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Episode 26: Ojizo. The Little Guy Saving You and Yours From the Torments of Hell

Episode 26: Ojizo. The Little Guy Saving You and Yours From the Torments of Hell

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An ojizo-sama is here to put aside his own enlightenment in order to save us all from the torments of hell. True story. He is especially partial to children, expectant mothers, firemen, travelers, pilgrims, stillborn, miscarried, and aborted babies. Do you have some kind of pain? He’s here to take that away, too.

The background binaural sounds are a small group of Japanese men and women playing a game of gateball. They’re rooting for each other, taking the piss out of each other, and finally running out of time and losing their games against one another.

Photo by Thersa Matsuura

Notes: Intro/Outro music

by Julyan Ray Matsuura. Here and here. And here.

Episode 19: The Heavenly Demon (Amanojaku) + Bedtime Story!

Episode 19: The Heavenly Demon (Amanojaku) + Bedtime Story!

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This month’s podcast is a special one. Not only did I do a podcast about a strange little creature called the amanojaku (天邪鬼), but at the end I attached one of my Bedtime Stories that I record monthly for my Patrons. So if you stay tuned after the podcast (a whopping 10 minutes), you’ll be treated to my interpretation (the happy-ending version) of Urikohime (瓜子姫), The Melon Princess and the Amanojaku.

The podcast: The amanojaku is a nasty Japanese beastie that predates Buddhism, might have originated from a Shinto deity, who you can usually find getting trampled on by the Four Heavenly Kings at temples all around Japan.

Amanojaku is also a word used to describe a contrary person.

I want to give super special thanks to my Tech Guy for working so hard on getting the sound so good. I’m not an attention-to-detail kind of person. But he is and works his butt off, not to mention he has mad skills. Thank you, Rich Pav!

Notes: The intro/outro music of Uncanny Japan is a song by Christiaan Virant (fromthe album Ting Shuo).  The music bed on the Bedtime Story is by Julyan Matsuura. I’m looking forward to having more of his songs accompanying my Bedtimes Stories and most likely the intro/outro soon.

Episode 10: Hungry Ghosts (Gaki)

Episode 10: Hungry Ghosts (Gaki)

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Careful. Living a life of luxury while being selfish and coveting your neighbors goodies just might lead you to another spin on this Wheel of Life. This means after you die you’ll be reborn not as a human again, not even as a squirrel in someone’s backyard. You might just come back as a hungry ghost, and let me tell you why that’s not a very good thing.

This month’s podcast is about Japanese hungry ghosts or gaki in Japanese. Not for the feint of heart.

Notes: The intro/outro music of Uncanny Japan is a song by Christiaan Virant (“Yi Gui” from Ting Shuo).  The whole album is just gorgeous as it everything else by FM3.