Japanese ghosts

On a recent visit to England, my Japanese friend Miho Igi told me of a strange event that occurred to her and her partner Katsu. In the spring of 2007 they were driving along a rural road in Yamanashi prefecture. It was around midnight and raining. Miho recalls that they were close to a river and near a rural bus stop. A figure loomed into the middle of the road. It had long, slightly curly, wet hair that hung down covering its face. They couldn’t tell if it was male or female. It was dressed in a long, white kimono and a headband with a white triangular shape on it. The outfit sounds like those used in Buddhist funeral rites. The figure looked solid and not at all insubstantial, but seemed to be leaning forwards at an impossibly acute angle. It would lean forwards, without toppling over like a person would, then rise back up to its full standing height. It kept repeating this movement over and over. This is what made them think it was a yurei [ghost]. Katsu had to swerve to avoid hitting it and, looking in the rear view mirror, they both saw the figure still in the middle of the road and still performing its strange movements. There were other cars on the same road that had to swerve to miss the thing. Her description reminded me of the funayure, maritime ghosts said to sink ships in Japanese folklore.

In another story Miho told me about the son of a friend of hers who lived on Shikoku Island. In 2010 he saw something in a field of corn. It was tall, thin and white. It swayed from side to side. Later whilst watching the anime series GeGeGe no Kitaro he recognised the Ittan Momen as what he had seen. The Ittan Momen, generally associated with Kagoshima district, is a weird yokai [apparition] that takes the form of a 10m (33ft)-long roll of animated cotton that flies about at night. It winds around its victims and smothers them. Apparently, the boy can see yokai but does not generally tell anybody for fear of ridicule. Richard Freeman Exeter, Devon