Folklore Story Time: The Sea Monster of the Oki Islands (Ep. 198)
This episode is story time. We’re traveling to the remote Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan for an old Japanese tale collected by Richard Gord...
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Uncanny Japan - Folklore and Culture
Exploring Japanese Myths and Folktales, Superstitions and Language
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20 of 202 episodes
100 Ghost Stories in the Dark: Why Summer Is Ghost Season in Japan (Ep. 197)
In Japan, ghosts don’t wait for October. Summer—especially the hot, humid weeks around Obon—has long been the season for ghost stories, stra...
How to Welcome the Dead Home: Obon in Japan (Ep. 196)
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 re...
Creepy Story Time: "By the Japanese Sea" -- Lafcadio Hearn
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 Lafcadi...
Tanabata: Star-Crossed Lovers (Ep.55) -- From the Vault
A short Tanabata tale from the Uncanny Vault: Orihime the weaving princess, Hikoboshi the cowherd, and the river of stars that keeps them ap...
Childhood Incantations: Engacho, Pain Magic, & Severed Pinkies! (Ep. 194)
Two little boys find a dead bird on a mountain path. One accidentally touches it with his shoe, and suddenly the invisible contagion begins....
Utsuro-Bune: The Hollow Ship Revisited (Ep. 193)
In 1803, fishermen on Japan’s Hitachi coast spotted something round and unfamiliar drifting offshore. They hauled the hollow vessel onto the...
The Big Three UFO/UAP Incidents in Japan + One! (Ep. 192)
Japan’s 1970s UFO boom gave us some wonderfully strange cases: children capturing a tiny hat-shaped UFO in Kōchi, two boys encountering wrin...
The Ghost-Playing Actor Who Became a REAL Vengeful Ghost: Kohada Koheiji (Ep. 191)
Not all Japanese revenge ghosts are wronged women. Meet Kohada Koheiji: a failed Edo-period actor who became famous for playing ghosts, only...
All That Flows: Benzaiten, White Snakes, and Human-Headed Serpents
In this episode of Uncanny Japan, we follow Benzaiten — also known as Benten — from her origins as Saraswati to her place among Japan’s Seve...
Everyone Has a Throat Buddha / What is it and Why? -- Nodohotoke & Story Time: "The Buddha Bone" (Ep. 189)
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, es...
Ofuda & Omamori: Lucky Talismans & Charms
After exploring animal spirit possession last episode, Thersa turns to the Japanese ways of staying safe, getting a little lucky, and maybe...
Tsukimono: Possessed by an Animal (Ep. 187)
What is tsukimono? In Japanese culture, it’s the unsettling idea of possession—when a human or animal spirit attaches itself to you and usua...
Takiyasha Hime & the Gashadokuro: Japan's Frog-Riding Witch & Giant Skeleton (Ep. 186)
A vengeful princess rides a giant toad into battle while a monstrous skeleton tears through castle walls — and these two legends are connect...
Why the Year of the Fire Horse is Dreaded in Japan and Cursed Kimonos (Ep. 185)
2026 is the year of the fire horse—a year that happens only once every 60 years. Across East Asia, it symbolizes transformation, intensity,...
Osechi: Japanese New Year Food Traditions (Ep. 184)
What if the meal sitting in those beautiful lacquered boxes held messages from the gods? In Japan, osechi-ryōri isn't just New Year's food—i...
Japanese Moon Lore: Selfless Rabbits, Murdered Goddesses, and Tsukimi (Ep. 183)
Don't point at the moon—you might wake up without your ears. In Japan, the moon rabbit isn't just making mochi. Its image was placed there b...
Hōichi the Earless: A Lafcadio Hearn Reading (Ep. 182)
A blind musician is summoned to perform in the darkness. But who is listening? And what terrible price awaits a moment's oversight? Today I...
What Empty Spaces Need (Audio Drama) (Ep. 181)
🎃 HALLOWEEN SPECIAL 🎃 This year's Halloween episode is a full-length audio drama based on the urban legend of Sukima-onna—the woman who wa...
Ame-onna - Rain Woman's Original Ghost Story (Ep. 180)
We're getting closer to Halloween. How about another ghost story? Ame-onna, the rain woman - a haggard looking thing, soaked to the bone, wa...