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Japanese anime series
| Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories | |
 Promotional poster of Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories featuring the Storyteller | |
| 闇芝居 (Yami Shibai) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Folklore, horror, supernatural |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Tomoya Takashima |
| Produced by | Naoko Kunisada Nobuyuki Hosoya |
| Written by | Hiromu Kumamoto |
| Music by | nico |
| Studio | ILCA |
| Licensed by | NA Sentai Filmworks SEA Muse Communication |
| Original network | TV Tokyo, AT-X |
| Original run | July 14, 2013 – present |
| Episodes | 91 |
| Anime television series | |
| Ninja Collection | |
| Directed by | Akira Funada |
| Produced by | Satoshi Umetsu |
| Written by | Hiromu Kumamoto |
| Studio | ILCA |
| Original network | TV Tokyo, animeteleto |
| Original run | July 12, 2020 – present |
 Anime and manga portal | |
Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories also known in Japan as Yami Shibai (闇芝居, Yami Shibai, lit. Dark Play) and Theater of Darkness is an ongoing Japanese anime series. The first season was directed by Tomoya Takashima, with scripts written by Hiromu Kumamoto and produced by ILCA. Each episode was animated to mimic the kamishibai method of story-telling. The series is organized into a collection of shorts with each episode being only a few minutes in length. Each episode features a different tale based on myths and urban legends of Japanese origin.
The first season premiered on TV Tokyo on July 14, 2013, and ran for thirteen episodes until September 29, 2013; it spawned a host of merchandise and a mobile game while also receiving mixed reactions at the end of its broadcast. A second season aired from July 6, 2014, to September 28, 2014, and was directed by both Takashi Shimizu and Noboru Iguchi along with scripts written by Shōichirō Masumoto. The third season aired between January 11, 2016, and April 3, 2016. A fourth season aired between January 16, 2017 and March 26, 2017. A fifth season aired on July 2, 2017 and ended on October 1, 2017. A sixth season aired on July 6, 2018. A seventh season aired on July 7, 2019.
On June 2020, it was announced Yamishibai will receive a spinoff Ninja Collection which will air in July 2020.[1] A live action adaptation later aired.
Season 8 aired on January 10, 2021.
Season 9 aired on Jul 11, 2021 with the theme of the episodes being based on the Chinese Zodiac.
Synopsis [edit]
Every week at 5 p.m. an old man in a yellow mask (the kamishibaiya or kamishibai narrator) shows up at a children's playground and tells them ghost stories based on myths and urban legends of Japanese origin. The man tells the stories on the back of his bicycle using a traditional kamishibai (紙芝居, Paper Drama) method and features a new tale each week. In the third season, instead of the old man in a yellow mask and his kamishibai stage, a boy (later revealed to be the kamishibaiya in the form of a child) sits on a playground slide and sings, "Friends on that side, come to this side... Friends on this side, go to that side..." as he draws illustrations of the creatures in the stories. At the end of each episode, the narrator's mask sings the closing song to him, multiplying in number as each episode ends with the final one being worn on the boy's face. As of Season 4, the kamishibaiya returns, telling the stories to children at a playground every 5 p.m., going back to the original format of Seasons 1 and 2 (voice actors are different every episode). In Season 5, the children are not seen playing on the swings. Instead, they gather to the call of the old man in silhouette. In Season 6, the old man tells his stories in a forest instead of a school. A shadow takes the form of the old man then puts on the mask as he introduces the story. In Season 7, the old man tells his stories in a creepy apartment. In Season 8, he tells his stories at a busy urban intersection, surrounded by vague shadowy passersby. In Season 9, he tells the stories to the animals from the Chinese Zodiac.
Production [edit]
The series aimed to mimick the traditional art of kamishibai story-telling.
The first season of the series is produced by ILCA and directed by Tomoya Takashima along with script writing by Hiromu Kumamoto and narrated by Kanji Tsuda.[2] The series is animated in such a way as to mimic a traditional Japanese method of storytelling known as Kamishibai.
The second season was directed by Takashi Shimizu and Noboru Iguchi while Shōichirō Masumoto wrote the script.[3]
Release [edit]
The 13-episode first season premiered on July 14, 2013 on TV Tokyo during the station's 26:15 (02:15 JST) time slot, which technically resulted in the episodes airing on the days following the ones scheduled.[4] The series was later aired on AT-X.[5] Crunchyroll also acquired both seasons of the series for online simulcast streaming in select parts of the world with English subtitles.[6] [7] On April 4, 2014 All-Entertainment Co., Ltd. released season one in its entirety on a single DVD volume in Japan.[8] The first and second seasons have been licensed by Sentai Filmworks.[9] [10] A second season aired from July 6, 2014 to September 28, 2014.[11] A third season aired from January 11, 2016 to April 3, 2016.[12] A fourth season premiered in January 2017.[13] A fifth season premiered in July 2017.[14] A sixth season aired on July 6, 2018. Sentai Filmworks will be re-releasing the series with an English dub which was slated to be released in 2019, but has currently delayed.[15] A seventh season aired on July 7, 2019.
Episodes [edit]
Season 1 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 2] | Refs. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The Talisman Woman" "Ofuda Onna" ( お札女 ) | July 14, 2013 (2013-07-14) | [16] | |
| A young man moves into an apartment building and notices a talisman stuck to the ceiling of his room. He removes it and notices a mysterious woman eerily staring at him from another apartment across the street. Upon returning from work the next day, he finds his apartment door strangely unlocked and another talisman stuck to the ceiling. Upon trying to remove it, the mysterious woman suddenly appears behind him. Afterwards, the woman is arrested for breaking and entering and as the police take her away, she appears to tell the man something, although he doesn't hear what she says. When the man returns to his apartment, he is shocked to find many more talismans stuck to the underside of his dining table, and angrily removes them. He peers up to find his room swarmed with ghosts. As they approach him, the man can only tell himself repeatedly that it's not real. | ||||
| 2 | "Zanbai" "Zanbai" ( 惨拝 ) | July 21, 2013 (2013-07-21) | [16] | |
| The title is a wordplay on "banzai" (万歳, may you enjoy a long life); "zanbai" ( 惨拝) translates to "misery". A man wakes up in a hospital with no memory of how he got there. He tries to ask a trio of other patients, who ignore him, whispering amongst themselves in a corner. The doctor explains what had happened, and that he would be able to leave the next day. That night, unable to sleep, the three patients seem to stand outside the curtains of the man's hospital bed, frightening him by repeatedly whispering "he cannot leave". The next day, as the man is discharged, he notices the three patients on the hospital roof, seemingly performing the banzai cheer for him, which he relates to his cab driver. Then he makes note that they seem to be doing the banzai cheer in reverse. The driver notices them in the rear-view mirror and horrifically realizes they are doing a ritual called "Zanbai". He suddenly urges the man to get out of the car, or he would not be able to leave the village alive, at which point the cab is struck by an oncoming truck. | ||||
| 3 | "The Family Rule" "Kakun" ( 家訓 ) | July 21, 2013 (2013-07-21) | [16] | |
| A young boy called Toshiharu and his parents move back to the countryside home of his mother's parents. As Toshiharu waits outside, his grandfather has a meeting with the rest of the family to explain a ritual called "Calm Through Laughter", in which the adults must stay indoors and pretend to laugh and be merry all night long to ward off the evil ghost of Toshiharu's great-great grandfather, who feeds on negative emotions. That night, Toshiharu wakes up to use the bathroom and curiously peers into the room where all of the adults are laughing, wearing masks with hideous painted smiles. Terrified, Toshiharu backs away, and the main door to the garden slides open. The group watches in horror as a figure approaches from the shadows and lunges at them. | ||||
| 4 | "Hair" "Kami" ( かみ ) | August 4, 2013 (2013-08-04) | [16] | |
| One night, a lone elementary school teacher was working overtime in the faculty office to finish the school newspaper. When she starts making copies using the photocopier, the school bells eerily start ringing, and the first test page comes out with strange hair-like lines. Upon opening the scanner, she is startled by a girl's face inside the machine, but upon double-checking, sees nothing and chalks it up to fatigue. The photocopier then starts behaving erratically and makes copies with each copy becoming more and more obstructed by hair, forcing the teacher to pull the plug. Upon checking the scanner again, she finds a length of messy black hair being sucked into the paper loading tray and upon looking inside, finds nothing. When she closes the scanner lid, a ghostly pale child appears from behind the copier. | ||||
| 5 | "The Next Floor" "Ikai" ( 異階 ) | August 11, 2013 (2013-08-11) | [16] | |
| A family of three visits a shopping mall to buy their son's birthday present, until the father gets a call from work and must leave. After some heckling from his wife, the man steps into the elevator and wishes to be left alone. Upon noticing the elevator's dour-looking occupants, the elevator attendant stops at an unlisted Floor B4, where everyone but the man gets off on the completely dark floor. The attendant then makes another stop at Floor B13 and the man witnesses a bloodied person hurriedly running towards the elevator which suddenly departs. Frightened, the man demands that the attendant take him back to his original floor, but horrifically finds that it is only a mannequin. Arriving at his original floor, the man steps out into the deserted mall, while the power is being cut. As the elevator leaves, the mannequin, suddenly upright, wishes the man enjoyment of his solitude. | ||||
| 6 | "The Overhead Rack" "Amidana" ( 網棚 ) | August 18, 2013 (2013-08-18) | [16] | |
| A workaholic man is riding the train home after a long workday. Suffering from obvious fatigue and discomfort, he starts growing annoyed at his fellow passengers' chatter. Just then he notices a grotesque flesh-like mass on the overhead rack, which he attributes as a hallucination. Suddenly, the train makes an emergency stop; the conductor announces an accident involving a passenger, at which point the train's power is cut for the safety of the rescue workers. The strange flesh-like mass reappears and starts enveloping the man while two passengers chatter about how that exact area had been the spot of recent deaths. The man starts panicking, then suddenly loses the strength to reject the monstrous creature, who remarks that the man would feel better soon. | ||||
| 7 | "Contradiction" "Mujun" ( 矛盾 ) | August 25, 2013 (2013-08-25) | [16] | |
| A woman called Yuuko is awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call from her frightened friend, Mayumi. Mayumi explains that she and their other friend, Tooru, visited an abandoned and supposedly haunted hospital on the outskirts of town as part of a test of courage. However Tooru started venturing deeper into the building despite her pleas and eventually broke into a locked room where he began to act strangely. Mayumi then fled in fright and phoned Yuuko, asking to come over, before mumbling the strange phrase, "I can leave?". At that moment, Yuuko is startled by a knock on her door from which Tooru starts, telling the same story as Mayumi with their roles reversed, further adding that it looked as through Mayumi's face had been replaced. As Yuuko opens the door however, Tooru appears with a grotesque face repeating the phrase "I can leave?" | ||||
| 8 | "The Umbrella Goddess" "Kasa Kamisama" ( 傘神様 ) | September 1, 2013 (2013-09-01) | [16] | |
| A boy called Kenji goes to visit his friend Takeru in the countryside. Kenji notices a woman abnormally holding an open umbrella with her mouth and making a high-pitched noise. After relating this to Takeru's father, he becomes horrorstruck, murmuring "The Umbrella Goddess". That night, Takeru's father has Kenji sleep in the storage shed with a bowl of salt, and warns him not to open the door for anyone until morning. Some time later, Takeru brings Kenji snacks and apologizes for his father before leaving. Takeru suddenly reappears, this time looking ghastly, and asks Kenji to open the door; the latter locks it in fear. The Takeru-figure starts rocking the shed, while a high-pitched squeal echoes and the bowl of salt burns. The next morning, Kenji exits the shed with a sigh of relief, and the Umbrella Goddess appears behind him. This story appears to be based on the urban legend Hachishakusama or Eight Feet Tall Woman.[17] | ||||
| 9 | "Cursed" "Tatarare" ( 祟られ ) | September 1, 2013 (2013-09-01) | [16] | |
| A woman informs her teen daughter, Kotone that she has tracked down someone who may be able to help them remove a curse which befell her body as a horrible skin condition. They visit a Shinto shrine where the priestess deduces that enemies of their ancestors had cursed their family and performs a ritual that night, seemingly curing Kotone. The next morning, Kotone prepares to leave for school, and her mother receives a phone call from the priestess' aide. He informs her that the priestess died as the curse was passed on to her, and he relays her final message to Kotone in which she apologizes for not being able to help but expresses hope that she can live a full life. As Kotone walks to school with a friend, her skin condition erupts on her neck, forming a hand imprint that begins to strangle her. | ||||
| 10 | "The Moon" "Tsuki" ( 月 ) | September 8, 2013 (2013-09-08) | [16] | |
| While spending the night at a lodge, a high school boys' baseball team discuss their current training camp and recall how their teammate, Daisuke, fell into one of the lodge's pit toilets during a little league training camp in first grade, although he fails to recall the event. As Daisuke uses the restroom later that night, he recalls the event while staring at the moon through the window, and remembers a figure stalking him while trapped in the pit. In the present, Daisuke notices a figure staring at him from the pit before suddenly vanishing. Startled, he attributes it to his imagination. While finishing up in the bathroom, the door suddenly creaks open and Daisuke watches in horror in the mirror as a dark creature climbs out of the pit toilet. | ||||
| 11 | "Video" "Bideo" ( ビデオ ) | September 15, 2013 (2013-09-15) | [16] | |
| While trying to complete a huge amount of homework, three middle school friends decide to take a break and watch a videotape, which supposedly shows things that the recorder didn't remember shooting. When the video starts playing, the friends notice something resembling a human face next to a gravestone and assume it to be ghost footage. However Takaaki also notices a strange humanoid figure in the background, which his friends fail to see, and upon rewinding the tape, finds that the figure somehow moves to the foreground and stares directly at him. Now thoroughly spooked, Takaaki notices two more humanoid faces reflecting in the screen and turns around to find that his friends have morphed into the strange humanoid creatures who continue to question him about what he had seen. | ||||
| 12 | "Tomonari-kun" "Tomonari-kun" ( トモナリクン ) | September 22, 2013 (2013-09-22) | [16] | |
