Japanese Urban Legends

[saladesu]

Since we have a thread for folklore, why not one for urban legends? I was just translating Nurarihyon no Mago a while ago, and had to research on a heap of urban legends that were mentioned so I could write a translation note to go with the translation. So here we go, some of the common urban legends in Japan; or at least the ones that were mentioned in Mago ch140!

Kuchisake Onna [口裂け女] lit. Ripped-Mouth Woman

Kuchisake Onna is an urban legend beginning in the 70s that grew so big it even became a societal problem. A masked young lady will ask children on their way home, "Am I pretty?", and if they say "Yes", she'll take off her mask and ask, "... Even like this...?", revealing a face with a mouth that is sliced/ripped open from ear to ear. If the child says "No", he will be slashed and killed by sickles and tongs.

Aka Manto [赤マント] lit. Red Cloak

Aka Manto is an urban legend of a mysterious person with a red cloak who abducts children, typically girls, and then brutally murders them.

Kubinashi Rider [首なしライダー] lit. Headless Rider

Kubinashi Rider is an urban legend about a man who was riding a motorbike along the road at a very high speed when there was a piano string extended across the street. When he rode into it, he was decapitated, but his headless body continued to move along with the bike for a short while after. His headless ghost continues to drive at high speeds along that same road night after night (some say only at the time of his death, or his death anniversary).

Merry-san [メリーさん]

Merry-san is an urban legend about a young girl who threw away a foreign-made doll called "Merry" when she moved residences. That night, she got a phone call, "I'm Merry-san. I'm in the rubbish dump...", and then the call cuts off, before she calls again, "I'm Merry-san... I'm at the corner of the street, at the tobacco store..." The next call has Merry saying, "I'm Merry-san, I'm in front of your house". The young girl goes to the front door and opens it, but there's no-one there. As soon as she thinks this is just another prank, there's another call, "I'm Merry-san. I'm right behind you."

Akai Heya [赤い部屋] lit. Red Room

Akai Heya is an urban legend that made its rounds on the internet, but there are two versions and there are times where there is a third that melds the two versions together. The first is about an advertisement window that opens when one is surfing on the internet, and you musn't close it because it is an invitation from the "red room". A boy hears this story from a friend, and when he goes home, he sees an ad window, "Do you like it?", but the boy closes it despite remembering what his friend had told him. But no matter how he tries to close it, it stays open. He begins to see different words appearing between "do you" and "like it?", such that the sentence become "Do you like the Red Room"? [the "between" applies to the Japanese sentence structure] A list of names then appears and the screen turns red, and the final name on the list is the name of his friend who told him the story. The boy then loses consciousness.

The other story is about a taxi driver who picks up a beautiful lady who is dressed entirely in red in the outskirts of town. Although the taxi driver tries to talk to her about all sorts of things since she's a beauty, she doesn't say anything after telling him her destination. When they reach her apartment, the taxi driver ascertains that she has entered her apartment before proceeding to peep at her through the fish eye lens on the door peephole. However, the whole room is red like her clothes so he can't see her well. The driver gives up and leaves. Later he hears a colleague talking about how he'd picked up a ghost, and when he hears the details he realises it's the same red woman. The colleague says that she was totally red right down to her eyes, as if they were thoroughly bloodshot. The first driver then realises that he had been looking into her bloodshot eyes as he tried to peek through the peephole.

Jinmenken [人面犬] lit. Human-faced Dog

Jinmenken is an urban legend with many variations, one says that it'll chase after cars on the expressway at speeds over 100km/h in the dead of the night, and once it catches the car, it'll make it have an accident. Another says that it rummages the trash cans in the business district, and when any shop keepers or passers-by call out to it, it'll say "leave me alone" and go away. Various other stories have it saying rude stuff at couples and other such things.

Sanbonashi no Rika-chan [三本足のリカちゃん] lit. Three-legged Rika-chan

Sanbonashi no Rika-chan is an urban legend where girls using the toilet will find Rika-chan dolls on the floor, and upon closer look they will see that the doll has a third leg. This third leg is purplish and shaped weirdly. The girls who encounter her in the toilet either lose a leg soon after, or get phone calls from Rika-chan [just like with Merry-san], or constantly hear Rika-chan's voice in their head [so much so that one girl couldn't take it and burst her own ear drums...].

What do you think of these urban legends? Have you heard of others? Have you heard variations of the same legend? Does your country have a similar urban legend? Have you seen them being used in other media (eg anime/manga)?

Kubinashi Rider is probably quite well-known as it was in Durarara!!, though DRRR!! put a bit of a twist on it by a) making her a woman b) linking her to Dullahans instead

[Zeltrax]

Damn..those are scary.

I didn't know Japanese have such scary urban legends
I esp found the red room one scary and the one with rika and the one with merry, actually all of them sounds so real.


Well, I don't have anything to share but I heard a few and haven't confirmed it, one is that if you take a photo with 3 person in it, the person in the middle will die..somehow and another is that at the stroke of midnight, when you stare at the mirror something evil will happen.
I heard those since I was a kid and gosh, I can't sleep the night I heard them.

[digitaldude]

I went to red room website.........and the funny thing is I HAVE ADBLOCK! So, I could not get the pop up window to show.

[saladesu]

Damn..those are scary.

I didn't know Japanese have such scary urban legends
I esp found the red room one scary and the one with rika and the one with merry, actually all of them sounds so real.

You found them scary too? Good to know I'm not alone

I actually had chills running down my spine when I read the story about Merry-san

Well, I don't have anything to share but I heard a few and haven't confirmed it, one is that if you take a photo with 3 person in it, the person in the middle will die..somehow and another is that at the stroke of midnight, when you stare at the mirror something evil will happen.
I heard those since I was a kid and gosh, I can't sleep the night I heard them.

Ooh, I've never heard this before! (though I hadn't heard about the ones I posted either till I had to research them, heh) I suppose the one with the 3 persons photo thing is a story about a certain place only? Or at a certain time? I mean, trios take photos all the time and no-one dies

I went to red room website.........and the funny thing is I HAVE ADBLOCK! So, I could not get the pop up window to show.

That's really funny!

But, well, if there is an actual website for it... I doubt anything would happen... Now that I think about it, the Red Room story kinda reminds me of the series Jigoku Shoujo, although that one is a little different.

[Asarii]

Halloween was a week ago, but it's never too late for urban legends! LJ user, lilme_arix, has compiled a series of origin stories about Japanese supernatural monsters.

You can recognize a few from Inuyasha, Nurarihyon no Mago and Naruto! (Possibly a lot of other titles as well.)

[Trollzaya]

I LOVE DRRR!!, so when I saw the Headless Rider one, I was like, "Durarara!! for the win! xD" But yeah those are scary. O__O I heard about the Merry-San one on YouTube. Perfect Crime Love Letter. Sends chills down my spine. Especially the second Red Room one! When I saw the red eye part, I was like, "Oh my God that's so creepy! D:" But I love scaring myself so do you know of any others?