Atlas Obscura :
Get to Know Your Japanese Bathroom Ghosts
There are several to keep track of, some scarier than others.
As any horror film fan can attest, the bathroom can be a scary place. From Janet Leigh’s infamous shower scene in Psycho to the blood-spewing drain pipes of Stephen King’s It,
there’s no shortage of genuinely startling imagery connected to
lavatories. But when it comes to conjuring up the most terrifying
possible interruptions to our most private moments, no one beats Japan.
In Japanese folklore, there are a number
of spirits rumored to appear in bathrooms. Some reach out from the
insides of toilets; others whisper through the stall walls. Each one has
its own grim story and particular behavior, but they all share a
connection to the bathroom.
“The bathroom is a somewhat unusual space in a household or school or wherever it exists,” says Michael Dylan Foster, author of The Book of Yôkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore.
Foster describes bathrooms as liminal spaces in that they connect the
normal, everyday world to a whole different realm, namely the sewer.
“In that sense, the bathroom is a place
of transition, and the toilet in particular is a portal to a mysterious
otherworld,” says Foster. “Even though we generally flush things down,
it would not seem surprising for something mysterious to come up through
the toilet.” A hand reaching up through the toilet is just one of the
possible creep-outs a Japanese bathroom ghost might visit on someone.
Toire no Hanako-san
One of the best-known of Japan’s bathroom
spirits is Toire no Hanako-san, or Hanako of the Toilet. Like all ghost
stories, the details of Hanako’s origins vary somewhat from telling to
telling, but in general, Hanako is said to be the ghost of a young girl
who died around WWII, and now haunts school bathrooms. Usually described
as wearing an out-of-fashion red dress and bob haircut, she can be
summoned by going to the girl’s bathroom on the third floor, knocking on
the third stall three times, and saying, “Are you there Hanako-san?”
Depending on regional variations,
Hanako will respond by saying, “Yes I am,” or a ghostly hand will
appear. If someone enters the stall, they could also be eaten by a
three-headed lizard.
The last outcome notwithstanding, Hanako
is generally just a spooky presence meant for a good scare. Hanako has
appeared in numerous anime series and television shows, and is pretty
much a star. “[The legend] is well known because it is essentially an
‘urban legend’ associated with schools all over Japan. Since the 1990s,
it has also been used in movies, so it became part of popular culture
not just orally transmitted or local folklore,” says Foster.
Kashima Reiko
Hanako is not the only young girl said to
haunt the bathrooms of Japan. There is another legend of a young girl
named Kashima Reiko, said to be the ghost of a girl who died when her
legs were severed by a train. Her legless torso now haunts bathroom
stalls, asking unlucky visitors, “Where are my legs?” The correct
response, “On the Meishin Expressway,” could save your life. Otherwise,
it’s said that she might tear a person’s legs off.
Kashima Reiko is a bathroom-centric variation of another Japanese ghost story known as “Teke Teke,”
which also features the ghost of a young girl who was cut in half by a
train. There’s also a version of the Kashima Reiko story that suggests
she will appear within one month to anyone who learns her story. This
set-up probably sounds familiar to anyone who knows the popular Ring
franchise, which Foster compares to the liminal aspect that makes
bathrooms so ripe a setting for horror. “[Note] the classic J-horror
film (and book) Ringu, in which Sadako
is in a well; the association of the well as a mysterious place has
precedents in earlier Japanese folklore. Also if we think about the
imagery of Sadako coming out of a television set, we get the same idea
that the television is a portal to another world; she literally crawls
from another world into our own.”
Aka Manto
It’s not all scary little girls. One of
the most gruesome of Japan’s bathroom ghosts is Aka Manto, or the Red
Cape. Also sometimes called Aoi Manto (Blue Cape), or in some
variations, Akai-Kami-Aoi-Kami (Red Paper, Blue Paper), this modern spirit
is said to resemble a person completely covered by a flowing cape and
hood, wearing a mask that hides an irresistibly handsome face. He is
said to appear to people (usually in the last stall) as they are going
to wipe, asking a strange question. Sometimes the spirit asks, “Red cape
or blue cape?” or offers “Red paper or blue paper?” Choosing red will
lead to Aka Manto flaying a person’s back (a red cape), or another
gruesome, bloody death, while choosing blue will cause the spirit to
suffocate you. Getting clever and choosing any other color will just
cause you to be dragged to the underworld. The only way to escape Aka
Manto’s punishment is to decline its offer entirely.
Kappa
One of Japan’s most famous mythological creatures, the kappa is said to sometimes be found in bathrooms. “However, it is not specifically thought of as a bathroom spirit, but more generally as a creature associated with water—usually
rivers or ponds. But there are a lot of legends in which the kappa
appears in an outhouse, where it harasses people (especially women),”
says Foster.
Akaname
This goblinesque yōkai spirit is filthy and disheveled, with a long, protruding tongue, and according to Foster,
it is primarily known for licking the filth off of bathtubs. While not
seen as a particularly frightening creature, the image of a gross little
sprite licking the dirt off of a tub is not exactly friendly.
Japan’s bathroom spirits
may appear to be uniquely ready to haunt your every bowel movement, but
ultimately there are good reasons bathrooms everywhere tend to be a
source of fear. “You are exposed and vulnerable—literally naked, at
least in part—so there is a certain amount of danger or uncertainty
associated with being there,” says Foster. “The bathroom is not a place
you want to stay longer than necessary to complete the job you came to
do.”
