Even Creepypastas Are Scarier in Japan

Hello kids! Are you having an appropriately frightening day? I’m bad with time zones, maybe it’s November 1st already for you… Unless you’re reading this post much after it’s publishing date though, it’s probably close to Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Last year, I decided to bring you all a collection of Japanese Urban Legends for your terrifying pleasure. I’m still pretty proud of that post. I researched it and everything! This year, I figured I would keep the originality flowing by updating my premise a little, and gathering up my favourite creepypastas from the land of the rising sun. The internet assures me that all of these are Japanese in origin so they must be…right?

****Some of these were machine translated or even worse, Irina translated. Accuracy should not be expected*****

The Girl From the Gap

Have any of you seen a Tale of Two Sisters. It’s a Korean Horror movie which I happen to like a lot. It’s one of those slow burn, high tension but nothing’s actually happening sort of movies. In one scene, the young girl who is the main character is having a tense dinner with her family. Her father has remarried and she does not get along with the new wife. At one point she looks towards the kitchen and sees a girl in the gap under the counter. That’s all. The girl isn’t scary in any way, in fact she looks a little scared herself. That scene still gives me chills. To this day, I’m uncomfortable standing in front of counters that don,t go all the way to the floor.

It seems that this is in fact a common theme in Asian horror stories. They don,t put monsters under their beds or pan-dimensional portals to hell. Instead they put girls in tiny spaces…and for some reason it really is scary!

As the pasta goes, if you happen to look towards a small opening or crack and see a girl there that shouldn’t be, immediately look away. Pretend she isn’t here and get out, son. If you are unfortunate enough to make direct eye contact with the girl, she will ask you: “Want to play hide and seek?”. You do NOT want to know what happens next.

Dream School

I like Dream School because it reminded me a bit of Danganronpa…

This is a story of a Japanese schoolboy who suddenly finds himself in a School he doesn’t quite recognize. Trying to figure out where he is, he starts wandering the halls. As he makes his way around, he realizes something is not quite right. It’s as if he’s trap in a giant maze. The hallways seem to be looping into themselves and he’s going in circles without realizing it.

Suddenly, the boy hears a chime looking around he sees a clock on the wall but the hands are moving back and forth. After which he starts hearing footsteps going in his direction. For some reason, the boy is instinctively frightened by the sound and wants to run away. Since the hallway seems to lead nowhere, he runs into a nearby staircase. Although the stairs are going up, he somehow knows he’s heading down, and soon arrives at the ground floor.

On the 1st floor, he sees the teachers room and a broken key cabinet. In it is a handwritten note that says, “The key is in room 108”. Since the footsteps are still approaching, the boy decides that his best chance is to find this key as it may be a way out. He runs to room 108 but it’s dark, the lights aren’t working. He closes the door behind him trying to figure what to do next as the constant sound of footsteps comes ever closer.

Suddenly, the footsteps stop right outside the door and there is a polite knocking. With no other option, the boy opens the door to find a frightening monster made up of an assortment of student corpses. As he is about to scream, the boy realizes it’s all a dream and he’ll wake up soon. Only he doesn’t…. He is still wandering the halls of the dream school, trying to get away from the monster!

Legend says that, if after a week, you still remember the story of the Dream School—then you too will join the boy and never wake up.

Don’t you love it when I curse us all?

くねくね (Kunekune) The Meandering

Since 2003, the internet has informed us that strange wisp like creature have been appearing in Japanese rice fields. All white and flowee. If you spot one, don,t try to get close. Getting too near will drive you insane and touching one, will kill you on the spot.

The good news is that if you just ignore it, it will ignore you right back and everyone can go back to their business. Since “just ignore it” is pretty much my mantra, I feel safe with this one.

Kisaragi Station

Kisaragi Station is one of my favourites. It was originally a 2chan thread in 2004 and tells the story of a young lady who seems to have gotten on the wrong train and ends up at Kisaragi Station in the middle of the night. A mysterious unmanned station written with the kanji for Devil. As she attempts to find her way back, she encounters a series of disturbing events but they could also simply be her tired mind playing tricks. Eventually she stops posting.

What’s really nice about this story is the way it was written. I always enjoy these conversational narratives. The story unfolds as a series of posts on a message board between hasumi trying to figure out what to do next and patrons of 2chan. I really enjoyed it a lot and you can read it for yourself HERE

Japanese New Year Ritual

A lot of creepy pastas are structured as instructions to conduct some type of ritual. I usually find these rather ill thought out, since the rituals usually end in something gruesome happening to whoever attempts them and give you no clear reason to try them out at all. This one at least has a potential payoff that seems worth the risk in the right situation.

The idea is that is you do all the steps correctly, you will get one questioned answered. No matter what. I’m assuming that the answer cannot be : I don’t know…

What you have to do is fast and stay awake for 24h before New Year’s then at the stroke of 10 p.m., right before the change of the year, you need to make a fruit basket. No really. Hear me out. You have to put in exactly one pineapple, three bananas, two apples, and thirty grapes. Apparently they are super picky about the amounts so no sneaking grapes while you work. They don,t tell you what types of grapes though… Then you have to cut yourself and bleed a little on each fruit. Again make really sure you don’t miss any. I guess green grapes would be better in that case, I guess that goes for the apples too. Don’t put a bandaid. I dunno why.

I couldn’t find any instructions on whether you should wrap or decorate the basket. I mean you might as well throw a nice bow on there. You got plenty of time because at midnight you’re supposed to find the nearest forest and walk through it until you find a clearing. The logistics here are though. I would probably end up on a highway myself. Then make a fire, and sit down next to it with the basket in front of you.

Eventually, something should appear. Should be tall thin and twice your size. Now I know the author was going for a slender man aesthetic here but twice my size isn’t as impressive as they think. There’s a long description but basically, he’s freaky looking. But don,t scream cause that’s rude.

In fact, don’t say anything. He (the author says “he”) is going to be looking into your eyes and if you break eye contact he’ll straight up murder you. Again, not sure why. Eventually he’s gonna eat the bloody fruit, you still gotta stare at him.

When he’s done eating he’ll whisper “What would you like to know?” in your ear. I’m not sure about the eye contact situation at this point but you get to ask him one question only and you gotta stare into his eyes when you do. He’ll whisper the answer in your ear and leave. You can’t stop staring. Then you’ll fall asleep and wake up in your bed.

Small details that aren’t answered. Does the murder thing apply the whole time or just when specifically mentioned? Will you remember the answer you got in the morning? What do you do with any left over fruit? What if you have a cold? Does sneezing count as breaking eye contact? New Years gets chilly up here…

I like the creepy pastas. They’re a lot less scary than the urban legends. I also urge you to go take a look through Japanese Creepypasta. The translations alone are worth the detour!

Have tons and oodles of responsible fun tonight! Maybe get together with a few friends and tell some creepy stories! and of course: Happy Halloween.