| A high school girl returns to her apartment complex and notices five young boys sitting around a black shadow in the courtyard, which they personify as their friend, "Tomonari-kun." They claim that "Tomonari" invites her to play with them, but she declines and promises to play with "Tomonari" soon. The next day, they invite her again, which she declines due to having to leave for her part-time job. Upon returning home, the girl finds the boys knocking at her door, who claim that "Tomonari" spoke of visiting her and point to a black shadow on her ceiling, claiming it to be "Tomonari". Spooked, the girl shoos the boys away, then watches in fear as the black shadow manifests a head who speaks of her promise, before pulling the girl into itself. Finally the boys look on and seem to be happy for "Tomonari" before sitting around two shadows in the courtyard. | ||||
| 13 | "Tormentor" "Uzuki" ( 疼憑き ) | September 29, 2013 (2013-09-29) | [16] | |
| A trio of elementary school boys are observing a nearby house through binoculars, hoping to see the Tormentor, an entity that allegedly caused one of the boys' grandmother's childhood friend to disappear. One of the boys, unnerved, leaves. The remaining two, Shouta and Taichi, spot the occupants of the home wearing blindfolds with a figure contorting its limbs behind them. Just as the entity is about to enter Shouta's field of vision, Taichi snatches the binoculars impatiently and goes into shock upon seeing it. He then abruptly leaves, twitching. The next day, Shouta tries to return Taichi's binoculars but Taichi's father allows Shouta to keep them, explaining that Taichi is transferring to Tokyo. Shouta glimpses past his father to see a group of people attempting to restrain a writhing Taichi while trying not to make eye contact with him; Taichi's mother is weeping. Upon leaving, Shouta notices Taichi at the window. However, he spots Taichi's father through the binoculars, desperately trying to warn him of something. Shouta then witnesses Taichi rushing at him as a Tormentor. This story appears to be based on the Kunekune. | ||||
Season 2 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 3] | Refs. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Taro-chan" ( タロちゃん ) | July 6, 2014 (2014-07-06) | TBA | |
| A policeman named Hatanaka is to give a traffic safety presentation in a ventriloquism act with a doll named "Taro-chan" at a public assembly. The act begins smoothly enough until the doll's head jams and a talisman falls out. "Taro-chan" convulses; seeming to gain its own consciousness, it begins graphically detailing a bicycle accident, much to Hatanaka's horror. As Hatanaka desperately struggles to remove his hand from the doll, the crowd believes it to be a part of the act. However Hatanaka manages to throw "Taro-chan" down stage where it manages to say that the accident "hurt". | ||||
| 2 | "Kitchen" "Daidokoro" ( 台所 ) | July 13, 2014 (2014-07-13) | TBA | |
| A college girl arrives at her friend's apartment for dinner. As dusk falls, she feels like she's being watched. She looks closely at the air conditioner; she hears a sigh and an eye suddenly appears, looking at her. The electricity goes out, which her friend casually dismisses, before they sit down to dinner. From the corner of her eye, the girl sees a black mass with two eyes climb out of the kitchen sink and move towards them. She is too frightened to eat, prompting her friend to accuse her of insulting her cooking, as the mass begins to envelope her. She begs her friend to escape, but she cannot be convinced, so the black mass devours her. The girl flees to a nearby hill, and sees the black mass expand out of the building, overshadowing her. The screen cuts to black, and she screams. The story ends with a pair of eyes popping out of the blackness. | ||||
| 3 | "Inside" "Nakami" ( 中身 ) | July 20, 2014 (2014-07-20) | TBA | |
| A boy brings home a Matryoshka he'd found. His mother insists it is dirty and confiscates it to take to the dumpster. His father comes home that evening, but his mother doesn't return until later that night; when she does, she is holding the doll and speaks strangely. Some days later, the boy hears her crying downstairs, but finds her sitting next to the doll, as though nothing is wrong. As he goes back upstairs, she is laughing, but his father casually dismisses the behavior. One night, as his mother bathes, the boy quietly retrieves the doll, then begins removing layers; each layer has a different emotion painted on its face, until he uncovers an unfinished layer with a ghastly smile messily drawn in red. The boy opens it, and the screen cuts to black, accompanied by a loud mix of laughter, cries, shouts, and screams. Upon hearing this, the father charges into the bathroom; the mother and son are standing next to the doll, which is back to normal. | ||||
| 4 | "Wall Woman" "Kabe On'na" ( 壁女 ) | July 27, 2014 (2014-07-27) | TBA | |
| A college boy takes a break from his studies, staring out the window dreamily at a beautiful young woman across the street, as she hangs her laundry on her balcony. When she goes back inside, he prepares to return to his studies, only to witness a shadow scale the wall of the woman's building in a strange cat-like pose and disappear through her balcony door. Then, the woman reappears and painfully contorts into the shadow's cat-like pose, and suddenly turns toward him with a distorted face. He hides to evade her, then carefully peers out at the balcony to find that she is not there. He hears strange scraping noises through his wall and follows them around the apartment to the bathroom. He finds it empty, but his bedroom window is wide open. He slowly glances around the room, when suddenly, a pale creature with long, gangly, contorted limbs drops from the ceiling and crawls toward him. | ||||
| 5 | "Locker" "Rokkā" ( ロッカー ) | August 3, 2014 (2014-08-03) | TBA | |
| A high school girl longs to be noticed by a handsome senior baseball player, yet can't tell him how she feels. On the way home from school, she overhears an urban legend about a coin locker in the train station basement; if you place a photo of your beloved into the locker with a doll in it, your wish to be with them will come true. She decides to try it out; picking the locker with her crush's jersey number, she finds a pale, disheveled, old-fashioned doll, holding a small black box. Assuming this to be the doll, she places his photo inside and prays to be with him. The next day, she returns to the basement and opens the locker to find the photo gone. Suddenly, her crush appears, explaining that he wants to try out the locker legend, but is horrified when she mentions the doll. Before he can explain, a dark shadow reaches out of the locker and envelopes him, crushing and contorting his body. She can only look on in horror as the shadow drags the boy into the locker and slams it shut. | ||||
| 6 | "Nao-chan" ( ナオちゃん ) | August 10, 2014 (2014-08-10) | TBA | |
| A family living in a small flat plays with shadow puppets on the ceiling as they prepare for bed. When the lights go out, the boy, Takkun, watches shadows coalesce on the ceiling. Before happily drifting off to sleep, he mumbles "Nao-chan..." Some time later, the mother asks her husband if he knows anyone named "Nao", since Takkun has been calling this name up at the ceiling at night, but to no avail. Takkun tries to point "Nao-chan" out, but his parents see nothing unusual, so they think it's just his imagination. After lights-out, Takkun calls out to Nao-chan, but this time, a ghostly distorted, sad-looking face appears on the ceiling. The face approaches Takkun's mother... The next morning, she awakens and remembers Nao as being a college friend of her husband's, who died alone recently. The narrator explains that this friend was responsible for Takkun's parents' marriage. A few months later, a baby boy is born who resembles the ghostly figure; a baby they name Nao-chan. | ||||
| 7 | "Capsule Toy Machine" "Gatcha" ( ガチャ ) | August 17, 2014 (2014-08-17) | TBA | |
| A business man walks home one night after a bad day at work, when he notices an old man in a graying suit huddled over a capsule toy machine, with many empty capsules strewn about on the ground. A bit disturbed, he moves on toward home. The next afternoon, after another hard day, the man passes by the capsule machine again and decides to give it a try. When he opens the capsule, he finds a favorite eraser that he lost as a child, and his hair starts turning white and falling out. He marvels at the objects in the capsules; a dog figurine of his childhood pet, a girl figurine of an old crush. Meanwhile, he ages faster and faster, with each turn of the machine's crank. More of his hair falls out, as do his teeth, and his skin wrinkles. He is so deeply engrossed in the capsule machine that he doesn't notice another business man passing by behind him, deeply disturbed by the scene. He collapses as he buys his last capsule. The next day, the passing businessman stops by the machine... | ||||
| 8 | "Farewell Confession" "Kokubetsu" ( 告別 ) | August 24, 2014 (2014-08-24) | TBA | |
| A man named Ken attends a funeral in his hometown, where the mourners' are unexpectedly jovial. Everyone is ushered inside, where the atmosphere is heavy. When Ken notices there is no priest, an older man walks through the shoji screen door into the room with the deceased. The man bows, whispers that he impregnated the deceased's wife, then returns to the lobby. A young woman follows suit; she broke a branch on his plum tree. Noticing Ken's confusion, an aunt explains that this kind of funeral is a "Farewell Confession", where mourners confess to the deceased something they could not tell them in life so it can be absolved. Not having seen his dead relative in some years, Ken is at a loss for a secret, until he hesitantly confesses to accidentally killing the deceased's dog. A sudden gust blows the corpse's face shroud and extinguishes the candles. The dead relative sits up and angrily asks, "IS THAT TRUE?!" | ||||
| 9 | "Ominie-san" ( おみにえさん ) | August 31, 2014 (2014-08-31) | TBA | |
| A schoolteacher named Asako moves from Tokyo to work in the countryside. One day, at lunchtime, the students excitedly clamor around a dish they call "Ominie-san", a strange purple mass that gives off black fumes. The students wolf it down hungrily with a strange crunching sound, but Asako collects hers in a plastic bag and sneaks it into the basement to toss it into the furnace when it starts squirming! She flees. En route home, she stops at a restaurant for dinner, where she overhears two men order "Ominie-san", mentioning a need to keep up their strength. Nauseated by the sight of them eating it, she hurriedly pays and leaves. The next day, she calls out of work sick. Her mom wakes her for dinner, which she eats with enthusiasm. Her mom admonishes her to keep up her strength and says that, because she couldn't eat "it" at school, she mixed "it" with vegetables to make it more palatable; "it" is "Ominie-san". Initially shocked by the deceit, Asako begins salivating at the sight of the pot, and charges at the stove. The episode ends with crunching sounds. | ||||
| 10 | "Bugged" "Mushitsuba" ( 虫唾 ) | September 7, 2014 (2014-09-07) | TBA | |
| One midsummer night, a man complains about his boss in his diary, when he hears a loud mosquito-like buzzing noise, but finds no bugs. A few days later, his work complaints intensify in his diary. The buzzing returns. He lights a mosquito coil and resumes writing. A few days after, a pair of moths flitter near the ceiling light. He kills them with spray and sets them on fire in his ashtray, finding it oddly satisfying. About a week later, he writes about everything annoying him lately, including the incessant insect buzzing and his skin itching. He looks in the mirror and finds himself looking extremely disheveled... and that he has maggots crawling out from under his eyelids. He hallucinates and his "writing" becomes increasingly less coherent and more violent. Eventually, his room becomes a big mess, and he is dead at his desk; his head appears as though it exploded. An insect pokes its head out of his open mouth. His last diary entry - "Help me..." | ||||
| 11 | "Picking Up" "Hiroi-gyō" ( 拾い業 ) | September 14, 2014 (2014-09-14) | TBA | |
| A young man named Keita Haga is riding the train home when he notices a novel manuscript called "After the Festival" left on a rack. He becomes so engrossed in reading it he finds himself at an unfamiliar stop. Just as he is about to throw away the manuscript, he finds a flyer in the trash for an amateur literature contest with a prize of 3,000,000 yen. The next day, he receives a call informing him that the manuscript won the award, and asking to confirm that he'd actually written it; Haga lies and affirms. He arrives at the awards ceremony, where the host asks one last time to confirm that he had written the novel. As the ceremony begins, Haga notices the audience's sullen demeanor, then that they and the host have become deformed skeletons. The curtain opens behind the stage, revealing a swirling vortex. Horrified, he confesses that he didn't actually write the novel. The host reminds him that he'd already confirmed his authorship. He is then dragged into the vortex, shouting "I'm sorry!" as the curtain falls. | ||||
| 12 | "Netsuke" ( 根付 ) | September 21, 2014 (2014-09-21) | TBA | |
| A college girl, Kaoru, is helping clean her grandmother's shop when she notices a strange box in a cabinet. Her grandmother explains that it contains a pair of netsuke that even she was never allowed to touch. The netsuke are of matching faces, which Kaoru fashions into earrings. That afternoon, as she waits for a train, she hears a whisper "Give it back." On an evening stroll, two shadowy figures in traditional clothing begin pursuing her; all the while, Kaoru hears whispers of "Give it back!" She flees toward a bus, when she notices that the netsuke were the ones whispering, saying "Give back my face!" She narrowly evades the figures swipe at her shoulder, which knocks one of the netsuke off of its earring and shatters it on the ground. The figures stop to pick up the fragments, allowing her to escape. At the shop, Kaoru tries to return the remaining netsuke to her grandmother, then notices a visitor at the door. It's someone in traditional clothes, with a shattered face... | ||||
| 13 | "Bringer Drums" "Yadorikiko" ( 寄鼓 ) | September 28, 2014 (2014-09-28) | TBA | |
| A newlywed couple moves to the country, when the wife finds a small red Japanese pellet drum with its handle planted into the ground. They find two lines of planted pellet drums leading up to their new house. Though the townsfolk allegedly don't like city people, the town elder greets them warmly. He explains that the drums are lined up to newcomers' homes as a tradition to bring them good luck. The couple is led to a temple enshrining the town's god, which houses a statue that's a mixture between a Kokeshi and Jizo, who will allegedly follow the drums to visit the newcomers. That night, the wife wakes up upon hearing a strange noise; the pellet drums are playing on their own, and she hears babies crying. She tries to wake her husband to no avail. The sounds get closer and louder, then stop. The husband stirs; his skin turns pale, and he wails in a distorted infant cry that echoes through the valley. Lights turn on all over town, but turn off as the crying continues and becomes more childlike. | ||||
Season 3 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 4] | Refs. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Lend It to Me" "Kashite" ( 貸して ) | January 10, 2016 (2016-01-10) | TBA | |
| A young man notices a bathhouse he'd never seen before on his way home from work, and decides to stop in. He notices he's the only customer. From the other side of the dividing wall, a woman asks to borrow his soap, which he tosses over. Later, the woman asks for a bucket since the others are in use; he wonders how, as they are the only customers, but tosses it over the wall. As he showers, the woman asks for a razor, then for scissors, which he doesn't have. The woman starts to mumble about cutting something, much to his growing fear, until she asks for his hair. He hurries through his shower, trying to ignore her increasingly manic demands for random body parts. He is about to flee when a monster with stringy black hair, and a soap bar in its mouth, carrying giant scissors, climbs over the wall and says, "Actually, let me just have all of you." The story ends with his dangling feet disappearing over the wall. | ||||
| 2 | "Tunnel" "Tonneru" ( トンネル ) | January 17, 2016 (2016-01-17) | TBA | |
