Ghostly Guys and Gals!

I missed out on a Yokai story yesterday, so here's a doozy to make up for it. 子育て幽霊
こそだてゆうれい "Kosodate Yuurei are the ghosts of mothers who died in childbirth or shortly after childbirth. They return to the world of the living because of their strong attachment to their child, and their lingering motherly duties. Like all yūrei, these ghosts appear as faint images of their former selves. They often appear wearing burial clothing, or else the clothes that they wore in their lifetime." 

 This is a particularly eerie tale about one such specter. (It's so good, I shan't edit it.)

"One rainy night, a shopkeeper was closing up his shop when he heard a tapping sound at the window. Looking out, he saw a woman standing pathetically in the rain, cold and drenched. He asked her if she needed help, but all she said was, “One candy please.” Even though the shop was closed, the shopkeeper felt sorry for the poor woman, so he sold her the candy. She paid him one mon—a very low denomination coin—and vanished into the night.

The next night, she came at the very same time, looking forlorn and disheveled. Again, she asked the shopkeeper, in a voice almost too faint to hear, “One candy please.” The shopkeeper gave her a candy, and again she paid with one mon, and left just as quietly as she had come.

Every night for six nights, this exact scenario played out. On the seventh night, she returned, but this time had no money. When she asked “One candy please,” she presented a handful of leaves. The shopkeeper told her that he could not accept leaves as payment. “Then take this instead,” she said, handing him her coat. The shopkeeper protested, but she insisted. Finally he gave in and accepted the trade.

The next day, a merchant from a neighboring village passed through the town. He stopped in his friend’s shop, and the shopkeeper told him of the strange woman who came visiting every night, and of the coat that she gave him as payment. When the merchant saw the strange woman’s coat hanging in the shop, he went pale. “That is the coat of my friend’s wife!”

“Really? Perhaps it was she who came to the store?”

“That is impossible! She died one week ago. She was buried in this coat!”

The merchant and the shopkeeper looked at each other in disbelief. They went to the temple where she was buried to tell the head priest what the shopkeeper had seen. The priest scolded them for believing in such superstitions. Afterwards he took them to the woman’s grave to show them that all was okay. When they reached the grave, however, they heard the unmistakable screaming of a newborn baby coming from under the earth!

They dug up the grave and discovered that it was indeed the corpse woman who had been visiting the shop! What’s more, entwined in her arms, a living baby wrapped up in cloth. The woman had given birth posthumously in her coffin. Wrapped up with the baby were the six mostly-eaten pieces of candy, which had kept the baby from starving during the week. Its mother had bought the candy with the six mon traditionally placed with a corpse to pay the guardians of the underworld.

They took the baby from the corpse and returned it to its family. When they reburied the woman’s body, the corpse had a serene expression on its face. And the ghostly visitor to the candy store was never seen again."

This YouTube tells a similar tale.

I've neglectful of my Junji Ito output, so here are a few pages from 人間失格 (Ningen Shikkaku) or No Longer Human. It's a weird one. (Aren't they all?)

Is it just me or does this lad look a bit like Bobby Hill (King of the Hill)

In the next panel, he gets smothered by the bosom of this seductress.

 

 

Is that how his face gets all wonky?

Here's a snippet of a video of the story. I'm not sure when it takes place, though the lad seems a lot older than in the first chapter.

 Here's one of the stars of Chainsaw Man.

A few weeks ago, I carved a melon to resemble a different character.

 Easy to dig out its guts.

Some orange spray paint and TaaDaa!

It's Puchita!

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good video of it.

 

If you want some creepy music to listen to while reading future blog entries, check out Pumpkin Cult.

Unless Boston Brand has a sister who died and became a Yuurei, I don't think I have any spiritual gals in the comics. So Deadman it is!

That's it for today, more ghouls tomorrow...

Sleepy Go Lucky.

Yesterday, I showed my Flight Students "Sleepy Hollow" (in English with Japanese subtitles). The squealed with delight and screamed with terror at all the right times. One such moment is this with them harmoniously shouting "Yabai, Yabai, Yabai!!" especially when one is about to be beheaded. (I just checked, I've never reviewed Sleepy Hollow in my blog. I need to rectify that someday.)

I brought my two new Potato and Onion Lanterns to add to their collection of deteriorating veggies.

That eggplant has seen nasu nicer days.

Next Tuesday, I hope to have a Halloween Party and costume parade with them. We'll see how that goes.

Speaking of parties, I attended an event at "Happy Go Lucky", a friend's school downtown Sendai. I wore a succession of masks, not very inventive on my part yet well received by the masses. Here are the highlights of the costumes.

This pair of Wednesday's won first prize, including some jelly beans from me. Most impressive is their "Thing" prop.

I never did learn who was behind the mask in the above pic. Below is that aforementioned friend and main teacher at the school, Apple.

A late addition to the gig, another Wednesday.

I'll be popping into the school later this afternoon, hopefully there'll be a few more costumers.

What is it about just putting a Halloween sticker on a product that forces me to buy it. Hopefully these gyoza will be worth it.

A student once told me the story of an apparition at Himeji Castle who haunted her killer by counting and smashing dishes, driving him loony.

According to this Wiki entry, I may have my Yokai mixed up.

A bit of research and I was thinking of a Yurei, named Okiku as the dish-smasher. The first of these tales tells that story.

Here's an eerie retelling of that tale.

Only a few days left until All Hallow's Eve! Check out Me and You Too, a blog with a ton of cool pics.

Spooky Ukiyoe or Spookiyoe!

I went to bed early last night, therefore, I missed out on an entry. Here then is one about spooks.

The other day, I happened to link a picture of Cookie Monster as the Great Wave of Kanagawa by Hokusai. Sometimes, those pesky little algorithms actually benefit us and this little video about the artist showed up on my suggested list of YouTubes. 

Pretty interesting but I noticed that Hokusai also painted something called, "100 Ghost Stories" so I was off to the Google! This article has a few of these paintings, my favourite of which is this:

This led me to discover A Gathering of 100 Supernatural Tales and the recitation of Kaidan. Which coaxed me into an old post of mine about the Kaidan Restaurants stories. But let's stick to ghosts for now. such as this painting by Maruyama Okyo depicting yurei (ghostly spirits) for the first time entitled The Ghost of Oyuki.

Now that's creepy!

Dinnertime now, hopefully later this evening, I'll get up to my usual hijinx and feature more than just ukiyoe.