![\"\"](\"http:\/\/japaninfoswap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Shungyosai_Tayu-no-kao.jpg\")
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So, Halloween is coming and you are getting ready to dust off that\u00a0old ghost, vampire or witch costume that you wear every year. But this year why not try something different, something that takes its inspiration from the local folklore?<\/p>\n
Below are some ideas for spooky Halloween costumes that\u00a0come from Japan’s scary movies, stories and\u00a0legends, both urban and historical that you may not have considered!<\/p>\n
![\"sadako-3\"](\"http:\/\/japaninfoswap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/sadako-3-1.jpg\")
Taken from the movie Ringu (later adapted into the English language movie The Ring), Sadako is the vengeful spirit\u00a0of a young girl killed by her father. She takes her revenge on the general populace \u00a0by making, from the afterlife a VHS movie and literally frightening to death those who watch it (proving that VHS is, in very literal terms, a dead media) While the movie was made in 1998, it has its origins in a folktale from the 1700’s in which a servant throws herself down a well rather than be tricked into accepting\u00a0the amorous advances of her samurai boss, and returns to haunt him.<\/p>\n
By Mark Guthrie<\/p>\n Image by Hayami Shungy\u014dsai (\u901f\u6c34\u6625\u6681\u658e, Japanese, *1767, \u20201823) (scanned from ISBN 978-4-336-04447-1.) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/a> So, Halloween is coming and you are getting ready to dust off that\u00a0old ghost, vampire or witch costume that yo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":5223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,68,59],"tags":[236,96],"class_list":["post-5222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-festivals","category-life-in-japan","tag-halloween","tag-october"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5222"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49945,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5222\/revisions\/49945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hrcjapan.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"oni2\"](\"http:\/\/japaninfoswap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/oni2.jpg\")
Gigantic ogre-like creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads, oni\u00a0were originally invisible spirits or gods which caused disasters, disease, and other unpleasant things. They are humanoid for the most part, but are sometimes shown with odd numbers of eyes or extra fingers and toes.\u00a0<\/span>Their skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are\u00a0the standard and\u00a0are often depicted wearing tiger-skin loincloths and carrying iron clubs called kanab\u014d. Terrifyingly strong, these guys are the true bogeymen of Japanese folklore, though they are often confused for their long nosed relatives, tengu<\/a>.<\/sup><\/p>\nJor\u014dgumo<\/h2>\n
![\"015-jorougumo\"](\"http:\/\/www.goodsfromjapan.com\/images\/product\/1226\/1226-image1.jpg\")
The Edo period legend of the Jor\u014dgumo has it that a beautiful woman would entice a man into a quiet shack with her enchanting lute play. While the victim is\u00a0distracted, Jor\u014dgumo, who is actually\u00a0a giant spider, with the ability to take the form of a beautiful lady – sometimes the top half is human, and her lower torso is that of a spider \u00a0– binds her victim in spider silk threads in order to devour him\u00a0as her next meal.\u00a0One variation of the myth has it\u00a0that she appears holding a baby\u00a0asking men to hold it. When they do, they are surprised to discover the “baby” is made up of thousands of spider-eggs, which burst open. For anyone who saw the movie ‘Arachnophobia<\/a>‘ as a child, this costume should send shivers down the spine.<\/p>\nGozu (Cow Head)<\/h2>\n
Gozu is the subject of a story so terrifying that people die just by hearing of it. It is said to be so old that it has, for the most part, lost to the winds of time. There are various versions of this urban legend, a popular one being of a school teacher who had somehow uncovered the old tale and relayed\u00a0it to a bus full of students. Though they begged him to stop, in a trance, he continued. When he came round\u00a0he found them all dead, having foamed at the mouth. The original story is perhaps based on a tale in which a village of peasants were starving to death and killed a visitor who had the head of a cow, and ate him. From that day on the village was cursed. As costumes go, it beats the ubiquitous horse head businessman<\/a> for fear, hooves down!<\/p>\nHanako-san<\/h2>\n
For some reason there are many scary public toilet stories in Japan. Hanako-san is perhaps the most famous. Hanako-san, the spirit of a\u00a0World War II\u2013era girl who haunts school bathrooms, is a ghost\u00a0that you summon yourself \u00a0by going to the third stall in the girls’ bathroom on the third floor and knock three times before asking, “Are you there, Hanako-san.” Hanako-san will reply\u00a0“I’m here.” If you choose to enter the stall, there will be a small girl with bobbed hair wearing a red skirt, who may drag the student in with her, or possibly take the appearance of a three headed lizard and eat you. Often used as a childhood right of passage, Hanako-san is what many a Japanese girl’s nightmares are made of.<\/p>\nAka Manto<\/h2>\n
Another toilet based spooky thing is Aka Manto (Red Cape, or Red Cloak). He is said to be a devastatingly handsome man who, tired of the attraction it brings takes to wearing a cape and a mask. He spends his time going to bathroom stalls offering to those in the final stall two choices of colored toilet paper, red or blue.\u00a0If they answer red paper, they will be sliced apart until their clothes are stained red. If they choose blue paper, they will be strangled until their face turns blue. Any attempt to outsmart Aka Manto by asking for a different color will result in them being dragged to the Netherworld. If they say yellow he will shove their face in the toilet but they will survive.\u00a0<\/span>If you say no paper, he will depart.<\/p>\nKuchisake-onna (Slit-Mouthed Woman)<\/h2>\n
One of the more popular Halloween dress in Japan is\u00a0Kuchisake-onna. In the original Edo-era tale a beautiful woman, covering her mouth with a fan, asks passers “am I pretty?” If he answers yes, she will remove her fan\u00a0revealing that her mouth has been split from ear to ear and asks again in a grisly voice. If he answers no or screams, she will slash him from ear to ear so that he resembles her. If he answers yes, she will walk away, only to follow her victim home and brutally murder him that night. In the modern telling, if the victim answers no, she will kill him\u00a0with a pair of scissors. If he\u00a0answers yes, she will pull away the mask\u00a0and ask “How about now?” A negative answer will result in her victim being sliced in half, while a positive answer will gain him a slit mouth, just\u00a0like hers.<\/p>\n
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\nImage: http:\/\/variety.com\/2015\/film\/asia\/nbc-universal-sadako-versus-kayako-1201658165\/<\/a> – Modified
\nImage: https:\/\/yokaihigh.wordpress.com\/tag\/oni\/<\/a> – Modified
\nImage: http:\/\/yokai.com\/jorougumo\/<\/a> – Modified
\nImage: http:\/\/smatterist.com\/6131\/dont-read-this-before-bed-creepy-japanese-urban-legends-to-scare-you-senseless\/<\/a> – Modified
\nImage: http:\/\/pinktentacle.com\/2010\/04\/hanako-san-terror-of-the-toilet\/<\/a> – Modified
\nImage: http:\/\/www.elginpk.com\/worsley1314_1\/li\/6.htm<\/a> – Modified<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![via Wikimedia Commons<\/a>\nImage:](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AShungyosai_Tayu-no-kao.jpg\"){kind=link}