| Two men are driving to a hot spring, but are lost and low on gas on the mountain road. They take a tunnel at a fork in the road but the car runs out of gas, forcing them to push the car. They stop to rest, but the driver notices slime on the road and tunnel ceiling. As the men wait for another car to pass by, they notice two kids looking in through the window; the kids move strangely. Then it's revealed that the kids are merely a pair of heads on the feet of a giant spider that leaves a slime trail as it walks. The spider manages to squeeze two of its legs into the gap in the window before the men can close it and attacks. Later, another driver is going through the tunnel and stops, thinking he'd hit something. He only finds a slime trail. Back inside, he finds the two men from earlier, now as mere heads on the feet of a giant insect. The tunnel is a nest of giant insects with human heads for body parts. | ||||
| 3 | "Rat" "Nezumi" ( ねずみ ) | January 24, 2016 (2016-01-24) | TBA | |
| A young couple, Kenta and Machiko, finish moving into their cheap old apartment. They realize they have an unwanted roommate - a rat. That night, a rat bites Machiko on the finger. Kenta leaves for two days on business, but not before placing a rat cage trap to calm Machiko down. That night, as she sleeps, rats surround her bed. Two days later, Kenta returns home and calls out to Machiko. A clawed hand opens the bedroom door and rats scurry out. Kenta watches in horror as a giant rat with a vaguely human face and Machiko's pigtails emerges, and says with a giggle, "You were right, Ken-chan. They really grew on me." | ||||
| 4 | "The Noisy Hospital Room" "Nigiyakana Byoushitsu" ( にぎやかな病室 ) | January 31, 2016 (2016-01-31) | TBA | |
| At 2:15 AM, a patient walks down a hospital hallway; a truck outside drives past, carrying mannequins. He hears laughter coming from a room. When he opens the door, he is lying on an operating table, prepped for surgery, and surrounded by surgeons with huge laughing mouths for faces. He wakes with a start, back in his hospital room. Realizing he's sweating, he tries to call a nurse for a change of clothes, but the call button does not work. The front desk is also vacant, so he turns back toward to his room, but then he sees a nurse walking down a dark hallway with a flashlight. He follows, but loses her when he bumps into an elderly patient. Then he realizes he's in the hallway from his dream, and it's 2:15 AM; a truck carrying mannequins drives past the window. He runs down the hallway and sees the lit room with laughter emanating from it, and recalls that a nurse warned him not to go near it. This fuels his suspicion, so he opens the door; the room is empty and dark with nothing out of the ordinary. When he returns to his room, he hears laughter outside his door. He hides under the covers until the noise stops, but when he peeks out, he finds that his nightmare has come true; he is surrounded by surgeons with mouths that make up their entire faces. As the surgeons laugh, tools ready, he tells himself it's just a dream before joining in the laughter himself. Outside the operating room, the old patient hears the noise. A nurse escorts him to the bathroom, chiding him to not go near that room. Outside, the mannequin truck drives away. | ||||
| 5 | "Museum of Taxidermy" "Hakusei Hakubutsukan" ( 剥製博物館 ) | February 7, 2016 (2016-02-07) | TBA | |
| One rainy evening, a young couple rushes down the street, the woman a little annoyed at the bad weather. Along they way, the man spies a "Museum of Taxidermy" and suggests that they take shelter there. As the couple explores the museum, the woman is uneasy at how fully engrossed the other guests are with the exhibits, and the way stuffed animals look almost alive, but the man dismisses it and even scares her when she stares at a stuffed dog, causing her to return to their hotel in a huff. The man follows after, is locked out, and he finds that he has misplaced his key. Thinking he'd dropped it back at the museum, he rushes back; to his surprise, it's still open, and there are still people inside. The desk clerk greets him, until his voice slows down like a toy with dying batteries. Frightened, the young man rushes inside and finds a guard, but he is a stuffed corpse, as are the guests, and the desk clerk. He screams as multiple pairs of eyes pop out of the darkness... The sounds of animals fill the museum as the shadows of animals surround a new exhibit: the young couple, sewn together and stuffed. | ||||
| 6 | ""That Side" Festival" "Achira no Matsuri" ( アチラの祭 ) | February 14, 2016 (2016-02-14) | TBA | |
| One night, two girls, Miki and Asako, enjoy themselves at a festival, playing games and eating candy. Miki wishes they could stay forever, though Asako demures. Asako then comes across a mask stand, and calls out to Miki to have a look, but Miki has disappeared. One of the masks, a white geisha mask hanging amongst oni masks, suddenly darkens and says in a deep voice, "That side." As she looks around, she sees that the people are all gone, and the lights are dimming; a deep voice booms in the distance, "Go to that side". Fog rolls in, and laughing ghosts parade in, sounding bells; a monstrous float resembling the white mask with lanterns hanging from it appears, saying with a huge second mouth, "Go to that side." Terrified, Asako flees and looks for Miki at the stands, but all of the attendants have become monsters, and the people are distorted. She finds Miki, who suddenly takes her hand and runs, but Asako asks where are they going. Miki's face turns into the white mask and says in a deep voice, "That side." Asako screams as the sounds of laughter and the distant "Go to that side" echo throughout the dimly lit festival... | ||||
| 7 | "Behind" "Ushiro" ( うしろ ) | February 21, 2016 (2016-02-21) | TBA | |
| At the Kuchiya Inn, during a school field trip, all of the students are asleep, except for three boys. One of them, Osamu, tells his friends he doesn't want to sleep because he's been having a nightmare recently - he's in class and everyone is laughing. The door opens and a feminine figure enters the room, laughing as it walks behind the rows of desks; everyone knows they can't look at her. As Osamu tries not to look up, a huge hand with red painted nails grabs and twists his head into a knot as it forces him to look up at its owner's face... and that's when the dream ends. The boys admit that it is scary, but ultimately dismiss it as a dream. Before dawn, one of the boys wakes up to use the bathroom, but is afraid since hearing about that dream. He hears a cracking sound, and turns to see Osamu's whole head twisted, his eyes bugging out. He screams in horror, as he watches as all the other boys suffer this same fate. Suddenly, a huge hand with red painted nails grabs his head. He can't close his eyes or look away, as he is forced to look upward at the face of the laughing figure - a woman with a twisted head, bugged out eyes, and a great, muscular arm - before his own head is twisted. | ||||
| 8 | "The Empress Doll" "O-Hinasama" ( お雛様 ) | February 28, 2016 (2016-02-28) | TBA | |
| Two teenaged couples go to an abandoned house for a test of courage. They find it unlocked and go inside, discussing the rumors about the former occupants; some say they vanished, while others say they just skipped town. Entering one of the rooms, the teens come across a butsudan and a set of red carpeted platforms with Hinamatsuri dolls, which supposedly protect their owner from misfortune. One of the girls, Yumi, points out that the empress doll is missing, likely having been stolen. As the others climb the stairs, Yumi gets an uneasy feeling... In the upper floor bedroom, the kids come across a three-sided mirror and the other girl, Nobuko, is dared to look into the mirrors, but she knows that a ghost is supposed to appear in the reflections. Mocking her cowardice, her boyfriend, Haruo, opens it so they can all have a look. The door behind them in the reflection opens slowly, but the real door is still closed. At first, Haruo blames his imagination until they see the door in the mirror open all the way while the real door remains closed. In the mirror, a giant Hinamatsuri empress doll stands in the threshold. It enters the room, grabs Yumi's reflection, and exits the room; the real Yumi collapses to her knees in fear. As they flee, the couples take another look in the doll room, and find Yumi's body laying haphazardly on the platforms as if she were thrown into it, her face painted to resemble a Hinamatsuri doll. They turn around and find the empress doll behind them; it cackles as its eyes widen, and its mouth opens to reveal a set of big teeth. | ||||
| 9 | "The Fourth Man" "Yonninme" ( 4人目 ) | March 6, 2016 (2016-03-06) | TBA | |
| After class, two high school students are discussing the urban legend of the Handshake Men with their teacher - a series of men stand by the roadside at night, asking passersby for a handshake; those who refuse are "crushed into a meatball", but shaking hands with the fourth man gets one's hand bitten off. A third student, Haruko, silently dismisses the story. At home, her younger sister, Naomi, asks her escort her to school to retrieve her notebook. The two girls go to the school, and Naomi finds it in her desk. The two girls make their way back home, but Haruko begins to wonder about the Handshake Men. A while later, a man appears and asks for a handshake. Remembering the story, Haruko shakes his hand quickly and takes off running with Naomi. They run to a police box, where the officer asks for a handshake, as does a third man, both of whom she obliges. Suddenly, Haruko realizes Naomi is gone, and is terrified that she may have run into the fourth man. Suddenly a hand grabs hers... but it's not Naomi, who is just catching up to her. Instead, it's a man ready to bite her hand off with his giant mouth. | ||||
| 10 | "Merry-go-round" "Merīgōrando" ( メリーゴーランド ) | March 13, 2016 (2016-03-13) | TBA | |
| A young couple, Shinichi and Satomi, arrive at a mall carnival (resembling the one seen in the opening), which they remember from childhood. A clown appears behind them and offers them a free balloon, which Satomi accepts. Just then an announcement comes on over the PA that the mall will be closing shortly, much to Satomi's disappointment. The clown offers to let them ride the merry-go-round before leaving; Satomi accepts, but Shinichi declines out of embarrassment and offers to take her picture instead. As Satomi boards, Shinichi notices a bored-looking boy and girl are also riding the carousel. As Shinichi looks at his pictures, Satomi asks if he's watching, and he absently says yes. When she asks again if he's watching, he notices that Satomi looks weak and wobbly, and that the two kids are now smiling wickedly. When Satomi calls out again, her face is now deformed, her eyes googly. He hears laughter all around him, and notices that the guests and the performers are surrounding him with evil smiles. Suddenly, Satomi is gone. He asks the ride attendant and the children if they'd seen her, and they all say no. The carousel starts up again, and everyone is clapping. A hand grabs him; it belongs to a deformed, twitching merry-go-round horse with rolling eyes and a balloon tied to its right hoof. It asks "Shinichi, are you watching?" The story ends with the mall closing, the carnival's music winding down, and the sound of laughter... | ||||
| 11 | "Cuckoo Clock" "Hatodokei" ( 鳩時計 ) | March 20, 2016 (2016-03-20) | TBA | |
| Rumi and her mother visit her grandmother's house where she notices the cuckoo clock at the exact time the little bird pops out. Rumi asks why the bird doesn't come out of the house; her grandmother explains that it's the bird's job to tell the time, and it only comes out on the hour. Later that night, Rumi's mother notices Rumi's obsession with the clock - every time she hears the bird pop out, she runs into the living room to see it. Rumi's grandmother says it must also make the cuckoo clock happy, as no one has paid attention to it for some time. Five minutes before midnight, while everyone is asleep, Rumi awakens to use the bathroom, but doesn't make it far before she hears the clock ticking. Almost immediately, she stands in front of the clock and makes tick-tock sounds, and her eyes start spinning, like the hands of a clock. At the stroke of midnight, the bird doesn't pop out. Wondering if it is asleep, Rumi checks the clock, but it falls from the wall and breaks. Suddenly, the doors open and a fleshy, deformed bird with rolling eyes on one side of its head pops out and makes a distorted cuckoo sound, which amuses Rumi... The next morning, Rumi's mother awakens to find she isn't in bed. Walking downstairs, she hears her daughter making tick-tock sounds in the living room. When she calls to her, Rumi slowly turns to face her, her eyes now spinning like clock hands. Her mouth turns into a cuckoo clock door. When the door opens, the scene cuts to the exterior of the house as the sounds of choked cuckoos and Rumi's mother's scream can be heard. | ||||
| 12 | "In the Water" "Mizu no naka" ( 水の中 ) | March 27, 2016 (2016-03-27) | TBA | |
| Late one night, a boy, Tōru, sneaks into a closed swimming pool, thinking about the prefectural tournament next week, and how the coach expects him to perform well. The pool looks creepy, but undeterred, he dives into the water for practice, awakening something in the process. He swims, unaware that he is being followed by black hairlike tendrils. Finally, he reaches the end of the pool, and notices black hair on his hands. He sees a mass of hair in the pool. Terrified, Tōru tries to swim away, but is entangled in the hair, and hears cackling in the water. He exits the pool and tries to run, but the hair wraps around his throat. Tōru sees the owner of the hair: a giant fish with a woman's head and glowing yellow eyes. The fish woman laughs as it pulls him under the water. | ||||
| 13 | "— Drawings —" "- E -" ( - 絵 - ) | April 4, 2016 (2016-04-04) | TBA | |
| This episode skips the regular opening. The boy from the opening draws in the playground while three other children play nearby. A teacher who has just moved to town tries to talk to the boy but he walks away. She notices the boy sitting in the back of her class, drawing. She invites him to draw her but he declines. She learns that three children were reported missing, the three from the playground. The teacher walks home that night and spots the boy sketching a monster assimilating a man in a phone booth. She follows him over the next few days, and observes different monsters tormenting people, and the boy drawing them, laughing. The next day, she looks at his sketchbook, and finds a drawing of the missing children being grabbed by a monster. Suddenly, the boy appears, saying that he will draw her now, as she's become more interesting. All of the monsters from the other episodes surround her, and the boy's face morphs into the kamishibaiya's mask. | ||||
Season 4 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 5] | Refs. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Tongue" "Shita" ( 舌 ) | January 16, 2017 (2017-01-16) | TBA | |
| A salaryman walking home from work runs into two children who are sad that a dead cat is lying in the middle of the street. Not wanting it to be run over, he scoops the cat up and buries it next to a tree. Two passersby mutter that something could follow you home if you take pity on it. The boys and the man say a prayer for the cat, and they go on their ways. That night, while the man watches TV, he hears what sounds like a cat meowing, but shrugs it off and decides to go to bed early. He is just about to tuck in for the night when he hears the meow again, this time from the other room. The meows get closer and closer until it's right next to his bed. The cat licks him, but he feels something is off... When his eyes become accustomed to the dark, he realizes the meows sound human. In fact, it wasn't the cat meowing at all, but a pale-skinned, dark-haired woman with glowing green eyes, holding a dead cat. "I'm so glad I got to see you," she says. "So, why did you find the cat, but not me?" | ||||
| 2 | "Fish Tank" "Suisō" ( 水槽 ) | January 16, 2017 (2017-01-16) | TBA | |
