes, and backgrounds and people alike are rendered almost abstractly. If anything, this animation reminds the viewer of western “graphic novels” of the
Dark
Knight
variety. The art lacks a distinctly Japanese quality, which has to be compensated for by the storytelling. But here, too, things don’t quite measure up. There are plenty of scary events, to be sure, and it would seem that Momosuke is finding the material for his ghost stories. However, the stories don’t involve ghosts at all. There are plenty of creepy and depraved events, from robbery to cannibalism, but no actual supernatural events.

Until the final episodes. The eleventh story introduces a gimmick: a Weapon of Mass Destruction called a flame lance. According to the story, it was a kind of cannon given to a small island by the Heike clan, to be used in its battle against the Taira (see chapter 9). However, with the war over for centuries, the cannon exists only to be activated for the sake of general destruction. This happens in the last two episodes when a depraved nobleman finds inspiration in ancient drawings of demonic torture to use the weapon.

In the end, Momosuke tells the viewer that his
Hyaku
Monogatari
were completed and published, although perhaps we are meant to wonder if his fictional ghosts could ever compare with the monstrosities of real life.

x
xxHOLIC
[15]

Early in this manga by the CLAMP collective, which started publication in 2003 and ran until 2010, and its fairly faithful anime incarnation, the four principal characters gather on a summer night for a “hyaku monogatari” session. The pivotal character, Yuko Ichihara (which isn’t her real name), is a mysterious woman, something of a witch, who employs a high school student in her curious shop. The student, Kimihiro Watanuki, sees dead people, like most of his family. He wants to be rid of this family trait, however, and asks Yuko for help. She’ll help him—for a price. Because he can’t pay the price, she puts him to work in her shop until he’s earned enough to pay for her help; until then, he still sees dead people and other spirits.

Life isn’t all work and spirits; Watanuki is interested in a girl in his high school class, Himawari, who keeps her distance as if she’s afraid of bad luck befalling Watanuki. There’s also the school’s top athlete, Domeki, who Watanuki sees as a rival for Himawari’s attentions (even if Domeki doesn’t see himself that way).

In volume 2 of the manga, the four gather at the Shinto temple run by Domeki’s family for a ghost story session one hot summer night. The number of tales is shortened to four stories from each of the four participants, but things still get out of hand before they reach the end. Spirits begin to gather outside the room, threatening to break in through the paper screen walls; they’re drawn to the room next door in the temple by the presence there of a parishioner’s corpse awaiting his funeral. Domeki has a bow but no arrows; still, this is enough to keep the spirits at bay.