A city of glittering skyscrapers, neon advertisements and car-clogged flyovers, Tokyo is like a backdrop from a sci-fi movie. However, of all genres, the Japanese prefer mysticism: it seems that the line between the world of the living and the world of the dead in the Land of the Rising Sun is especially thin.
As in any other capital of the world, organized mystic tours in Tokyo are wildly popular among tourists. Alas, not everyone during such walks manages to see something really supernatural, but hardly anyone is left behind after hearing the incredible multitude of chilling urban legends, whose heroes are the ghosts of ancient samurai, deceived wives, victims of car accidents and maniacs.
THE CURSE OF SAMURAI
In the financial heart of Tokyo, the Otemachi quarter, among the concrete boxes propping up the sky, is an untouched piece of land - the most cursed place in the city, according to its watchmen. Here is a sanctuary, which was erected in order to pacify the ferocious spirit of Taira no Masakado, a rebellious general who once proclaimed himself the new emperor of Japan and paid for it with his own life. He died in battle in 940; as a warning to other rebels, Masakado cut off her head and sent her to the capital Kyoto, where she was put on public display.
Amazingly, even after three months, as legend has it, the head looked as if it were alive, only the samurai's face was distorted even more with anger, and animal fear seized those who risked looking into his eyes burning with hatred. Finally, on one moonless night, the head lit up and, rising into the air, went in search of the body - to Shibasaki, the native village of Masakado, in the place of which the Otemachi quarter is today.
Finding it, the villagers washed their hair and buried it exactly where it "landed", and then erected a burial mound. But the spirit of the vengeful warrior never found peace: ten years passed, and a poisonous glow began to emanate from his grave, and he himself began to visit the living. They pacified the ghost with constant prayers and offerings. Over time, he was almost forgotten, until in the 13th century an epidemic of plague broke out, which, of course, Masakado was accused of: they say, the anger of the commander was caused by the construction of a temple of the Buddhist sect Tendai next to his grave.
For the next centuries, the hill with the head of Masakado remained untouchable: no one dared to disturb the rebel's peace - so strong was the belief in his curse. But after the Great Kanto Earthquake - one of the most devastating in Japanese history - nearly wiped out Tokyo in 1923, the Treasury Department decided to seize the opportunity to raze the sacred mound and build a new office building there.
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Within two years, everyone who had anything to do with this venture, including the minister himself and 14 of his colleagues, died under unexplained circumstances. Misfortune befell ordinary workers employed at the construction site, who received serious injuries and fractures from scratch. It was decided to curtail the project - the unfinished building was demolished and, after a series of Shinto rituals designed to calm the evil spirit, the hill was restored.
Every year there was a service in honor of Masakado, until World War II broke out. In 1940, lightning struck the main building of the Ministry of Finance, setting off a fire that destroyed the structures around the hill. Exactly on the anniversary of the death of the legendary commander, to please Masakado, Tokyo officials erected a stone memorial on the cursed site, which still stands today.
But the story of a restless samurai from the other world never ended. The Americans, who took control of Japan at the end of the war, tried to clear the hill for the construction of a military vehicle fleet, but on the very first day of work, the bulldozer turned over, burying the driver under it, which was followed by other accidents. Panic among the construction personnel, coupled with the admonitions of superstitious Tokyo residents, forced the high command to abandon their plans for a tidbit of land, returning Masakado to peace and quiet.
What happened to the body of the samurai? Oh, according to legend, it also tried to find the head, wandering at night and terrifying the peasants from Shibasaki, until it surrendered, falling where the Kanda Myojin temple was later erected - one of the attractions of modern Otemachi. Masakado himself, by the way, has long been canonized and revered as the patron saint of Tokyo.
A festival in his honor is traditionally held in Kanda Myojin in May. The road to the hill where the warrior's head rests is not forgotten: clerks from banks and offices in the neighborhood do not cease to "placate" the spirit of Masakado, moreover, they even place tables in offices so that in no case sit with their backs to the grave. You never know …
CLASSIC OF JAPANESE HORROR
The story of another Tokyo ghost legend is also filled with a thirst for revenge - it tells the story of the unfortunate Oiwa, the wife of a ronin, who lived at the beginning of the Edo period in the village of Yotsuya, which eventually became part of the metropolis. They were called a wonderful couple - Oiwu and Iemona, not knowing about the ambitions of the latter - a selfish and depraved man.
At the time when his wife was expecting a child, he started an intrigue with Oyume, a young girl from a noble family, whose possible marriage promised Iemon both positions and wealth. The villain decided to get rid of Oiva and persuaded the servant to pour a deadly poison into her drinks. The condition of the deceived woman worsened every day, her hair fell out, and the right side of her face was paralyzed, turning it into an ugly frightening mask.
When Oiwa died (February 22, 1630, as engraved on her gravestone), Ye-mon married his mistress, but on the wedding day, when the ronin lifted the veil from her head, that terrible face, as if frozen with mortal horror, looked at him - the face of Oiva, who, dying, vowed to return and take revenge on her killer. In agony, Iemon grabbed the sword and cut the phantom's head, but when he looked into his eyes, he saw that they belonged to Oume.
Pursued by Oiva's laughter, the samurai rushed to the door and, mistaking his bride's father for her, cut him to pieces, but the devilish laughter did not subside. Hiding in his chambers, Iemon spent a night full of nightmares and visions, and in the morning, driven to despair, threw himself off a cliff. Eyewitnesses of the tragedy, in order to prevent the possible atrocities of the wrathful spirit, built an altar where they brought their gifts for Oiva, although her remains rest in the Myogyouji temple in the Sugamo region.