| Three middle school students are walking home from school, talking about an old abandoned Western-style mansion rumored to be haunted. One of the boys, Shigeru, climbs in through a second-storey window, but only finds darkness and the sound of gurgling water. When he pulls on the tattered curtain to let light in, he finds the source of the sound: a massive fish tank left dirty and neglected with plants and murky water still inside. He thinks he hears something bubbling in the tank, but can't see anything in the filthy, murky water. But when he presses his face up against the glass, something bumps against the tank. Ignoring the foul odor, he looks down from the top of the tank and peers into the water so close he could see his reflection. Suddenly, a pair of slimy, purple hands pop pulls him into the tank. One of Shigeru's friends comes in looking for him, only to find the fish tank. Then he hears something bang against the tank from the inside... | ||||
| 3 | "Sewing Shears" "Tachibasami" ( 裁ち鋏 ) | January 16, 2017 (2017-01-16) | TBA | |
| A college girl moves to a new apartment complex (the same one from episode 1); the rent is cheap, and she is willing to ignore its minor problems. She lifts up a loose floor board to find a rusty pair of scissors stabbed into the ground through a paper talisman, with a lock of dark hair attached to it; she promptly tosses them all into the waste bin. That night, she awakens to a strange moaning sound coming from under the errant floor board. Slowly, she removes the board and gasps in horror at the sight of the top half of a head with long black hair staring back at her. She quickly awakens from the dream. As she heads for the bathroom, a quick glance into the waste bin reveals that the scissors, talisman, and lock of hair are gone. Then she hears the moaning from her dream coming from under the floor board, but finds nothing there. The phone rings, and she answers it, relieved that it's her friend. She doesn't notice the figure of a man missing the top half of his head standing behind her... | ||||
| 4 | "Red High Heel" "Akai haihīru" ( 赤いハイヒール ) | January 16, 2017 (2017-01-16) | TBA | |
| A salaryman is running home from work, having stayed overtime. By the time he reaches the station, the last train has already left. Since the taxi line at the station is long, he decides to hail one on the street. As he walks down a dark, deserted road, many occupied taxis pass him, until he manages to catch one. In the cab, he finds a red high-heeled slipper next to his foot and asks the driver if a previous passenger lost her shoe, and if he could throw it out, but the driver doesn't respond. The salaryman is confused at first, but is startled when the driver impatiently repeats what he asked, looking unnerved. Then both men hear the sound of someone running, and getting closer. The salaryman looks out the window and sees a blonde-haired woman in a red dress running next to the taxi at an impossible speed. The driver looks even more scared and begs him to throw the shoe out. When his eyes adjusted to the dark, the salaryman realizes the shoe is not red, but white and covered in blood. With a scream, he throws the shoe out the window and the woman stops running. At first he's relieved, but then the driver runs over a blonde-haired woman in a red dress, killing her instantly. | ||||
| 5 | "Night Bus" "Yakō basu" ( 夜行バス ) | January 29, 2017 (2017-01-29) | TBA | |
| Four friends are on the night bus when one of them suddenly gets a stomachache and asks the driver to stop at the next service area. Ignoring his friends' mocking, he heads for the restroom. After relieving himself, he walks to the parking lot, but finds many buses like his own and can't figure out which one is his. He boards what looks like his bus, only to notice the passengers' downward gloomy expressions; he takes his seat, slightly disturbed by the atmosphere. He suddenly gets a text message from one of his friends from a row behind him, Yūichi, wondering what was wrong. When he asks what he was talking about, the reply tells him to stop messing around. Then he gets a phone call from his other friend, Saeko, sitting across the aisle from him, but she's not holding her phone. He answers, and hears her voice on the phone asking where he was. The girl sitting across the aisle turns her head and looks at him with the same gloomy expression as everyone else. The man becomes afraid as he hears more of his friends' voices on the phone, yet the people on the bus are not talking to him. His fear grows even more when he realizes everyone on the bus is now staring at him... | ||||
| 6 | "Guess Who?" "Dare da" ( 誰だ ) | February 5, 2017 (2017-02-05) | TBA | |
| A teenage boy and girl sit on a bench at the train station, having just enjoyed themselves at the amusement park. As they wait for the train, the girl thanks the boy for taking her and asks him if he's seeing anyone, but a passing train drowns her out. The boy goes to get a drink, leaving the girl feeling awkward. She notices a pale-skinned, dark-haired girl dressed in black sitting on a bench on the opposite platform. She can't make out the pale girl's expression but is sure she's looking right at her. Suddenly, the girl in black gets up from the bench and walks toward the track. A train passes by, and the pale girl vanishes... The girl is confused and scans the area, looking for her. Suddenly, a pair of hands covers her eyes and the boy's voice says, "Guess who?". She finally gather the nerve to ask him out, but the hands press into her face, hurting her. He asks again, "Guess who?" She says she knows it's him, but then a question pops into her mind - "Who is senpai?" She tries to remember that he's the star basketball player at school, and that they went to the amusement park. But now it seems he's been erased from her memory. Another train passes by, and she sees between the fingers, in the reflection of the train's windows, that the pale girl is the one covering her eyes. At that point she can't remember anything about the boy. The girl is then revealed to be covering her own eyes, having transformed into the girl in black. She asks herself, in a voice that's not hers, "Who am I?" and vanishes as people walk by her. | ||||
| 7 | "Footsteps" "Kutsuoto" ( 靴音 ) | February 12, 2017 (2017-02-12) | TBA | |
| A man goes to a department store with his wife Mayumi during a closeout sale on one of his rare days off of work, much to his chagrin. He receives a text from his coworker Nagase, inviting him out for a drink. He excuses himself to use the bathroom. In the darkened room, he sits in one of the stalls and asks Nagase what time they'll meet. Then he sees a mark on his shirt. He realizes it's ink, and in the dim light of his cell phone, he sees writing all over the stall walls that appears so fresh, he could easily wipe it off. He is startled by a text from Mayumi asking which floor the bathroom is on. Just then, he hears someone enter the bathroom and begin pacing. Then he hears another set of footsteps begin pacing. His fear grows as he hears more people entering and pacing around the bathroom, and the sound grows louder until the whole room starts to shake violently, as if in an earthquake. Just then, Mayumi calls him, and the footsteps stop instantly. The writing on the walls begins to stretch, and the man sees four pairs of feet under the gap of the stall's door. He shakes in fear as the door opens revealing three men and a woman with pale skin, black eyes and dark hair staring back at him... | ||||
| 8 | "Cassette Tape" "Kasettotēpu" ( カセットテープ ) | February 19, 2017 (2017-02-19) | TBA | |
| A man visits his childhood home for the first time in many years after hearing his old friend, Tanabe Kouichi, is getting married. He returns to the room where he spent most of his boyhood, happy to see it's still the same as he left it. He finds a cassette tape in his desk labeled, "What Happened Today". A fan of scary things and wondering if it still works, the man puts the tape into a player and presses play. He hears his young voice and remembers that as a child, he kept an audio diary on cassette tapes. On the first entry, February 12, he talks about a baseball game. On February 23, he talks about Tanabe's birthday party and being jealous of the gifts from all of his friends. The man finds it coincidental hearing his boyhood self talk about Tanabe. After a few more entries, the voice on the tape sounds older; he assumes this must be from his middle school days. He comes to April 11, where he said good morning to an old man at a jagged park, only for him to say, "No it's not." This confuses him, as he doesn't recall this event. With each successive entry, the stories become more surreal and nonsensical, until he hears his own present-day voice. He becomes horrified when he hears his own voice talk about Tanabe's wedding tomorrow, and start rambling about beating Tanabe with a stick, just like he did to the old man in the jagged park, and then the tape stops. Not wanting to hear any more, the man takes off the headphones and realizes they were never plugged into the cassette player. The wedding the next day was as exciting as can be... | ||||
| 9 | "Grinding Teeth" "Kensaku ha" ( 研削歯 ) | February 26, 2017 (2017-Feb-26) | TBA | |
| An office worker, Miwako, is on a trip with her co-worker. They soon come across a spot where the locals don't go - a cave with four Jizo statues with red cloths tied around their necks; one has a red string tied around one of its teeth. That night, at their hotel room, Miwako complains of a toothache, a result of her grinding her teeth. Painkillers don't work, so she instead calls for a dentist and finds a dental office still open. Miwako finds the dental office shady, but the pain leaves her no choice. She's set in the chair, and the elderly dentist takes a look in her mouth; her expression darkens. The dentist quietly instructs her assistants to not let Miwako get away, saying "It can't be helped", before returning with a pair of pliers, telling Miwako the tooth must be pulled out. Miwako isn't comfortable with this and tries to leave, but is held down by the assistants. She manages to get away before the dentist can pull out the molar; she doesn't hear the dentist warn her about the tooth. Back in the hotel, she checks her tooth in the mirror, only for it to pop out on its own; it appears to have an anguished face. Then she remembers the dentist's warning: "If you leave like this, they'll come for you!" Miwako looks back at the molar, only to find it gone, leaving a trail of blood as though it got up and walked off on its own. She follows the trail to the bedroom her friend is sleeping in, and hears a grinding sound. And the closer she gets to her friend, the louder the grinding seems to get... | ||||
| 10 | "Calling Crane" "Yobitsuru" ( 招び鶴 ) | March 5, 2017 (2017-03-05) | TBA | |
| Three middle school friends, Honoka, Yukari, and Miku, get together to play Calling Crane, which reportedly allows one to talk to the dead - a red string is tied to a razor blade, then left in a cup of water overnight, along with an origami crane folded from a sheet of paper with a dead person's name written on it 49 times. A person then takes the tied razor out of the cup, and swallows the paper crane; the summoned ghost would then talk through that person. Rumor has it, a student from a neighboring school botched the ritual and was left a deranged invalid. Yukari suggests they call Nayakama-sensei, a young homeroom teacher at their school who loved scary stories, and who told them about Calling Crane. He vanished three months ago, with only a tied razor blade was found on his desk. Wanting to see if he had died, Yukari writes his name on the paper, and through a game of rock-paper-scissors, Honoka is chosen as the swallower. The paper crane gets stuck in her throat, which her friends think is a prank, oblivious to her actual choking. When her coughs become more violent, Yukari and Miku try to help. Suddenly, Honoka finally heaves the paper crane out of her throat; Nayakama-sensei's name is no longer on it, but Honoka's is. Suddenly, Honoka stands up and says in a man's voice, "So, what shall we talk about?" | ||||
| 11 | "White Line" "Hakusen" ( 白線 ) | March 12, 2017 (2017-03-12) | TBA | |
| A teacher stays after school, grading tests when she notices a child playing in the schoolyard. The boy, wearing a worn-out, unfamiliar school uniform, is drawing something with a chalk line marker used to make diamonds on baseball fields. She goes outside to tell him off, but he's already gone. Strangely, the chalk line is leading into the school. She follows the line down the hall and up to a door that leads to the roof. She opens the door, but the boy wasn't there and the line seems to have gone over the edge. She looks over the edge and sees a mark of white chalk on the ground below, as if chalk dust was thrown off the roof and onto the pavement... She turns around, and sees the white line now turning black, followed by footsteps. The door opens and five black chalk outlines emerge; she realizes that the white line was meant to lure her to the roof. The last thing she sees as the black finally reaches her is the boy looking out the door, and the last thing she hears is the sound of five thuds, with a sixth soon after. | ||||
| 12 | "Snow Hut" "Kamakura" ( かまくら ) | March 19, 2017 (2017-03-19) | TBA | |
| A young boy, Masayuki, and his parents visit his grandparents every winter break, and he always enjoys playing in the snow with his older cousin. As the sun starts to set, they build a snow hut just big enough to fit both of them. Masayuki's cousin offers to bring back the brazier and grill some mochi. While waiting, Masayuki looks out the entrance and finds a snow hut much his own; it has no entrance, but it seems to be glowing from the inside. He calls out, asking if anyone is inside and knocks on the side, and gets a knock back... Wanting to see who it was, Masayuki pokes a hole in the wall and peers inside, finding only a single flickering candle; the inner walls have been entirely scratched, like someone had tried to claw their way out. When Masayuki calls out again, he jumps back in horror as he sees an eye look back at him through the hole and hears a boy's voice say, "It's your turn next." Masayuki's cousin finds him unconscious in front of a collapsed snow hut. Masayuki comes to and finds himself on a futon in his grandparents' house. He hears his family in the next room, talking about how Masayuki insisted there was someone inside, and that he broke the snow hut. Masayuki gets the feeling that something terrible happened. The family opens the door, acting overly happy. The front door is open, revealing an open snow hut and the family is telling him to go in; Masayuki is filled with dread. Suddenly, the voice from the snow hut says, "You think so too?" A silhouette of a child looking at him through a hole in the screen wall says, "Go on. It's your turn." | ||||
| 13 | "Underground Walkway" "Chika tsūro" ( 地下通路 ) | March 26, 2017 (2017-03-26) | TBA | |
| One rainy night, a college student heads home after a drinking party, and decides to take an underground walkway to the subway to get back home. The young man hadn't taken this route before, and starts to have doubts, which he ignores. The curving path seems to go on and on, and just when he decides to turn around, he runs into a worker. The worker doesn't acknowledge his presence, only repeating "It's only dark at first." The worker is pointing to the left, to an even narrower and darker path. Feeling unnerved by the man and the path, he slips past him and continues going straight. However, he comes across a locked gate, leaving him no choice but to turn back. He walks down the tunnel, only to find that it seems to go on and on; he can't even find the path the worker pointed to. Absently, he looks down, and sees what look like footprints and when he looks to his right, he sees, where the tunnel should have been, a filled in wall with the imprint of a human on it. The shape seems to be moving and struggling in agony. Suddenly, it moves off the wall and starts chasing him, repeating, "It's only dark at first." The man calls out in vain for help; it is revealed that the original entrance is now sealed off. | ||||
Season 5 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 6] | Refs. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Wrong Number" "Machigatta bangō" ( 間違った番号 ) | July 2, 2017 (2017-07-02) | TBA | |
