Hey do you want to hear the most famous Japanese ghost story?
It’s called Yotsuya Kaidan (四谷怪談), or the Ghost Story of Yotsuya.
Yotsuya was an area in the old Japanese capital of Edo, where our characters live.
This story is so well-known that many call it the most famous ghost story in Japan.
There are a buttload of movies based on it, even that cute girl from the Ring is loosely
based on the ghost in this story.
Alright, our tragic tale begins with Oiwa (お岩), a sad wife in a sad marriage.
Her father is a ronin, a samurai without a master, and like many other ronin at the time,
he is living in poverty.
Being a good daughter, Oiwa secretly steals off into the pleasure district at night to
earn extra money to support her father.
Her husband, Tamiya Iemon (民谷伊右衛門), is also a ronin, and also poor.
This guy is always up to no good, stealing and scamming people for money.
Oiwa wants to leave him and escape her miserable marriage, and her father is all too happy
to support her decision.
Unfortunately, tragedy strikes.
One day Iemon comes home with grave news.
Oiwa’s father has just been killed by a bandit.
She breaks down crying and vows vengeance upon the murderer.
Seeing as his wife is only a woman, Iemon promises to avenge her father for her if she
agrees to forget the whole divorce thing.
And so she stays with him.
That turned out to be a not-wise decision.
Some time later, Oiwa gives birth to a baby boy, and then she becomes sick afterwards.
Now our couple is poor, remember.
The additional needs of a newborn and a sick wife makes Iemon grow bitter.
He shows little love for wife and child.
Now it happens that next to them lives a rich doctor who has a beautiful granddaughter named
Oume (お梅).
Oume loves Iemon and really really wants to marry him, but she is jealous of his wife
Oiwa, believing that Oiwa is more beautiful.
The old doctor would do anything for his granddaughter, so he agrees to help her.
He sends Oiwa an ointment to heal her sickness and tells her to rub it on her face.
Unfortunately, almost all the characters in this story are despicable.
The ointment burns and scars Oiwa’s face.
She doesn’t realize it though, thinking that the burning feeling is just the medicine
working.
Iemon, who already resents his wife remember, catches a glimpse of her face and is disgusted.
So when the old doctor delivered Iemon the marriage offer of his younger and more beautiful
granddaughter, Iemon was ecstatic.
And to sweeten the deal, the doctor promises him loads money and a job in the service of
a powerful lord.
Iemon would no longer be a ronin, but a full-fledged samurai.
Now if you didn’t hate Iemon yet, he’s about to do something that will put him in
the running for the Worst Husband in the World.
The gears in Iemon’s head begins to turn, winding up for betrayal.
He needs a good reason to divorce his wife.
Iemon pays a friend to forcibly have his way with Oiwa, so that he could accuse her of
adultery, then divorce her.
The friend is a man named Takuetsu (宅悦).
At the designated night, he enters the couple’s home while Iemon is away, and sees Oiwa and
her disfigured face.
Now maybe he feels sorry for her, or maybe his conscience caught up with him.
Whatever the reason, Takuetsu does not go through with the plan.
Instead, he confesses everything.
He also reveals that her father was not killed by a bandit, but by her own husband.
Her father had tried to convince Iemon to divorce her, like she wanted, and Iemon had
killed him for it.
Oiwa’s entire reason for staying with her husband until now was based on a lie.
She realizes she is married to her father’s murderer.
And then Takuetsu puts a mirror in front of Oiwa’s face.
Oiwa recoils at the horror staring at her.
Angry, grieving, and understanding what a monster her husband and friends are, Oiwa
prepares to go confront the doctor.
She tries to comb her still beautiful hair over the red scarred patch that covers half
her face, but the comb detaches her hair from her scalp in big bloody masses.
This breaks her.
Oiwa screams, grabs a sword, and heads for the door.
Takuetsu tries to stop her.
She evades him, but slips and drives the sword through her throat.
Oiwa falls to the floor, a pool of red growing beneath her.
Takuetsu can hear her voice cursing Iemon’s name over and over until it fades into silence.
The next morning, a servant discovers the corpse and tells Iemon.
Being the wonderful human being that he is, Iemon is overjoyed and cuts down the servant,
then tells everyone that his wife was cheating with the servant.
And this is where the story takes a turn.
With his wife disposed of, Iemon marries the young Oume.
The wedding night does not go as expected though.
When he turns toward his bride, instead of her beautiful face, he sees the mutilated
face of his dead wife Oiwa.
Shocked, he grabs a sword and cuts her down, at which point Oiwa’s face vanishes, revealing
that he has just killed his new bride.
Iemon runs out, and standing there in front of him is his servant, still with the wound
Iemon gave him.
Iemon cuts him down too, but obviously it was not his servant, it was the old doctor.
He flees, but Oiwa’s ghost greets him everywhere he goes.
He sees her scarred face and ruined eye on people, in the lanterns, even in his dreams.
It becomes hard to tell what is real and what is illusion.
Iemon runs deep into the mountains to find peace,
but in the end he finds only madness.
Okay, couple cool things to talk about.
Oiwa is an onryo (怨霊), a vengeful spirit.
That’s a type of ghost that returns after death to seek revenge.
This story, Yotsuya Kaidan was a kabuki play that came out in 1825 in the Edo Period, and
it was a huge hit.
The iconic, most unforgettable scene for Edo audiences was the one of Oiwa combing her
hair.
Hair combing was considered super sexy in those days.
The play subverted an alluring scene and turned it into something horrifying.
The play debuted alongside the hugely popular play about the 47 Ronin, which we’ve talked
about in a previous video.
These two plays were shown together, and there was a reason for it.
Both plays have similar themes of revenge and samurai honor.
The 47 ronin want to avenge their lord, Oiwa wants to avenge her father.
Oiwa is in a samurai family, she isn’t a samurai but she is part of the samurai class.
Honor dictates that she help her father by working in the pleasure district and that
she avenge her father, even if it means staying in an unhappy marriage.
The two plays let us peer into the mindset of the people in Edo Japan.
At this point, samurai were not the fearsome warriors of previous eras.
It was a peaceful time.
Many samurai became ronin, samurai without masters, and often lived in poverty.
Edo art and literature would express nostalgia for the past.
Brave and honorable samurai were all gone, people said, now they were just criminals
and ruffians.
The two plays contrast with each other.
The 47 ronin are portrayed as the models of honor, but Yotsuya Kaidan represents the perception
that the samurai had gone downhill, no longer the samurai of old.
The ronin in the story are poor and generally terrible people.
Iemon was a douche.
Even his friend Takuetsu was almost willing to force himself upon a woman.
Soo this story was actually suggested by Chris Beratis in the YouTube comments and voted
for by patrons on Patreon.
Alright so y’all nuts.
We got 2 more new emperors this week.
Eder A. Pacheco and Kuro Koneko.
Thank you soo much you are awesome.
And then we had a wave of new patrons, what is going on?
George Bolgar sounds like something from Lord of the Rings, find shelter the Bolgar cometh,
Ralf Hoelderle, Schadenfraulein, Brandon Widmann, oh thank you Brandon, Tom Bückle, Michael
Nooner he’s a spooner, Chaney Lum, and Darkone2.
Wow you are kinda making my dreams come true.
Anyways, love you, and spread the knowledge.
I like watching NaruTOE.