like the Headless Horseman in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Others are content merely to haunt, such as Banquo’s quietly accusatory phantom in Macbeth. There’s even Casper, the Friendly Ghost.
Japan’s yurei are many things, but “friendly” isn’t the first word that comes to mind. Not every yurei is dangerous, but they are all driven by emotions so uncontrollably powerful that they have taken on a life of their own: rage, sadness, devotion, a desire for revenge, or just a firm belief that they are still alive.
The most famous yurei by far are the angry ghosts. A great many of these are (or were) women. You don’t have to be female to become a yurei, but it seems to help. There isn’t any hard and fast answer as to why this is, other than tradition, but it’s easy to make an educated guess. The most popular ghost stories are tales of betrayal and revenge. In times of old women occupied a lower rung of the social ladder than men in society, making them convenient targets for all sorts of nasty behavior: trickery, betrayal, even murder. The more dutiful and loyal the woman, the more powerful her ghost and the sweeter the inevitable revenge against her tormentor. Payback, as they say, is a bitch.
Yurei are all about payback.
The Power of Onnen
Nobody ever lives a long, happy life, dies peacefully in bed surrounded by family, and comes back as a yurei. The most dangerous yurei have an axe to grind — preferably against the neck of whoever it was that cut their lives short in the first place. They are fueled by a potent mix of fury, sadness, and a desire for revenge. What takes many words to describe in English takes only one in Japanese: onnen.
An onnen is a mix of grudge and anger so powerful that it takes on a literal life of its own, transforming into a force capable of exerting a malevolent influence on the physical world. This is the fuel that feeds an angry ghost.
The insidious thing about an onnen is that you don’t have to have been the one who actually instigated the grudge to be affected. Like a virus, anyone who comes into contact is at risk. Even the totally innocent. That’s what makes the prospect of a yurei encounter so terrifying. They are the paranormal equivalent of landmines, invisible and still dangerous long after they were first sown.
According to Japanese tradition, shaped by centuries and millennia of native Shinto and imported Buddhist beliefs, it is believed that the soul is eternal, passing from the body of the deceased into the world of the dead. But to do so it must remain in a purgatory of sorts among the living for a certain period of time. It is during this period that fierce emotion, whether positive or negative, can bind a soul to this world. The deeper the emotion, the higher the chance of a soul manifesting itself among the living again.
In the vast majority of cases, a yurei will remain trapped in our world until its onnen is soothed or appeased in some way. But there are exceptions. Some are so powerful that they remain in our world permanently. These represent the most dangerous sorts of spirits in Japanese folklore. A perfect example of this can be seen in Taira no Masakado (page 40), the samurai warrior whose furious spirit is believed to reside in downtown Tokyo even today, a millennium after his death on the battlefield. The perceived power of onnen is precisely why his shrine has remained untouched for centuries, even though it sits atop what is now some of the most expensive real estate on the planet.
Yurei vs Yokai
In times of old the inhabitants of Japan believed that they shared their country with all sorts of other worldly inhabitants. These ranged from kami (gods), to oni (monstrously powerful ogres), to bakemono and yokai (shape-shifters and other supernatural creatures).
The yurei are often lumped together with the yokai, which we cover in great detail in the predecessor to this book, Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. In a nutshell, yokai are the things that go bump in Japan’s night: mythical creatures from fairy tales and folklore. But make no bones about it: yurei and yokai are very different sorts of things.
There’s actually a handy rule of thumb for differentiating the two. A yurei is a someone. A yokai is a something. Yurei is a specific term. Yokai is quite general.
A yurei can cause all sorts of phenomena, from audible and visible manifestations to outright attacks. On the other hand, yokai tend to be personifications of phenomena themselves, attempts to put names and faces to inexplicable happenings. Yurei are human spirits, whereas many yokai are considered lesser gods of the natural world.
Another critical difference: yokai often come across as mischievous, in some cases borderline cute. Rotund tanuki (raccoon-dog) statues and glowering tengu (mountin goblin) masks are common sorts of decorations in Japan. But you will almost never find a yurei painting gracing a home or establishment. They have an unparalleled ability to put the fear into even modern-day Japanese.
An 18th century painting by Okyo’s student Nagasawa Rosetsu, in a style inspired by that of his master.
Historical Portrayals Of Yurei
The undisputed originator of the distinctive appearance of a yurei, at least graphically, is the artist Maruyama Okyo. His painting Ghost of Oyuki featured many of the characteristics of a “stereotypical” yurei: long, unkempt hair, an ethereally pale pallor, a floating body that lacks clearly defined legs. Most importantly, it’s a woman. And like all great ghost tales, it’s even supposedly based on a true story: in this case, a vision of the artist’s mistress, who died young and returned to him for a last visit in a dream.
But don’t get the mistaken impression that Okyo was the first person to see a ghost in Japan.
A haunting 18th century painting by a pair of brothers, Goshun (who did the ghost) and Keibun (who did the willows on the mounting.)
Not by a long shot. His painting merely represented a longtime interest in the phenomenon that was clawing its way into the mainstream of popular culture. The “golden age” of the Japanese ghost story, when the conventions of the genre were clearly laid out, came in the early half of the 19th century.
Japan’s booming middle class formed the perfect market for all sorts of mass entertainment. Elaborate kabuki stage productions complete with special effects rivaled modern-day Hollywood blockbusters for their ability to put people in seats. But feudal Japan wasn’t a democracy, and strict regulations forbid playwrights from portraying anything that might be seen as critical of the Shogun or his government. Ghost tales came to the rescue. Stories of servants mistreated by their masters, loyal wives betrayed by their husbands, or innocent villagers killed for sport by aristocrats were framed not as social commentary but rather as “ghost-exploitation” stories, allowing artists free reign to wryly comment on contemporary issues without incurring the wrath of the authorities. (This wasn’t idle paranoia; criticizing the status quo, even indirectly, landed many a writer in jail — or worse.)
Another popular way of letting off some steam, particularly during the sultry summer months, was a parlor game called Hyaku Monogatari — the “Night of a Hundred Tales.” The idea was simple: gathering a group of friends and freaking each other out with ghost stories until the sun came up. Discussing weird happenings in the dead of night undoubtedly amplified the thrills and chills, as did rumors that a real ghost or creature would appear in the room after a successful session. It was interactive entertainment centuries before the advent of televisions, control pads, and keyboards.
Yurei culture
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