Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

Japanese Urban Legends

The lawless Inunaki Village

If you stumble upon the entrance to Inunaki Village, you will be greeted by signs to stay away, warning "the constitution and laws of Japan do not apply here."

Sitting in the countryside of Kyushu's Fukuoka Prefecture, this abandoned village is only accessible through a tunnel in which hundreds of workers were killed when it collapsed during its construction.

The village was slowly abandoned for reasons that aren't entirely clear. Some say it was because of a widespread plague that wiped out the population. Others say it was just due to its remoteness, but the wildest story is that one of the villagers went crazy and murdered everyone with an axe.

Whatever the case, no one has actually lived here since the end of World War II and electronic devices reportedly don't work inside. Are those the sounds of barking dogs, or the screams of dead workers that you hear emanating from deep inside the tunnel?

The doll that grows human hair

Back in 1918, a seventeen-year-old boy in Hokkaido bought a doll at the market for his two-year-old sister, Okiku. The doll looked similar to her as they both had an okappa haircut, a bowl cut with straight hair down to the chin. She loved the doll so much that she took it everywhere with her, even to sleep. When Okiku died months later, the family named the doll after her and prayed to it at their household shrine.

It wasn't long after they noticed something strange happening—the doll's hair was gradually growing longer. Even after cutting it, the hair kept growing back. It was at that moment the family knew they messed up.

Okiku's father gave the doll to Mannen-ji Temple in Iwamizawa City, Hokkaido, where it can be visited to this day (no photos allowed). Scientists have analyzed the hair of the doll and concluded that it is real human hair—from a child. Freaky.

The remoteness of the temple makes it extremely hard to access without a car, and even then it can be dangerous when there's heavy snowfall. Some ghost tours do take visitors here, but they are typically only in Japanese. In case you were thinking about trying to see this demonic doll for yourself.

The human sacrifice of Maruoka Castle

Hitobashira, a type of human sacrifice, was practiced in Japan up until the 16th century. Workers would wall up live victims in pillars, dams, and other building foundations to appease the gods, who would protect the building from enemy attacks.

Maruoka Castle in Sakai, Fukui Prefecture is home to one of the most famous hitobashira stories. One of the castle walls kept crumbling down during its construction, no matter how it was reinforced. As a last resort, the workers suggested making a hitobashira, and a woman named Oshizu was selected to be the sacrifice.

She agreed to be sacrificed under the condition that her son would become a samurai. The castle was built successfully, but the promise to Oshizu was never fulfilled. Now every spring, the castle moat floods during spring rains—the tears of Oshizu's curse.

Red Room Curse

This modern scary story comes in the form of a computer popup and originated in the 1990s when personal computers were just starting to boom across Japan.

The curse starts with a pop-up that appears on a victim's computer screen when they are alone in a room. It has a red background with black letters asking "do you like the Red Room?" It's impossible to close out of the popup; it's frozen on the screen.

You won't be able to escape the room you're in when the pop-up appears, as the doors and windows will suddenly lock. Your body will be discovered days later, dead in your room, surrounded by walls painted red with blood.