Tag: IKIRYO
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The Matsutooya Haunting: When Two Living Spirits Turned Deadly in Edo-Period Kyoto
Why This Story I first encountered this account while researching documented cases of ikiryō—living spirits—in Edo-period records, and it immediately stood out for its unusual trajectory. Unlike most ghost stories where the supernatural elements remain comfortably abstract, this one pivots midway through: what begins as a haunting by living spirits transforms into something far more…
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The Living Spirit That Haunted Japan’s Capital: A Medieval Tale of Vengeance Beyond Death
WHY THIS STORY MATTERS When I first encountered this tale in medieval Japanese folklore literature, I was struck by something that lingered long after I finished reading: it wasn’t a ghost story in the Western sense. It was something far more unsettling. Most ghost narratives explore death—what happens when someone dies and cannot let go.…
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Ikiryo: When the Living Become Spirits of Vengeance in Japanese Folklore
Introduction: Spirits Born Not from Death, but from Emotion Among the many spectral figures in Japanese folklore, few challenge Western assumptions about ghosts as sharply as 生霊 (ikiryō)—literally, “living spirit.” Where Western traditions imagine ghosts as the dead returned, Japan developed a parallel concept: spirits that emerge before death, called forth not by the grave,…