Uncanny Japan is a podcast about all the more obscure corners of old Japan, from strange superstitions, cultural curiosities, to creepy creatures. Here you can discover all the lesser known gems that author Thersa Matsuura digs up while doing research for her writing. Every episode is uniquely soothing, brought to life by immersive sound design or relaxing binaural soundscapes (ocean waves, autumn crickets, rice field frogs) all recorded right here in Japan. Thersa Matsuura is a writer,…
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In Japan, ghosts don’t wait for October. Summer—especially the hot, humid weeks around Obon—has long been the season for ghost stories, strange encounters, and deliberately scaring yourself silly. In this episode of Uncanny Japan, we’ll sit down for hyakumonogatari, the old practice of telling one hundred frightening stories while extinguishing candles one by one. We’ll look at summer ghost plays…
Every Obon, Japan’s ancestral spirits return home—guided by tiny fires and carried on cucumber horses. This year, for the first time, I’m responsible for preparing my father-in-law’s family altar. Join me for cauldron lids, lost ghosts, strange noises in an old house, eggplant cows, and the rituals used to welcome the dead home and send them safely away again. Learn more about your ad choices.…
On the final days of Obon, fishermen along Japan’s western coast once believed the sea belonged to the dead. In this episode, I read Lafcadio Hearn’s eerie and beautiful essay “By the Japanese Sea.” Along the journey, we encounter drowned spirits rising from the waves, cats carried aboard fishing boats to ward off ghosts, delicate straw vessels made for lost souls, and a haunted futon whispering…
A short Tanabata tale from the Uncanny Vault: Orihime the weaving princess, Hikoboshi the cowherd, and the river of stars that keeps them apart. On the seventh night of the seventh month, wishes are written on colorful strips of paper, tied to bamboo, and sent into the summer sky. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Two little boys find a dead bird on a mountain path. One accidentally touches it with his shoe, and suddenly the invisible contagion begins. Fingers cross. A circle is made. A hand chops through it. “Engacho!” In this episode of Uncanny Japan, we explore the everyday magic words and protective spells of childhood in Japan. There’s engacho, used to cut away contamination, bad luck, and all things…
In 1803, fishermen on Japan’s Hitachi coast spotted something round and unfamiliar drifting offshore. They hauled the hollow vessel onto the beach—and discovered a mysterious young woman inside. Step into the story as one of those fishermen. Examine the vessel’s clouded windows and iron-plated hull, hear the woman speak in a language no one understands, and watch as she fiercely protects a box she…
Japan’s 1970s UFO boom gave us some wonderfully strange cases: children capturing a tiny hat-shaped UFO in Kōchi, two boys encountering wrinkled aliens in a Yamanashi vineyard, and a Hokkaidō farmer who claimed repeated abductions, spoon-bending powers, and telepathic contact with beings from the Samon Call Galactic Planetary Federation. In this episode, we look at Japan’s “Big Three” UFO…
Not all Japanese revenge ghosts are wronged women. Meet Kohada Koheiji: a failed Edo-period actor who became famous for playing ghosts, only to be murdered, drowned, and returned as the very thing he once performed. In this episode, we explore the tangled history of the “real” Koheiji, Santō Kyōden’s gruesome tale, Nanboku’s kabuki adaptation, strange actor superstitions, severed fingers, rotten…
In this episode of Uncanny Japan, we follow Benzaiten — also known as Benten — from her origins as Saraswati to her place among Japan’s Seven Lucky Gods. Along the way: Enoshima’s five-headed dragon, white snakes as divine messengers, snake-skin wallets, house snakes, and Ugajin, the wonderfully strange human-headed snake deity linked to rice, water, fertility, fortune, and wealth. Learn more…
Have you ever heard of the nodo-hotoke, or “throat Buddha”? In everyday Japanese, it usually refers to the Adam’s apple. But after death, especially in the context of cremation, the nodo-hotoke becomes something else entirely, the actual seat of your soul. In this episode of Uncanny Japan, I talk about the fascinating and beautiful funeral custom of gathering bones after cremation, using long…