Send More Paramedics!

I handed my First Year gals (and a guy), a bunch of decorations to brighten up the drab walls of their room. I'm disappointed that some have gone missing over the years.

That zombie hanging from the overhead screen cord used to wiggle and shake.

 

I saved half of my decos for the Second Year gals. 

They even put up this sheet that I have, for photo ops only. It was deemed too naughty in case some big wigs show up.

 

In the end, they all received some jelly beans for their efforts.

After class, I went to my local Aeon Mall because I've had a book on order there for several weeks and today was its due date.

 

It was 720 yen before tax, so I don't think I'll buy future volumes.

I popped into Don Quixote and scammed a photo of my monkeying around.

We interrupt this blog for a startling revelation on my part: 

When I got home, this was on my Twitch channel. I've seen TRotLD many times, but this documentary is a first for me.

So then I planned to link to a previous post where I'd spoken of The Return of the Living Dead yet there are none to be found!! I know I have pamphlets for both Return and Return 2 (s o m e w h e r e!)

Therefore, I broke out my VHS just to show a pic or two. (By the way, the Japanese title for The Return of the Living Dead is バタリアン (Batalian) for some reason.)

 

 Hey, there's even a cool card inside promoting a couple of other movies.

 

 

Anyway, back to my blog, now in progress.

Today's Oni is a switch on the Ichabod Crane tale, this time it is the horse that is headless!

 

Yagyou-san is a one-eyed ogre you will kill you when you cross paths with him, though there is one safety measure you can take.

 

Yet another reason why Japanese people always carry a handkerchief with them.

And for no reason other than a friend had shared it, so therefore shall I.

 

It's nice to see #5 hangs around with the big guns.

Over at 2 Cool Ghouls, one can find many Halloween tunes and the one at the top of the page is a KISS tune. (Still reeling over Ace.) 

Speaking of tunes, it's my buddy Alex's birthday and he's just released an original tune with some funky visuals to go along with it. Enjoy!

 

Way to go DJ Mokgohan!

Here's an old pic of the two of us. He's the taller one.

See ya tomorrow...

Spiders Man!

I did indeed go out for some fresh air today and traipsed around the suburbs of Matsushima house hunting for a friend. He found a few possibilities and befriended an amateur realtor lady. In the course of that trek, I came across a few spiders in the rough.

 

The little dude is her husband looking for love and avoiding being cannibalized.

A bit of shopping and my day was spent! Didn't buy any but found a few new Gatcha.

 

 My friend bought one of these. Inside is a mini VHS tape. (It doesn't work!)

I dined at Burger King and scored a little key-chain. I dunno what it is, but it's free!

 

Aha. It's from a manga called Kagurabachi!

Unfortunately neither McDonald's nor BK have any special Halloween meal this year. Unlike the USA!

 

Here's a cute little Oni. Just don't wear the mask.

 

If you try to remove the mask, the skin comes off with it. Much like a plot-line in Onibaba which I wrote about here.

I have an early morning with an adult class and I get to talk all about Halloween tomorrow. I do hope they contribute some tales. 

Trick or Treatment.

I'm late with my Halloween wrap up. For a change, it's not because I'm hungover. Just a lazy day.

100 bucks for a pumpkin! And it was too big to take on the subway.

The highlight lowlight of my day yesterday was receiving a Flu AND a Covid vaccination both in the same arm. I felt no real ill effects other than a lackadaisical attitude toward the rest of the day. I did the shopping and handed out some candies to random costumed passersby. The cutest were a mother/ daughter duo who wore matching Cop outfits, including kiddy cuffs. This quintet agreed to have their photo taken.

These are the treats I handed and eared and nosed out (Body parts gummies). 

When last we spoke, I was just about to retire before watching Hunger Games Battle Royale. I don't remember much about the movie though it was nice to see it with subtitles so I could figure out what was going on. Director's cut: though I'm not sure what footage was added/subtracted. Seems like there were more shots of their JHS before they were kidnapped to the island. If you've never seen it, watch this trailer and see why I mistook it for Hunger Games.

But before I watched this, I viewed another movie called Kwaidan. (Click for the Wiki page.)

It has four ghostly tales and my favourites were as follows: "The Woman and the Snow", now let me interrupt for a commercial from Yokai.com.

雪女 (ゆきおんな) or Yuki Onna is a Snow Woman. This description sums her up rather well. "Yuki onna prey on travelers lost in the heavy snowstorms that blanket the Japanese Alps in winter. They have an otherworldly beauty, with long black hair and dark, piercing eyes. Their skin is ageless and as white as snow, but their bodies are as cold as ice. A mere touch is enough to give a human a deep, unshakable chill. They feed on life force, sucking it from human’s mouths with an icy breath that freezes their victims solid." Check out that link for more info.

In the Kwaidan tale, a woodcutter named Minokuchi falls prey to AND falls in love with a Yuki Onna. At about the 3:20 mark of this video, you can see the highlights of the story.

The other story was regaled to me by two different students of mine. I asked my adult classes to tell me a Yokai or Ghost story and they both came up with similar versions of this tale, "Hoichi, the Earless" which is the third story in Kwaidan.

Once again, our sponsor interrupts.

耳なし芳一 (みみなしほういち) Mimi Nashi Houichi or Hoichi the Earless. "Hōichi was a blind biwa master who resided at Amidaji, a Buddhist temple in Shimonoseki. He was renowned for his skill at performing The Tale of the Heike–particularly his rendition of the Battle of Dan no ura and the death of the child emperor Antoku. His playing was said to be so splendid that he could even make ghosts and demons cry."

Although there aren't any subtitles, this story is fairly easy to follow.

I know I promised to present Junji Ito's works daily, well that plan didn't work out very well. I need to plan ahead better. Here are the covers of a few of his works that I purchased for a few hundred yen weeks ago. Someday, I hope to read them so I can get my money's worth. (Note: a few covers have been shown before.)

Speaking of covers, I was planning on showing lots of Phantom Stranger, Deadman, Spectre, etc. I didn't get around to them very often.

 

 

That's enough for now...

All in all, a pretty good Halloween day yesterday and I went to bed and had a good night's sleep, even with the sore arm.

Be sure to wander over to the main page of Countdown to Halloween to find other bloggers' missives.

I'm going to take a break and then do a Round-up of a lot of tidbits that I intended on showing earlier. 

Only 333 days until the next Countdown to Halloween!