| The wife of an elite salaryman, Mrs. Masuda, begroans him never being home for her, or his son Hirofumi. The phone rings and when she answers it, an unfamiliar woman says she won't be there for a while. Confused, Mrs. Masuda asks who she is trying to call, but the woman hangs up. Later, Hirofumi falls asleep while playing, and the phone rings again; the caller asks if she could watch her child for another hour. Mrs. Masuda tells her she has the wrong number, but the caller hangs up abruptly. Frustrated, she slams the phone down, and it rings immediately; it's her husband, who tells her he'll be late and asks her to eat dinner with Hirofumi. At dinner, Mrs. Masuda scolds Hirofumi for making a mess, making him cry. The phone rings; the same woman from before tells her she's finally able to leave. Frustrated, Mrs. Masuda tells her she has the wrong number, but then the woman replies, "But Hirofumi is crying, isn't he?" and hangs up. Mrs. Masuda suddenly recalls Hirofumi drawing a picture of a woman labeled "Mama", and suddenly realizes who the caller must be. The doorbell rings and a shuffling noise can be heard on the other side; a woman's voice says she's there to pick up Hirofumi. The door opens and a woman with pale skin, black hair and dark eyes enters the room. Mrs. Masuda grabs a knife just as Hirofumi calls out, "Mama?" | ||||
| 2 | "Give It To Me" "Chōdai" ( ちょうだい ) | July 9, 2017 (2017-07-09) | TBA | |
| An office worker is passing a playground on her way home, when a young girl on a swing calls out to her. She asks if anything is wrong and where her parents are; the girl says she's fine and that her mother is on her way. Then she notices the butterfly brooch on the woman's blouse and asks to have it. The woman gives it to her as a reward for waiting patiently for her mother, then goes on her way. The next evening, the woman walks by the playground, and the same girl calls out to her. Concerned, the woman asks the girl where her mother is, but the girl ignores her question and demands her lipstick. The woman applies some on her and goes on her way, concerned about a child being out this late. The next night, the woman is on a date, and the girl appears in the parking lot by their car, demanding her boyfriend. In the car, the woman vents her frustration; the girl wears the same clothes every day, and is still wearing the same lipstick from yesterday, which is now smeared. Suddenly, she sees the girl in the rearview mirror and to her horror, the girl's arms stretch out and grab her boyfriend. Then her head and neck stretch over to the woman, and she reaches a hand out to her and says in a monotonous voice: "Hey, miss. Give this to me too. Come on, give it to me..." | ||||
| 3 | "The Crow Children" "Karasu no ko" ( カラスの子 ) | July 16, 2017 (2017-07-16) | TBA | |
| A girl named Sae and her mother visit her grandmother in the countryside for the first time. As they walk through a field of sunflowers, they pass a group of boys fleeing from the Crow Lady, an old woman dressed in black, wearing a veil. When Sae greets her, the old woman replies slowly, then walks by without another word into a house covered in branches. Soon, they reach her grandmother's house. While Sae plays in the yard, her mother reminisces with her grandmother. Sae hears a crow caw... and her mother and grandmother suddenly notice she is gone. Sae's mother searches for her, and eventually hears Sae's cries coming from the house covered in branches; a murder of crows is perched on the roof. In the yard, Sae is greeted by the old woman in black, who heard her crying because she fell from a tree. Sae's mother apologizes for her trespassing. As they depart, Sae's mother asks her why she was in the old woman's yard, to which she replies, "Because they looked like they were having fun"; in her eyes, there are not crows, but children atop the house, in the tree, and on the fence. As Sae waves goodbye, her mother hurries her away. The old woman warns her as the crows take flight, "Don't you let go of her hand, now. Children wander off before you know it." | ||||
| 4 | "Copycat" "Manekko" ( まねっこ ) | July 23, 2017 (2017-07-23) | TBA | |
| A college student, Haru, has just completed her entrance ceremony and runs into her childhood friend, Yukari, who has just made it off the waitlist at the same school, and is ecstatic to be together again. Haru remembers how they were always together and did the same things together since they were little, though it was just Yukari copying everything she did. One afternoon at a diner, Yukari asks if she could wear the same watch as Haru, be in the same classes, and join the same clubs. Frustrated, Haru blatantly tells her to stop copying her, making Yukari cry. Haru gently explains that it's not good for her future to just copy her. Yukari reveals her dream to be a teacher, mirroring Haru's dream, then manically insists that this justifies the copying; this disturbs Haru, who concedes. Pleased, Yukari leaves the diner, and crosses the street on a red light, and is hit by a car. Haru smiles sadly as she vanishes, revealing that Yukari made it off the waiting list because she had died. In the end, Yukari copied everything Haru did, even her death... | ||||
| 5 | "Shadows of Women" "Onna no kage" ( 女のカゲ ) | July 30, 2017 (2017-07-30) | TBA | |
| A woman waits for her husband to come home, apparently out for drinks with coworkers. When he finally does, she collects his clothes for the wash as he prepares to take a shower, and finds signs of cheating - another woman's perfume on his suit, lipstick on his collar, a broken acrylic nail, and multiple messages on his phone from someone named Rie-san, the most recent saying, "I'll always be at your side..." Initially outraged, she senses the shadow of another woman looming over her, but finds no one behind her. When her husband comes out of the shower, she demands to know who Rie-san is, but he claims he does not know. She asks him about the texts on his phone, which he says are just spam. When she accuses him of cheating, she hears a woman's voice whisper, "Only you..." She watches in horror as a shadow looms behind him, wrapping him in its multiple arms. She sees his reflection in the mirror, and hears multiple voices declaring their love for him; feminine shadows with red eyes appear. The reflection says he'll never leave her, then says, "But if you're so worried...why don't you stay at my side too?" Her eyes turn red, her skin blackens, and she says monotonously, "Always...at your side..." | ||||
| 6 | "Giveback-sama" "Okaeshi-sama" ( オカエシサマ ) | August 8, 2017 (2017-08-08) | TBA | |
| A girl, Yuka, has lost her boyfriend, Tomo-kun, to her best friend, Rieko, whom she swears to never forgive. At the library, she finds a book of magic rituals, and reads a passage about a spirit called Giveback-sama - Dial 9999 in a phone booth at 11:59 PM, and Giveback-sama will answer; if you ask her to bring your lover back to you, she will do so the next day. However, you must call her back at the same time the next day to thank her, or something terrible will happen. At first Yuka dismisses it as nonsense, but when she comes home later that day, she decides to try it. She calls at exactly 11:59 PM; at first nothing happens, but when she hears her coin drop from the change slot, she asks for Tomo-kun, then runs off without hanging up the phone. The next day at school, Yuka notices white flowers on Rieko's desk, indicating her death; one of her friends confirms that she died in a traffic accident. Suddenly, Tomo-kun enters the classroom grieving, blaming himself for not walking her home, and Yuka tries to comfort him. That night, Yuka remembers the final warning of the ritual and rushes to the phone booth with seconds to spare, only to find someone already using it; to her horror, it's Rieko. Rieko disappears as the clock strikes 12. Blood splatters inside the phone booth, and the phone receiver sways... | ||||
| 7 | "Hide-and-Seek" "Kakurenbo" ( 隠連母 ) | August 13, 2017 (2017-08-13) | TBA | |
| A boy, Takeshi, and his family are driving to his grandmother's house during summer break. As they pass an old, dilapidated house, Takeshi sees a boy in a red and white shirt looking out the second storey window. Upon arrival, Takeshi asks his grandmother who lives there, but she sternly warns him to never go near that house, for a crone lives there. His cousins, Miho and Yukari, invite him to play outside; Takeshi accepts, but explains that he wants to explore the old house. When they arrive, they play hide and seek; Yukari is "it", so Miho and Takeshi hide. Takeshi hides in the house. When he opens a closet to hide, he is startled to find a straw doll wearing a red and white shirt, the same one the boy at the window was wearing. Suddenly, he hears a deep voice call out, "Are you ready?", and heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Panicking, he hides in the closet. The right panel opens and the voice says, "Found you"; he watches as a giant hand reaches for the straw doll and slams the door closed. Then the left panel opens; Takeshi screams as a giant eye peers at him and the voice says, "Found you!" Takeshi's family bid each other goodbye, having forgotten him altogether; his grandmother is the only one who knows what happened. The old house has a new straw doll looking out the window, dressed in Takeshi's clothes. The sounds of children singing and playing can be heard throughout the house. | ||||
| 8 | "The Neighbors" "Otonari-san" ( お隣さん ) | August 27, 2017 (2017-08-27) | TBA | |
| A woman named Kana moves to a new apartment and invites her friends over for pizza. She explains that the place just opened up and the rent was cheap, which her friend Eriko says is probably too good to be true. Suddenly, they hear scratching coming from next door. Kana walks her friends out, but freezes when she sees fingers and an eye peeking out of the neighbors' mail slot, only to instantly shut. As she walks to the car, Kana keeps an eye on the neighbor's door. As she walks back to her apartment, the neighbors' door opens a bit, revealing a light from inside. She thinks to introduce herself, but demures and continues walking. Suddenly, the light goes out. She hears the scratching sound again, and calls out. The moonlight shines on the apartment and Kana can see women clawing against the apartment walls and floors, wheezing and pleading to be let out. Suddenly, she hears the scratching come from above. And when she looks up, she sees a pair of feet dangle in front of her before their owner, a dark-haired, pale-skinned girl with orange eyes drops from the ceiling; "Looks like we have another new friend," she says. The story ends with Kana joining the clawing neighbors and the hanging girl; a realtor answers a call asking about the new room that just opened up... | ||||
| 9 | "If You Want to See Ghosts" "Yūrei o miru ni wa" ( 幽霊を見るには ) | September 3, 2017 (2017-09-03) | TBA | |
| Mai, a gossip-loving college student, is sitting on a bench with her friend, Miki, who tells her she has seen a ghost and asks if she believes in ghosts; Mai is skeptical. Miki decides to show her by telling her to look into her eyes. Mai does so, and is startled to see, in the reflection, the white outline of a person behind her. When Mai turns around, nothing is there. Miki tells her she could see ghosts ever since someone showed her, which means Mai can now see them. She asks Mai not to tell anyone - Miki heard about it from friend, whom hasn't heard from since. Mai leaves abruptly for her seminar, ignoring Miki begging her not to leave. When Mai arrives at her class, she can suddenly see the spectral outlines of people around her classmates. When her friends ask if something's up, Mai tells her secret and warns them to not tell anyone. Suddenly Mai sees the outlines change from white to red and they advance on her. Terrified, she flees the school with more ghosts giving chase. She runs to Miki's house for help, but instead finds her emaciated and eyeless. She recalls Miki's warning, and now realizes she'd just doomed her friends to suffer the same fate if they tell anyone. The last thing she sees is red ghostly hands reaching for her eyes, along with hearing multiple voices sharing the secret and asking not to tell anyone else. | ||||
| 10 | "Flower Reading" "Hana uranai" ( 花占い ) | September 10, 2017 (2017-09-10) | TBA | |
| A man is caught in the rain on his way from work. He wonders when it will stop raining, when he sees a girl reading flowers, plucking flower petals and repeating, "It'll stop, it won't stop." With the last petal, she concludes that the rain will not stop, and declares that her fortunes are always correct. The man asks what she is doing out there, but she ignores the question, and expresses hope that his wife will pick him up. She then offers to read another fortune for him and pulls out another flower. The man tells her to go home if her parents do not know where she is. She ignores him again and plucks the petals to decide if she will go home; she decides she will not. She asks for another subject to read, but the man cannot think of any on the spot. Upon seeing his wedding ring, she offers to predict whether his wife will come. The man finds this ridiculous, but humors her. At the last petal, she predicts that she'll come. The man tells her that is impossible, but the girl points behind him, and to his astonishment, he sees a woman in white holding an umbrella. The girl asks what should she read next, but he tells her she has done enough and thanks her. The girl watches as the couple leaves and says, "Oh, I see. You're dead, you're not dead..." At the last petal, she says "You're dead. Goodbye, mister. You won't need any more fortunes." | ||||
| 11 | "I'm the Only One" "Hitori de ī" ( ひとりでいい ) | September 17, 2017 (2017-09-17) | TBA | |
| A young office worker named Mari admires her long, beautiful hair in the bathroom mirror at work while her friends praise it. When asked when she cut her hair, Mari is confused and denies having had it cut. In her apartment, as she combs her treasured hair at her mirror, Mari muses to herself that her friends' hair could never be as beautiful as hers; that she only hangs out with them because it makes her stand out; that she is the only one who must be beautiful. Nevertheless, she remains curious as to why they asked if she cut her hair. The next day, Mari's friends hesitantly ask if she is trying out a new look, since she cut her hair even shorter. She angrily denies that she cut her hair, and storms out. That night, Mari brushes her hair, angry at her friends' claims that she cut her hair. She concludes that they are merely jealous, and insists: "I'm the only one who needs to be the prettiest!" Suddenly, her reflection smiles wickedly back at her, and says that she is not her anymore. Mari is revealed to have messily cut her hair short. As Mari panics over her hair, her reflection continues that she does not need Mari anymore. The mirror cracks as her reflection emerges with a pair of scissors. Mari continues to scream about her hair, as her reflection declares that Mari must die since only her reflection "needs to be the prettiest." As Mari begs her reflection to give back her hair, the story ends with the sound of scissors snipping. | ||||
| 12 | "The Last Bus" "Saishū basu" ( 最後バス ) | September 24, 2017 (2017-09-24) | TBA | |
| An office worker boards the last bus of the day. She bemoans her life; things are sour with her boyfriend, and she will be blamed for her boss's mistake, though it was her junior's fault. She falls asleep, and when she wakes, everyone is gone except for a young woman narrating a story to herself; the tale is of an office woman, hard on her luck and worried for her future, who falls asleep and finds herself alone. Her middle school best friend was bullied often, and it worsened over time; no one helped, not even her, who ignored her to avoid getting bullied herself. Eventually, her best friend committed suicide. The bus arrives, and she starts to disembark, when suddenly her best friend appears behind her and asks, "Can you see me?"; she turns around, and her best friend asks for help. As the story ends, the other woman approaches the office worker, who finally recognizes her. The other woman (wearing a blue kimono with red spider lilies on it) tells her that being ignored is hell, that all of her actions will come back to her. Outside, the office worker crawls on her stomach in pain, begging for someone to notice her and help her. The other woman laughs as they both fade away, unseen by anyone. | ||||