However, pilgrims continue to visit both places to this day to appease the ghost. These are mainly actors who will play in a classic kabuki play based on Oiva's story. It is called Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan - "The story of a ghost from the villages of Yotsuya in the Tokaido region." The play was written in 1825 by Tsuruya Namboku IV, the famous author of kaidans (literally "stories about the supernatural") - mystical stories, many plots and characteristic details of which are known to us from Japanese horror films and their American remakes, such as "The Curse", "Dark water "and the iconic" Call ". All of them are about revenge and karma, in which the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun so believe. The heroes of classic kaidans are witches, demons and, of course, ghosts.
Prejudice or not, but over those who played in the play about the story of Oiva, it was like heavy rock was hanging over them. Failures began to pursue them on all fronts, accidents occurred that led to serious injuries, they fell ill with unknown, untreatable diseases, infecting relatives and friends.
Particularly gloomy stories were circulated about the production in Tokyo's Ivanyami Hall in 1976, when the curse of the samurai's wife was felt by not only the actors, but in general everyone who was involved in the show, from the directors to the producers. To soften her spirit, the entire team held a memorial service at the grave of Oiva, and on the day of the premiere, one of the seats in the front row was left empty for the most important spectator from another world.
MYSTIC AOYAMA CEMETERY
Where to look for ghosts, if not in the cemetery? And the most mystical of them in Tokyo is known as Aoyama, the cemetery, which at the same time is one of the most picturesque in the world. Founded in the early 19th century, Aoyama Cemetery is a huge park surrounded by greenery. The colors change in April, when sakura blossoms, which means that the season of hanami - admiring flowers, which lasts only a week, begins.
The Japanese do not forget this ancient tradition, which can be seen from the number of people who visit the Aoyama cemetery these days, as well as the parks of the capital, where sakura trees are planted. Harmony breaks down with the onset of dusk, when the time for ghosts comes. Shadows are seen everywhere, groans and sobs are heard, we saw glowing orbs here, and in the morning the cemetery attendants often found mysterious black prints on monuments - they say they appear only on the graves of suicides.
Since the late 1990s, there has been a legend among Tokyo taxi drivers about a mysterious passenger who allegedly catches a car near the Aoyama cemetery in a storm at night, but as soon as the door is opened for her, she disappears, merging with the rain. However, the lucky few managed to give her a lift. Thus, one driver picked up a sad young girl, soaked to the skin, deciding that she was returning after visiting the grave of a recently deceased relative or friend.
Usually chatty, he did not start empty conversations and in complete silence drove the passenger to the specified address, but the stranger did not go out and in a whisper asked the taxi driver to wait. Time seemed to have stopped - the girl gazed intently into the windows of the second floor, observing the movements of someone's lonely figure. Meanwhile, the rain only intensified. Finally, breaking the silence, she named a new address - a private house in a respectable area.
Arriving at the place, the driver turned around to get money for the trip, but the back seat was completely empty - what was left of the mournful passenger was a small pool of water! At the same moment, someone knocked on the door - an elderly man with an umbrella, pulling out his wallet, asked what was due on the counter. It turned out that he wants to pay for his daughter - a girl who had died in a car accident a few years earlier and was buried in the Aoyama cemetery. According to her father, she sometimes leaves her resting place in order to "visit" her beloved boyfriend and at the same time her parents, plunging into shock the gullible taxi drivers.
DEATH IN THE TUNNEL
The city of the future, Tokyo is laced with a concrete web of highways with multi-level interchanges and underground tunnels - predictably, some sections have a bad reputation, such as the Sendagaya Tunnel.
Hastily built for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 1964, it lies exactly under the old cemetery at the Senjuin Temple. According to eyewitnesses, a girl often appears here, who, like the previous heroine, tries to stop a taxi in order to disappear as soon as the driver opens the door.
Another "inhabitant" of the tunnel, dressed in a red dress, sometimes runs in a stream of cars, often passing through them. And in the area of the northern exit, you can observe the phantom of a long-haired girl who hangs upside down from the ceiling, and then breaks down and falls on the roof of a passing car.
Motorcyclists, driving through the tunnel, in horror notice children's faces with black holes instead of eyes in the rear-view mirrors. The Shirogane Tunnel, known for its distorted faces in silent screams, dancing on its walls, can compete in devilry with Sendagaya. Due to the sad statistics of fatal accidents, Tokyo residents believe that he is cursed: the case, they say, in cruel experiments on animals, which were carried out at a research center that was once located in the area of the tunnel.
It is also said that the Shinigami himself, the Japanese spirit of death, is here, waiting for his new victims. An equally ominous reputation for the Komine Tunnel on the outskirts of a metropolis is associated with the name of Tsutomu Miyazaki, the serial killer who took the lives of four little girls in 1988 and 1989. Actually, the mutilated corpse of one of them was found here, and although the death sentence of the maniac was carried out 6 years ago, the spirit of his innocent victim still remains in the world of the living.
Until the tunnel was closed in 2001, motorists talked about the phantom of a bleeding girl who ran out into the middle of the road and threw herself under the wheels. Now in Komine there are, perhaps, only ghost hunters, who specially come in the dark to tickle their nerves to the quiet crying of children from the black, frightening depth of an abandoned tunnel.
Alexandra MALTSEVA