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Japanese Myths, Folktales, Folklore and Language

Episodes

The Disturbing and Terrifying Demon Hag of Adachigahara (Ep. 202)

Imagine you’re traveling alone through the Japanese countryside. It’s getting dark, starting to rain. You’re exhausted, cold, hungry, and there’s nowhere to stay. Then, just ahead, you see a small dwelling tucked among some large rocks. An old woman appears. She smiles and invites you inside. She offers you something to eat and a warm […]

Never Say Monkey! Japan’s Strangest Mountain Superstitions (Ep. 201)

{books below are affiliate links, at no cost to you I get a small commission} Hey hey. It’s me, Thersa Matsuura — author of Legends of Japanese Mythology, The Yōkai Oracle Deck, and the soon to be published Dark Tales from Japan. And you’re listening to Uncanny Japan. The place where I talk about all […]

The Yōkai That Drops from the Trees *squish*: Tsurube Otoshi

*humming*  You’re just minding your own business, taking a stroll through the woods, humming a little tune to scare away the snakes and the monkeys and the bears. Because that always works.  When you hear something that sounds like gii gii. Is that a straining rope out here in the middle of nowhere?   It’s […]

Folklore Story Time: The Sea Monster of the Oki Islands (Ep. 198)

Tokoyo took the white robe off the younger girl and put it on herself. She then knelt before the figure of Buddha, and prayed for strength and courage to slay the evil god, Yofuné-Nushi. Then she drew a small and beautiful dagger, which had belonged to one of her ancestors, and, placing it between her […]

100 Ghost Stories in the Dark: Why Summer Is Ghost Season in Japan (Ep. 197)

Imagine an August night in old Edo, Japan. The heat is still clinging to the walls, the cicadas are screaming outside, and there is no air conditioner or electric fan.  You’re sitting there as the sun goes down, no breeze to be had. What do you do?  Well, you could light one hundred candles. Invite […]

How to Welcome the Dead Home: Obon in Japan (Ep. 196)

We’re about a week away from the time of year in Japan when the boundary between the living and the dead grows thinnest. Obon. For a few summer days, the spirits of the ancestors return home. They’ll come riding in on cucumber horses attracted by the small guiding fires lit outside homes all across the […]

Creepy Story Time: “By the Japanese Sea” — Lafcadio Hearn (Ep. 195)

“By the Japanese Sea” It is the fifteenth day of the seventh month–and I am in Hokii. The blanched road winds along a coast of low cliffs–the coast of the Japanese Sea. Always on the left, over a narrow strip of stony land, or a heaping of dunes, its vast expanse appears, blue-wrinkling to that […]
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About The Uncanny Japan Podcast

Speculative fiction writer, long-term resident of Japan and Bram Stoker Award finalist Thersa Matsuura explores all that is weird from old Japan—strange superstitions, folktales, cultural oddities, and interesting language quirks. These are little treasures she digs up while doing research for her writing.

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