| 13 | "Seductress" "Yūwaku" ( 誘惑 ) | October 1, 2017 (2017-10-01) | TBA | |
| Instead of the usual opening, the story begins with a detective investigating the disappearance of young men in the area. The trail leads to the Mantis Bar, where eyewitnesses say the missing men made contact with a particular woman. At the bar, a woman tells her date she "wants him". While a younger man sips his beverage in slight jealousy, the detective watches the pair go outside. Soon, the woman returns and finds the younger man, explaining that she got stood up; she calls him cute and says that she "wants him". They leave the bar, and the detective follows them, watching the from around the corner. Suddenly, the woman's arms fall off, and the woman's body tears away, revealing a giant praying mantis underneath. The detective watches in horror as the mantis devours the man. Suddenly, the mantis turns around and giggles at him as he screams while a yellow smiling mask falls... The detective wakes up and finds himself on a park bench, late in the afternoon. As the kamishibaiya walks by with his bike and kamishibai theater, the original opening theme begins to play, and the detective wonders what that case was really about, but "The truth of the case is lost in darkness". The kamishibaiya turns around, and the story ends, revealing the title of the story, and the kamishbaiya ending the story as he always does, "Oshimai." | ||||
Season 6 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 7] | Refs. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Thunderous Visitor" "Raikyaku" ( 雷客 ) | July 6, 2018 (2018-07-06) | TBA | |
| Ryousuke, a young man afraid of thunder since childhood, recalls how his mother once promised to protect him from thunder when he was a child. She'd moved out shortly after that, and he has since lived with his father. Suddenly, the power goes out in his apartment. The phone rings; it's his mother. Ryousuke angrily demands to know why she's calling after all these years; she explains it's because he remembered when he clung to her during a thunderstorm when he was little. He asks how she knew that, when suddenly, a flash of lightning reveals the silhouette of a person outside his balcony window. His mother asks to be let in, as she wants to surprise his father. There is a knock on the glass, as she continues to ask to be let in. Ryousuke presses his question, but when he pulls back the curtains, he sees his father, who had forgotten his key. He lets him in, but then the two men realize there's someone else in the room - Ryousuke's mother. In shock, Ryousuke's father's asks who let her in; Ryousuke explains that she called and asked to be let in, but his father says that's not possible. Ryousuke demands to know what his father did to his mother; then he sees the rope marks around his mother's neck. "See?" she says, "Your dad...was surprised, wasn't he?" The story ends with a clap of thunder. | ||||
| 2 | "Tomonashi Cave" "Tomonashidou" ( 友無洞 ) | July 13, 2018 (2018-07-13) | TBA | |
| A group of high school students are taking a tour of Tomonashi Cave. Four girls, Tomoko, Ayaka, Kyoukou and Akane, sneak into a roped-off area of the cave. Kyoukou pushes Tomoko to the ground and mocks her, while Ayaka laughs. Suddenly, a sound emanates from the cave. The two bullies force Akane to investigate; she doesn't want to leave Tomoko behind, but is pushed on on. Now alone, Tomoko wonders why her friend left her. Suddenly, the three girls scream for help, and then, there is silence. Tomoko hears a call for help; she calls out to Akane and asks what happened. Still in the shadows, Akane explains that she was afraid of Kyoukou and Ayaka, and asks for forgiveness. Tomoko accepts Akane's apology and assures her that they're still friends. She goes deeper into the cave, but finds claw marks all over the walls and floor of the cave. She finds Akane huddled in a corner, absolutely horrified. Tomoko reaches out for her when suddenly, ghostly hands grab her. Tomoko calls out for Akane and grabs onto a wall, trying to hold on. Suddenly, Akane's face distorts with hatred, her eyes whiten, her voice deepens, and her head twists around to face Tomoko; she derides Tomoko and condemns her to death, then proceeds to leave, dancing and laughing maniacally. Tomoko wonders if this is how she truly felt about her. The hands drag her deeper into the cave with her leaving claw marks of her own. The story ends with the wind blowing in the cave, sounding like an exhale. | ||||
| 3 | "The Wind's Warning" "Fuuchi" ( 風知 ) | July 20, 2018 (2018-07-20) | TBA | |
| A salaryman, Hide, has just returned to his apartment when he feels the wind blow. He finds the balcony door wide open; he closes it, simply assuming he'd forgotten to earlier, and takes a bath. He hears the wind again, and leaves the tub, finding the balcony door open again and shuts it, wondering how it keeps happening. Suddenly, the phone rings; it's his aunt. He asks her what she wants, as he saw her at the funeral for Asami a month ago; she expresses her concern, and warns him not to do anything rash. He hangs up, and suddenly hears the balcony door open again; he tries to re-close it, but it will not budge. A fierce wind rips through the door, sending him onto his back and scattering his possessions, including a picture of Asami, which breaks upon impact. The phone rings again and he answers it, but only hears static and a voice telling him, "Die." Thinking it's Asami, Hide breaks down, and confesses that it was because he was too lazy to go look for Tarou that she died in the car accident, and asks if she wants him to join her. Just then, the voice becomes clearer; it's been telling him, "Don't close it..." A piece of paper blows onto his lap - a written promise to leave the door open if Tarou isn't there. Tarou, his and Asami's cat, walks in. Hide laughs, realizing that was why the door was open. Tarou purrs and meows. | ||||
| 4 | "Swamp Offering" "Houjou" ( 奉沼 ) | July 27, 2018 (2018-07-27) | TBA | |
| A newlywed couple moves to the husband's rural home village. On the way, he explains the "swamp offering", a generations-long village custom in which each person tosses their most valuable possession into the nearby swamp to ward off disaster. The couple stays with the husband's family, where his wife is browbeaten by his mother, who reprimands her for wearing her ring (an heirloom from her own mother) while cooking, and confiscates it. At dinner, the mother-in-law reveals that the village still observes the swamp offering, and insists they take part. They arrive at three trees tied together with Shimenawa and are told by a priest to toss their items into the swamp. As they do so, the wife notices her mother-in-law toss her mother's ring into the swamp. The mother-in-law gleefully chides her about throwing in fake treasures - "The Muddy will come and take the thing you truly treasure most." The wife runs away in tears, the mother-in-law unrepentant. Back at home, the husband tells her that he asked his mother to apologize, but she insists there is no need; she married him, and so must treasure her mother-in-law more. The next morning, the husband goes to wake his mother, only to find a trail of mud leading to her room. While he looks for her, his smiling wife, with her mother's ring back on her bloodstained finger, mumbles to herself about missing her "mother". The story ends with the trail of mud leading back to the swamp, and the mother-in-law's warning. | ||||
| 5 | "The Dripping" "Shizuku" ( 雫来 ) | August 3, 2018 (2018-08-03) | TBA | |
| A man stops by a convenience store to read a magazine on his way home from work. As he steps outside, it begins to rain; he ponders whether the umbrella in the rack belongs to the creepy man reading in the corner before taking it. As he walks out, the creepy man chuckles to himself... As he walks home, he notices scratches on the umbrella's handle and hears wheezing behind him, but sees nothing there. Suddenly, reflected in a shop window, he sees a woman in white under the umbrella with him. She reaches for the handle, and the man drops the umbrella and flees. At home, he hears dripping outside the front door, but he sees nothing through the peephole. He opens the door, and finds a puddle and the umbrella he left behind; he notices the scratches on the handle form the kanji for "Drip". He angrily tosses the umbrella in the garbage. Back inside, the dripping resumes; a drop of water lands on his leg, and he hears the wheezing. He slowly looks up; the woman from earlier is staring down at him, bug-eyed and disheveled, with water dripping from her hair... Later, another patron at the convenience store is stuck in the rain, finds the umbrella, and walks out with it. The man, having gone insane, mutters to himself and smiles as he watches the other man leave. | ||||
| 6 | "Cherry Blossom" "Sakura" ( 咲暗 ) | August 10, 2018 (2018-08-10) | TBA | |
| The title is a pun on "sakura (桜; cherry blossom)"; "saku (咲く; to blossom)" and "kura (暗; darkness)". A man has been hospitalized after a car accident. Through the wall, he hears children chattering that he might be a new friend to play with; after a short conversation, he agrees. The next morning, he asks a nurse about the kids in the next room over, which confuses her. He finds a cherry blossom petal in his bed, and the nurse confirms there is a cherry tree in the courtyard. That night, the man asks the children about the cherry tree in the courtyard. Some adult voices join the conversation, and after some suspicious chatter, ultimately insist that he hurry over to them, despite his broken leg. Curious, the man is about to go over, only to be stopped by the nurse. The next morning, he is on a crutch, and he rushes to the next room, which is completely empty. Out in the courtyard, the cherry tree has been cut down; he overhears that people had hung themselves from it and realizes that he could have been next. As he turns to leave, he doesn't notice the ghostly aura of hanging bodies, who lament about the pain, and say that he will not get away. | ||||
| 7 | "Frog Eggs" "Kaeru no tamago" ( カエルの卵 ) | August 17, 2018 (2018-08-17) | TBA | |
| Takuya and his parents have moved to the countryside, to help relieve his social anxiety. While walking down a trail, Takuya spots a pile of eyeball-like frog eggs in a stream, and becomes engrossed in staring at them. Three boys approach him, and become fascinated with the frog eggs as well. Takuya mutters that he found them first, and the boys start to pester him, which makes him uncomfortable. Then he then sees other people staring at him, triggering his anxiety, and flees. That night, his parents are concerned that he hasn't come out of his room, so his grandfather suggests taking him fishing to help take it off his mind. At 2:00am, he wakes up and decides to take the frog eggs for himself. At the riverbank, he sees the eggs as eyes, and one of them moves, startling him... The next morning, Takuya's parents finding him staring at a fish tank, and explain that his grandfather would like to take him fishing after breakfast. Takuya assents, much to their relief. As they leave, Takuya stares at the frog eggs moving in the fish tank, saying that other people's eyes don't bother him anymore. His empty eye sockets bleed... | ||||
| 8 | "Sea Fortunes" "Umikuji" ( 海籤 ) | August 24, 2018 (2018-08-24) | TBA | |
| The title is a wordplay on "umi (海; ocean)" and "o-mikuji (御神籤; temple fortunes)". A crowd gathers at the docks, where a soaked, frightened woman named Chisato who has a blanket wrapped around her. Her husband, Taiichi tries to comfort her, but she shouts at him to keep away. An elderly woman asks her what happened. Chisato explains that she and Taiichi were strolling on the beach one foggy day; Taiichi wanted to return to their hotel, but Chisato wanted to keep strolling, so they separated. She found a shrine in a small cove, and a box for drawing fortunes. She shook the box and a fortune with a red pattern popped out. At that moment, Chisato's ears began to hurt, and a black fog rolled in towards her, so she flees in fear. Later, Chisato wanted to leave the island; voices in her head told her that anyone who prays for good fishing and draws a good fortune is to be sacrificed. Suddenly, she found herself on a boat in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by shadowy boatmen. A spectral baby appeared next to her and she asked why this was happening to her; the baby's face turned demonic, and answered in a deep voice, "There is no other sacrifice", before she was swept away by a large wave. The crowd explained sacrifices stopped ages ago. Chisato calls herself bad luck and tries to walk away, only to trip and fall into the arms of a fisherman. The blanket falls off, revealing a strange red tattoo on her right arm. With an insane smile on her face, Chisato tells him, "Mister, you drew a good fortune." A black fog rolls in... | ||||
| 9 | "Mud Games" "Deigi" ( 泥戯 ) | August 31, 2018 (2018-08-31) | TBA | |
| One rainy day, a woman is driving to pick up her daughter, Michiko, from daycare. When she picks Michiko up, the mother apologizes for being late, but Michiko says it was okay, since she was playing in the sandbox. Her mother scolds her for not washing her hands afterward, but feeling bad, promises to play in the sandbox with her next time. She asks Michiko what she made in the sandbox. Michiko says she was making her family, which made her sad, because her mother died. She goes on to say how she was coming to pick her up, but there was a crash, and a splat... And she stood and watched as her mother died, and eventually she herself died of illness from staying out in the rain. Suddenly, to her mother's horror, Michiko turns into sand and falls apart. That's when Michiko's mother realizes she never made it to the daycare, but died in a car crash en route. As she turns to sand, she apologizes to Michiko, wherever she is now... At the park, a boy and his mother are walking by the sandbox when the boy sees something move in it. His mother says that it was just two sand piles dissolving in the rain. The sand piles were shaped like a mother and child, and there is a tire next to them... | ||||
| 10 | "Tree of Innocence" "Mujaki" ( 無邪樹 ) | September 7, 2018 (2018-09-07) | TBA | |
| Young twin brothers, Satoshi and Takashi, are playing in the forest. Takashi, in red, picks an old and very tall tree, and challenges Satoshi, in green, to a race to the top. Satoshi takes the lead and eventually makes it to the top, when he hears a sound. He looks down to find Takashi clinging onto a branch, too afraid to let go, and the branch is about to break. Satoshi climbs over toward him, but stops when he hears his mother call out for him to get down; she shouts, "Have you forgotten what happened to Takashi?!" This confuses Satoshi, who then looks down to find Takashi is not there. Then he remembers what happened a week ago - Satoshi dared Takashi to reach for a bird's nest, causing him to fall to his death. A voice asks what he was just playing with; in front of him is a laughing, black-eyed version of Takashi that only he can see. Satoshi backs away from it; he falls from the branch, but survives, and his mother walks him home. As he walks away, it is revealed that Takashi is in Satoshi's body; he drops a dead baby bird and silently, gleefully bids him goodbye. Alone in the tree, Satoshi begs Takashi to give him back his body, as his eyes turn black. | ||||
| 11 | "Frozen Memories" "Kakuhyō" ( 覚氷 ) | September 14, 2018 (2018-09-14) | TBA | |
| A hiker gets caught in a severe blizzard while climbing a mountain trail, so he takes shelter in a shack, only to realize he's not alone; a shivering old man is huddled in the corner. As the hiker rests, he recalls how he'd promised to take his son, Takeru, mountain climbing with him when he got out of surgery. His wife, Shinobou, worries about waiting for them to return, but he reminds her that it wouldn't be his first hiking trip without her. Suddenly, he hears a ringing sound, and asks the old man what it was. The old man shushes him, telling him, "It's coming again..." He grabs the hiker by the shoulders and demands that he not open the door until the blizzard passes, no matter what happens. A while later, the hiker awakens to hear the ringing has stopped. He hears Takeru's voice outside the shack; he's about to open the door, when the old man stops him. The voice asks if he's sad because Takeru died. The hiker tosses the old man aside, but the old man begs him not to open the door; he's the last survivor of his hiking group - whatever is on the other side of the door took all the others. The hiker then remembers that Takeru died from surgical complications. When the blizzard finally passes, the hiker calls his wife to tell her he's coming back. Outside, he finds a pile of snow suspiciously shaped like a child... | ||||
| 12 | "Waterfall Drop" "Taki oto" ( 滝落 ) | September 21, 2018 (2018-09-21) | TBA | |
| Four friends take a trip through the forest, finding themselves lost. However, they soon find what they were searching for - a huge waterfall. One of them explains that there are rumors that it is haunted by the people who committed suicide by jumping off from it. Another of them, Yurika, gets an uncomfortable feeling that something or someone is watching them. They then play rock-paper-scissors to decide who must climb the top of the fall; Yurika loses. As she makes her way to the top of the falls, it starts to get dark and is once startled by a danger sign breaking off of a branch. When she reaches the top, she looks down to see her friends waving at her. She notices three children dropping rocks off the waterfall, and warns them it's not safe. They simply stare at her with creepy looks and walk away. Yurika looks down to find her friends still waving. She gets a text from them, telling her to run. Suddenly, black shadows start climbing up the waterfall and crawl toward her... The three children laugh and point as they say, "Aw, they got to the top. Now there'll be another one." | ||||
| 13 | "Echoes" "Yamabiko" ( 山曳呼 ) | September 28, 2018 (2018-09-28) | TBA | |
| The title is a wordplay on "yamibiko (山彦; echo)"; "hiki/biki (曳; pulling/towing)" and "ko (呼; call)", together, can mean summoning. In the intro and closing, the kamishibaiya whispers. A pair of college girls have climbed to the top of a mountain. One of them, Eriko, shouts into the valley to hear her voice echo. Her friend chides her immaturity, but Eriko reasons that she's not bothering anyone. Fog rolls in, and her friend wants to leave, but Eriko continues making echoes. They hear a man's voice echo; Eriko replies in kind, but her friend admonishes her, as they don't know what kind of person he is. The fog thickens, and the voice then says it's coming over. Eriko's friend wants to flee, but has lost her in the fog. The voice says it's almost there. Suddenly, figures appear in the fog, as several voices contradict each other; some warn her to run, others to stay put. She hears Eriko call for help and looks around frantically, but then the figures disappear. Suddenly, a hand grabs her shoulder, frightening her, but it's only Eriko. With the fog clearing, the two girls make their way down the mountain. As they walk, Eriko's friend explains how scary the whole situation was. Suddenly, fog rolls in again, Eriko has disappeared, and an echoing voice right next to her says, "I'm here." | ||||
Season 7 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 8] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Delivery" "Otodokemono" ( お届け物 ) | July 7, 2019 (2019-07-07) | |
| A young man agrees to housesit for his friend Hasegawa, who had also asked him to sign for a package in his stead. At 9:15 PM, the deliveryman arrives, and he signs for the package. Hasegawa tells him that he's expecting another package the next day, and asks if he could stay to receive it. The next night, again at 9:15 PM, the deliveryman arrives with the second package. Despite it being wet from the rain, he places the second package next to the first and calls Hasegawa, who doesn't answer. Just then, he sees the deliveryman staring up at him from the street. He hears a phone vibrating from inside the second package. He calls Hasegawa again, and this time he answers; the man asks when he is coming home. "What are you talking about?" Hasegawa asks. "I just did." Suddenly, the boxes start to leak blood and the deliveryman returns, saying he has the rest of the packages... | |||
| 2 | "The Sleepless Child" "Nemurenai Kodomo"眠れない子供 | July 14, 2019 (2019-07-14) | |
| A woman named Sawako is expecting her husband to come home, but he calls and tells her he won't be back for awhile. She listens to a news report about a local child abduction with some unease, then puts her son, Takeru, to bed. Later that night, Sawako is awakened by the sound of glass breaking; Takeru wanted some milk, but dropped the glass. As she cleans up the mess, he tells her he had a nightmare, so she invites him to sleep in her bed if he has another one. At 2:04 AM, Sawako has a nightmare of being buried alive, and wakes with a start to find Takeru sleeping next to her. The phone rings, and she takes the call in the hallway; it's her husband calling to tell her he's on his way home. As she bids him to hurry back, a door opens, and bloody handprints and footprints appear all over the floor and walls of the corridor. She realizes, to her horror, that it must be the child she accidentally ran over. Her husband's voice is replaced on the line by a boy's laughter. She cries that it was an accident, and that it was not her idea to bury him in the mountains. She begs for forgiveness, but the boy's voice refuses. Takeru comes out of his bedroom and asks what's wrong; she's covered in dirt and the handprints and footprints have disappeared. Sawako then realizes that the child in her bed is not her son... | |||
| 3 | "The Reception Room" "Ousetsuma"応接間 | July 21, 2019 (2019-07-21) | |
| There was an elderly couple who lived together for a long time; the husband is very sick with a nasty cough. One day, a skilled dollmaker gives them a beautiful doll, which they display in the reception room. The wife, Youko, had always wanted a daughter, and this doll is her dream come true. She names the doll Mikoto (美琴; "beautiful life"), and remarks on her lifelike eyes. Later, Youko gives Mikoto a red dress meant for their daughter; her husband, concerned for her health, reminds her to take care of herself, before going to bed, his cough worsening. Later on, she gives Mikoto the bracelet belonging to her own mother. Youko's husband eventually dies, leaving her all alone with Mikoto. She doesn't have much time left herself, and wishes she could hear Mikoto call her "Mother" just once. She then dies. Suddenly, Mikoto comes to life and approaches Youko's body. She sheds a tear and says, "Mother. Thank you." | |||
| 4 | "Paintings" "Kaiga"絵画 | July 28, 2019 (2019-07-28) | |
| A young man goes to a nearby free art exhibit called "A New World"; it is surprisingly empty, except for the receptionist, a woman in a dark coat and black fedora. He looks at the paintings, finding them creepy and bizarre; strangely, all the artists are unknown. He's about to photograph one of the paintings, but the receptionist tells him photography is not allowed. When he's sure she's not looking, he takes photos of the paintings anyway. He suddenly gets the feeling that he's being watched. He uploads the photos to his social media and gets likes from his friends. He notices that the paintings are gone from their frames. Suddenly, the receptionist murmurs that she warned him, and that it's his fault for not listening; he is horrified to find that she has no face at all, just a blank sheet of skin. He suddenly finds himself in darkness, surrounded by many reaching hands. He runs for what he thinks is the way out, only to be grabbed and dragged back into the darkness. Later, a new patron comes to the art exhibit where a new painting has been added; the man takes a photo of it. | |||
| 5 | "Notice of Termination of Service" "Shūryō no oshirase"終了のお知らせ | August 4, 2019 (2019-08-04) | |
| A salaryman is traveling on business when he passes by three different funerals; he finds it strange, but thinks nothing further of it. He checks into his hotel and settles down into his room, noticing an odd entry at the bottom of the TV program guide, "Notice of Termination of Service". After a shower, he turns on the TV, but only static comes on and he finds that he can't turn it off. Images of the deceased from the funerals he passed by earlier appear on-screen, and a voice is repeating, "The time has come to say goodbye." Suddenly, the door rattles and the phone starts ringing; he answers the phone, but there's no one there. The door continues to rattle and the TV announcement continues repeating. The man becomes afraid and pleads for it all to stop, which it suddenly does. There is a knock at the door, and the voice of the desk clerk asks if everything is alright. He opens the door, but instead of the desk clerk, he sees shadows, and hears the TV turn back on. He sees his own picture on the screen and the voice says, "Goodbye." | |||
| 6 | "The Veranda" "Beranda"ベランダ | August 11, 2019 (2019-08-11) | |
| An office worker returns home to her apartment after work, and is frightened by a scraping sound coming from the veranda. She grabs a knife and pulls back the curtain, but finds nothing. Six days later, she calls her boyfriend, Daichi, who is watching a news report of a recent murder at an apartment complex; she tells him the sounds happen every day, and she's scared, which he dismisses since the veranda is always empty. She hears the sound again and begs him to hurry over. Once there, he checks the veranda when he hears the sound. He recalls that the murderer from the news report hasn't been caught yet. Cautiously, he opens the curtain and even goes outside, but sees nothing. His girlfriend says, "She's been watching this whole time." He looks out the veranda again and to his horror, he sees a ghastly woman with green skin, black hair, yellow eyes and long fingernails scratching on the glass. He snaps the curtains closed. His girlfriend starts laughing manically, but he snaps her out of it. She says that she feels the creature possessing her, and that she doesn't want to be alone anymore. "And when you're scared," she says in a scratchy voice, "It's better to be with someone, right?" Daichi watches in horror as she begins scratching the floor with long fingernails... | |||
| 7 | "Public Phone" "Kōshūdenwa"公衆電話 | August 18, 2019 (2019-08-18) | |
| A door-to-door insurance saleswoman named Chie gets a call from her sister, Momoe, from a public phone. Momoe pleads for help and gives her location, imploring her to hurry, or "he" will show up, before the call ends abruptly. Chie finds the phone booth, but it's empty, except for a pile of broken cellphones on the floor of the booth. The phone rings; she answers it and hears deep breathing before Momoe's voice says she didn't want this to happen, and that "he's" coming. The door slams closed, and a creature with grey skin and red eyes starts banging on the glass. Chie tries to use her cellphone, which instantly breaks. Momoe tells her to use a phone card on top of the phone to call for help, but to hang up before the prepaid minutes run out, or else the creature will come inside. Chie calls her husband Shouhei for help, and gives him the location of the phone booth. She hangs up, but the phone still counts down to zero. Suddenly, she hears Momoe's voice behind her, "Sorry, Onee-chan. I lied. The moment you got here..." The voice deepens, "...it was all over for you." The creature lunges at her... Later, Shouei finds the phone booth. | |||
| 8 | "Cough" "Seki"咳 | August 25, 2019 (2019-08-25) | |
| A young man, Takayuki, has to put up with his elderly neighbor's complaints about loud noises; the walls are so thin, his neighbor can hear his TV at even its lowest volume. Takayuki tries to explain he's not doing anything wrong, but the old man is related to the landlord, and threatens to have him kicked out. Later, Takayuki invites his girlfriend over to watch a movie, and he warns her not to make too much noise. She thinks he's just exaggerating, until the old man shouts at her to be quiet. When they hear him coughing, they decide to just leave and watch a movie at her house. But as the coughing worsens, she tells Takayuki to call an ambulance. He hesitates; if the old man dies, he won't have to worry about being kicked out. He decides to ignore it, despite his girlfriend's protests. Finally, the coughing stops. Suddenly, the lights go out and the coughing returns, only it's growing louder and the walls begin to shake. The couple looks behind them to see the ghost of the old man who shouts, "YOUR TV IS TOO DAMN LOUD!" | |||
| 9 | "The Woman in the Elevator" "Erebētā no on'na"エレベーターの女 | September 1, 2019 (2019-09-01) | |
| In a certain apartment building, a woman boards the elevator, where she runs into an attractive young man carrying a garbage bag. After a mother and child disembark, the elevator stops and breaks down on the fifth floor. The young man tells her not to worry, and points out a button to call for help, and a camera monitoring the elevator. The man puts down the bag and presses the call button; the repairman checks the camera and says he sees one man and two women, which confuses them both. The woman asks if he's looking at the right elevator and the repairman says the second woman is right behind them... Suddenly, the call is cut off and the lights go out. The woman hears a sound behind her and realizes it's coming from the garbage bag. A crying ghostly woman slowly claws her way out of the bag, and the man warns the first woman not to look at her. Suddenly, the lights come back on and the ghost woman is gone. As the elevator starts up again, the woman wonders about the crying woman. When they finally reach the bottom, the landlord asks if they're okay, but the man excuses himself, as he's in a hurry. As he carries the garbage bag outside, the woman realizes it is not garbage day. | |||
| 10 | "Manga Cafe" "Manga kissa"漫画喫茶 | September 8, 2019 (2019-09-08) | |
| A Manga Cafe employee pockets an object while cleaning, assuming it to be a pachinko ball. A short while later, a young lady inquires about her lost earring, leaving abruptly when he tells her that no one has seen it. He asks his manager, Umeda-san, about the lost earring, but he had not seen it, either. Later, the woman is still there, and silently walks by. Disturbed by this, the young man tells Umeda-san, who falls silent when he describes her. She sounds like a lady who used booth #80 regularly, but he explains that it couldn't be her; the reason is not yet revealed to the viewer. Later, while he is cleaning, the place seems bigger than usual, and he cannot find the front desk. He runs down the corridor before coming to a dead end outside booth #80, where he sees a pair of high heels under the door. He is suddenly forced into the booth and the door slams shut. He hears a lady's voice asking him to return her earring, which he denies having, and begs to be released. She creeps down from the ceiling, insisting it is in his pocket, and that she wanted the expensive earrings so badly that she sold her eyes; she reveals her empty eye sockets. The rest of Umeda-san's story is revealed - the lady had died in an accident and for some strange reason, her eyes were missing. She closes in on him, admiring his eyes... | |||
| 11 | "Little Sister's Room" "Imouto no heya"妹の部屋 | September 15, 2019 (2019-09-15) | |
| A young otaku goes into his younger sister's room, looking for one of his manga. He finds it under the bed, but gets stuck trying to get it. Before he can free himself, he hears his sister, Miho, return with her friend, Risa, so he remains hidden. He listens to their gossip when suddenly, one of the posters hanging on the wall falls off. Miho says that strange things have been happening in her room lately, but believes it's merely her brother spying on her. Risa tells her that might not be true; she confesses that she has a sort of sixth sense and that she can feel something wrong in the room... The brother suddenly drops the manga and the girls shriek. Just when Miho is about to look under the bed, Risa tells her not to; there's something in the room, creaking. She flees and Miho chases after her. The brother is about to crawl out from under the bed when something grabs him. He looks and sees a woman with a gaunt, pale face and black hair grabbing his ankles. She says, "I'll suppose he'll do..." before dragging him back under the bed. | |||
| 12 | "Fitting Room" "Shichakushitsu"試着室 | September 22, 2019 (2019-09-22) | |
| A young office lady named Kyouko walks into a small fashion boutique to pass some time, finding it unattended, but filled with garments she wore in her youth. She grabs a few to try on, but finds the fitting room door closed; a sign on the door limits customers to take only 1 item in at a time. She knocks on the door, then opens it, finding it empty; she sees a number of mannequins in the mirror. Since the shop isn't crowded, she takes in her multiple items anyway. She begins trying on the outfits, and hears the voices of her school friends and parents praising her in her memory, filling her with happiness. The doorknob rattles; she ignores it out of annoyance and continues reminiscing. She tries on her last outfit, musing about an old flame, but the doorknob continues rattling. Suddenly, the voices from her memories start haughtily jeering at and insulting her. The voices surround Kyouko in a great din, as she desperately tries to leave the fitting room, to no avail. The "1 item per customer" sign falls off the door... Some time later a new customer opens the fitting room door, and a new mannequin stares back from the mirror. | |||
| 13 | "Refrigerator" "Reizōko"冷蔵庫 | September 29, 2019 (2019-09-29) | |
| This story is told from the point of view of a refrigerator. When it was first bought by a family of five, it was happy, and loved having its drawers and shelves filled with food. But as the family grows older, troubles start; there are money problems, and the kids decide to not go to college. The refrigerator is sad to be getting emptier, and what it does get filled with is going rotten. Soon, no one opens the refrigerator anymore, and it starts to feel lonely. Then one day, the family returns with strange smiles on their faces and chanting, "It's the only way", as they place packaged meat into the refrigerator; meat that is oddly familiar. At this point, the refrigerator notices that the father is no longer there. And it notices something even more peculiar - throughout the years, the youngest son never seems to age. | |||
Season 8 [edit]
| No. | Official English title[nb 1] Original Japanese title | Original air date[nb 9] | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Dropped Handkerchief" "Hankachi Otoshi"ハンカチ落とし | January 10, 2021 (2021-01-10) | |
| A group of teenagers sneak into an abandoned house to test their courage. One of them, a girl named Shizuka, is hesitant, but her boyfriend eggs her on. As they explore the house, they discuss the rumors that the occupants just vanished one day, as have neighbors who wanted the house demolished. The teens go upstairs to the youngest child's bedroom, said to be the most haunted, and begin drinking. Suddenly, a book drops to the floor, open to a diary entry - "We played the handkerchief game." Shizuka finds a pink handkerchief on the ground behind one of the boys, Takaaki. Suddenly, the candle goes out. The other boy, Shinji, turns on his phone light; Takaaki has disappeared. Shizuka notices the handkerchief is now behind her friend Kyouko. Shinji's phone light goes out, and when it comes back on, Kyouko has disappeared. Shinji dismisses it as a prank, but Shizuka gets scared when she notices the handkerchief is now behind her. Terrified, she tosses it behind Shinji, who disappears when the light goes out again. Alone, Shizuka cries in fear as the phone battery dies. Just then, a child's voice speaks, "Now you're it." At that moment, the handkerchief turns from pink to red... | |||
| 2 | "Death Day" "Meinichi"命日 | January 17, 2021 (2021-01-17) | |
| The Kunitake family observes a tradition of spending the day at their family home on the anniversary of their mother's death; Sachiko, Hiroki's new wife, is taking part for the first time. After dinner, the lights go out, and Hiroki bids Sachiko to come to the table; dogs outside bark, as they do every year. Hiroki explains that their mother's spirit comes home on the anniversary of her death, which is why they have this tradition. The family hears footsteps outside the door; Hiroki and his siblings say it's their mother. The dining room door opens and closes, and an empty chair pulls up as if an invisible person has taken a seat. Sachiko is terrified - she can see spirits, and the spirit in the chair is not their mother. The dogs outside bark louder, and the chair suddenly shakes violently, as if in anger, until it falls over. This shocks the rest of the family - who, or what, have they been letting in for the last ten years? | |||
| 3 | "Don't Look Back" "Ushiro wo miru na"うしろを見るな | () | |
| A young man named Takuya gets lost on the way to see his friend, from whom he is trying to get directions over the phone. As he approaches an alleyway, his cellular signal cuts out. A sign at the entrance warns not to look back from that point on. As he goes down the alley, he happens upon a young woman in distress named Miyako, who joins him on his path and warns him not to look back. She explains that she was originally with her boyfriend Toshihiko, who looked back when he heard voices call out to him, then vanished; she's been trapped in the alleyway ever since. Takuya doesn't believe her story, but when she hears footsteps, she stops dead in her tracks and breaks down. They then both hear Yoshihiko's voice thank Takuya for escorting Miyako, and try to convince her to turn around. She warns Takuya to not listen, but he turns to reply, and sees a rolling fog approaching. He sees shadows in the windows of the nearby houses as he is immersed in the fog... Later, Takuya's friend is looking for him, and enters the alleyway, ignoring the sign. | |||
| 4 | "Bean-Throwing" "Mamemaki"豆まき | () | |
| A young boy named Youta suspects that his mother is in league with a demon, having seen shadows through her screen door at night. Youta also misses his father, and believes his family's happiness left with him. At school, his teacher explains the annual tradition of bean-throwing, which is meant to ward off demons. He comes to believe that his mother welcomes the demon because she is lonely, and that he must protect her from it. One evening, at dinner, he confronts his mother, blaming the demon for his father's death; his mother admonishes him, angrily refuting the idea as nonsense. Later that night, he approaches his mother's room with a bag of soybeans; he hears his mother speaking with a man who is worried about Takuya "catching on". He yanks open the door and begins pelting them with soybeans in the darkness, until something crashes through the window. He turns on the light; the room is empty, and the window is broken as though someone had jumped out of it. He feels an odd sensation on his forehead... | |||
| 5 | "The Sound of Laughter" "Waraigoe"笑い声 | () | |
| A high school student is studying in his room late one night when he hears a faint sound, like an old woman's wheezy laugh, from outside. He looks out his window, but finds no one there. He goes to the kitchen for a snack, and hears the sound again, closer than before. He asks his mother about any old women in the neighborhood who could be making the sound, but she dismisses the idea and suggests that he take a shower. In the shower, he hears the sound again, much closer this time, and sees a shadow move past the bathroom window. On his way to his room, he passes by the front door, where he clearly hears an old woman cackling. He demands they identify themselves, and is about to look through the peephole, when his parents stop him, demanding that he explain himself. He tells them about the cackling woman, and his father looks through the peephole; after a long beat, he reports that there is no one outside, and scolds his son, while beginning to laugh loudly and uncontrollably. His mother soon joins in. And the story ends with the old woman's laughter in the full moon. | |||
| 6 | "Catch of the Day" "Tsuri no Seika"釣りの成果 | () | |
| A woman named Eiko welcomes her husband Nobuo home from a fishing trip with his friend, Sakakibara; he seems to be in a dour mood. Just as she is about to open his cooler to look at his catch, he slams it closed, warning her that it is unseemly to look at. The cooler shakes, as though the catch is still alive, which worries Eiko, but Nobuo forcefully tells her to leave it to him. That night, Nobuo suddenly gets out of bed, and stiffly walks out. Eiko follows him to the kitchen; the cooler is open, and he is chopping something making a loud squeaking sound. Nobuo almost notices her, so she runs back to bed and hides under the covers. The next morning, Eiko finds Nobuo asleep in his bed, his covers messily thrown over him. She checks for signs of what he was chopping, but finds nothing. The phone rings; it's Sakakibara's wife in a tearful panic, asking whether Nobuo had eaten their catch - ever since Sakakibara ate it, he's been acting strangely. Suddenly, the line goes dead. Eiko then hears Nobuo groaning; his bedding squirms and undulates. The story ends with Eiko pulling off the covers, and screaming. | |||
| 7 | "Issun Boushi" "一寸法師" | () | |
| The title of this story is in reference to a traditional Japanese fairy tale of the same name. Before class, a college couple, Nanako and Miyama, discuss Issun Bōshi, a creature who grants a wish to whomever catches him. Miyama teases their friend Niimi to catch him, so he can wish for a girlfriend; the latter does not appreciate the jibe. Just then, a small shadow scurries between his feet. On his way home, he spots the shadow passing in front of his eyes and pursues it into a garden, but only finds a splatter on the bottom of his shoe. The next day, Niimi suffers from intense stomach pains. In the restroom, the side of his stomach suddenly painfully bulges, as if punched from the inside. A voice claiming to be Issun Bōshi threatens to continue doing this, unless Niimi "punishes" Miyama for spreading rumors about him. He then punches Niimi all over his body, resulting in painful bulges. Just then, Miyama enters the restroom to check on him, and Niimi reluctantly prepares to do Issun Bōshi's bidding... Niimi exits the restroom to find Nanako; Issun Bōshi insists that she be punished for laughing at him. Niimi apologizes to Nanako, before proceeding to "punish" her... | |||
| 8 | "Viewing" "Kyuukou"柩仰 | () | |
| A high school student, Chie, receives a call from a teacher named Mr. Sugiura notifying her that the school will be closed the next day to host a viewing, and advising her to not go to campus. Later, Chie and her friends discuss the strange notice, and all agree to meet at the school to investigate. When Chie arrives, she gets a text from her friends that they are waiting for her. Inside, there are no teachers, but the classrooms are full of sullen students, and she finds her friends in one of them. An announcement comes over the PA that the viewing is about to begin, and she takes her seat. The door slams open, and the entire class covers their eyes, as though crying, droning in unison. She then sees young men coming up the hallway, dragging a coffin behind them with ropes. Suddenly, the droning stops, and she notices everyone is staring at her. She flees to the back of the classroom, where she finds the coffin, whose lid slowly starts sliding off; a black mist is emanating from within. When the lid fully opens, she sees herself dead, surrounded by the black mist, before fading away. Outside, Chie's friends have arrived late; not seeing her, they quickly decide to go hang out elsewhere. | |||
| 9 | "Antlion Pit" "Arijigoku"蟻地獄 | () | |
| A young office worker named Saki works diligently as her coworkers gossip about their colleague Makiko, who has been absent for a week. Saki works until very late at night. The next day, exhausted and overworked, she happens upon an unfamiliar park while on break. She is suddenly struck with a vision of being in a desert under a darkened sky. A line of ants is wandering by an antlion pit at her feet. As she watches an ant sink, a voice asks if she is tired, and she suddenly finds herself sinking helplessly into the sand. She snaps out of it, then returns to her office. Her manager expresses concerns about her work, prompting her to wish she could just go far away. The next day, en route to work, she finds herself at the park, then wandering the desert again. A voice asks if she wants to go far away; she recognizes it as Makiko's, before suddenly falling into a sandpit. At the bottom, she sees an emaciated Makiko, who invites her to join her... Later, a young man is trying to find his way on the street, when he comes upon the park, which is not on the map. Suddenly, he sees a line of people in a desert under a dark sky. When he gets closer, they turn, revealing their emaciated faces; they laugh as he suddenly begins to sink into the sand. | |||
| 10 | "Footprints in the Snow" "Yuki no ashiato"雪の足跡 | () | |
| 11 | "Retribution" "Tatari"祟り | () | |
| 12 | "Telephone" "Ito denwa"糸電話 | () | |
| 13 | "Sleep-talking" "Negoto"寝言 | () | |
Notes and references [edit]
- Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h All English titles are taken from Crunchyroll.
- ^ As season 1 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:15 (02:15 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 2 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:35 (02:35 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 3 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:35 (02:35 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 4 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:35 (02:35 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 5 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:35 (02:35 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 6 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:35 (02:35 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 7 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:15 (02:15 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- ^ As season 8 premiered primarily in TV Tokyo's Sunday 26:15 (02:15 JST) time slot, the episodes technically aired the days following the ones listed.
- References
- ^ "Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories Anime Gets Ninja Collection Spinoff in July".
- ^ 闇芝居｜スタッフ・キャスト (in Japanese). TV Tokyo. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
- ^ "Grudge & Zaborgar Directors Make 2nd Yamishibai Anime Season". Anime News Network. February 4, 2014. Retrieved February 7, 2014.
- ^ "Yami Shibai Horror TV Anime Shorts to Premiere in July". Anime News Network. July 4, 2013. Retrieved July 27, 2013.
- ^ "闇芝居 番組 AT-X ワンランク上のアニメ専門チャンネル" (in Japanese). AT-X. Retrieved September 26, 2013.
- ^ "Crunchyroll Adds "SILVER SPOON", "The World God Only Knows: Goddesses" and "WATAMOTE" Anime to Streaming Lineup". Crunchyroll. July 6, 2013. Retrieved September 25, 2013.
- ^ "Crunchyroll to Stream "Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories 2" and "BARAKAMON" Anime". Crunchyroll. July 4, 2014. Retrieved July 6, 2014.
- ^ "闇芝居｜DVD" (in Japanese). TV Tokyo. Retrieved March 3, 2014.
- ^ "Sentai Filmworks Adds Yamishibai Horror Anime". Anime News Network. December 18, 2015. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
- ^ "Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories Season 2". Sentai Filmworks . Retrieved 2019-05-19 .
- ^ 都市伝説アニメ「闇芝居」 テレビ東京で4月より再始動 新エピソードに清水崇、井口昇、増本庄一郎ら (in Japanese). animeanime.jp. March 3, 2014. Retrieved March 4, 2014.
- ^ "3rd yamishibai horror anime season 2nd ad streamed". Anime News Network. December 21, 2015. Retrieved December 21, 2015.
- ^ "Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories Anime Gets 4th Season in January". Anime News Network. December 3, 2016. Retrieved December 3, 2016.
- ^ "Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories Anime Gets 5th Season in July". Anime News Network. June 12, 2017. Retrieved June 12, 2017.
- ^ "Sentai Filmworks ACEN 2019 Industry Panel Recap". Sentai Filmworks . Retrieved 2019-05-19 .
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 闇芝居｜新着情報 (in Japanese). TV Tokyo. Retrieved April 7, 2014.
- ^ "Eight Feet Tall | Hachishakusama | Urban Legend | Scary for Kids".
External links [edit]
- Official website (in Japanese)
How to Draw Headphone on a Man Anime
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamishibai:_Japanese_Ghost_Stories
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