Japan is home to some of the strangest fictional creatures on Earth.
I’m not 100% sure why this is the case, but it’s irrefutable.
The folklore is full of freaky fiends and oddly specific spirits.
Did you know that there’s a critter that loves licking the filth in dirty bathrooms?
Or a sentient lump of rotten human flesh that exists mostly to stink?
Yokai and all of the associated oddities have been featured in just about every type of
media imaginable, from ancient wall scrolls to videogames and webcomics.
There’s a monster for everyone to love, and different iterations of the most popular
ones to ensure anyone can experience it! While a lot of them are sort of silly, others
can be downright terrifying. And sometimes the goofiest ones are scream-inducing
in their own special way. Hello horror heads, and welcome back to the
scariest channel on YouTube: Top5ScaryVideos. I’m your horror host, Keegan Hughes, and
today we’re going to be discussing the Top5 Scariest Monsters From Japanese Folklore.
Before we get started, make sure to give this video a big thumbs up, and subscribe for more
salacious spirits! Perfect, let’s get going.
NUMBER FIVE: THE KAMAITACHI You like your limbs, right?
You’d rather they didn’t fly off in the blink of an eye?
Well, then you’d be best to avoid these wind weasels as best you can.
Also known as the sickle weasel, the Kamaitachi usually roams around on whirlwinds in groups
of three. Sometimes they’re brothers, sometimes even
triplets, but the trio aspect is pretty immovable. These little fuzzy flayers like to run around
and cut people’s legs off. At the ankles or calves is the usual choice,
but you never know! The method of slicing and dicing is pretty
ubiquitous. The first weasel will knock the victim down.
The seconds will come through with a sickle and slice the leg off.
Then, the third and final fellow will run through, sew up the wounds, and put some numbing
medicine on the newly stumpefied limbs. This all happens so fast, that most folks
don’t even notice their legs are gone until they’re staring up at the clouds.
Blink, and you’ll miss it. At first, the numbing agent makes it so there’s
no pain, but that will wear off eventually and then you get to deal with the pain of
having your legs hacked off and sewn up by a tiny mammal.
NUMBER FOUR: HYOSUBE Are you ready for my quick description of
this? Okay.
This is an eggplant-stealing filth goblin. Doesn’t that sound just wonderful?
These short, hairy, dirty humanoids run around like they own the place, and kill a whole
lot of folks as a result. If you see one, you will die.
And they don’t do a very good job of staying out of sight.
Hide and seek, this is not. They wander about, just waiting for an unfortunate
soul to behold them. As they live out their terrible little lives,
they also eat all the eggplants in your garden! Oh, you were going to make some babaganoush?
Well, TOO BAD! Hyosube say FUCK your dip-based meals, and FUCK YOU, too.
All the aubergines get consumed, and they trample the fields for good measure.
Jerks. The only way to avoid accidentally seeing
one is to leave out some prime eggplants for them, but even this is hit and miss.
For some reason, eating your crops and ruining your fields isn’t enough, and Hyosube also
like to use your bathtub. And like I mentioned earlier, they’re very
dirty little creatures. They’re known for leaving behind ridiculous
amounts of filth, like hair, dirt, and scum. To me, finding someone else’s filth in my
bathroom is around an 8 on the heebie-jeebies scale, so this is absolutely life-altering
information. And by the way: you can’t throw out the
bath water or it’ll kill you. Honestly? I’d rather die than live with
a tub full of goblin stink for the rest of my tenure.
NUMBER THREE: TSUCHIGUMO Monsters have been mashed for as long as we
can remember. And it’s not always a graveyard smash, mind
you. Sometimes it’s the combination of many real,
living creatures to make something extra nightmarish. Manticores. Chimeras. Ligers.
Maybe that last one is real. I bounce between Napoleon Dynamite and Joe Exotic for opinions
on the mystical status of a lion-tiger crossbreed. Back to the Tsuchigumo though.
This is a beast with the body of a tiger, the limbs of a spider, and the face of a demon.
Part real mammal, part real (albeit much smaller) arachnid, part mythical monster.
Hell yeah. I wanna fight this in a videogame. But if I’m not behind an LCD screen and
a super-powerful avatar, I would never EVER want to cross one of these.
Apparently Tsuchigumo were known for eating travellers as they made their way across the
countryside. In the remote fields, no one can hear you
scream. One or two travelling morsels wasn’t enough,
either. In one tale, a powerful warrior took one down,
and sliced it open. You know, to loot the body. We’re back in
the videogame world. Inside were 1990 skulls.
Ten shy of two thousand. That is a prolific people eater.
NUMBER TWO: JOROGUMO If you’ve ever seen the Spookies, you’ll
know that the best monster in the ridiculous mish-mash is a spider woman.
Now, the monster who drains the puppeteer dry and the Jorogumo aren’t identical, but
they share the two major components of spider-women: the spider part, and the woman part.
Deep analysis, I know. But getting trapped in a sticky web and having
all of your fluids drained does not sound fun!
In fact, it sounds like a terrible time! Which is why arachnid gals are the worst!
The Jorogumo is an ancient creature, with depictions dating back to the Edo period in
Japan. It’s upper half is that of a beautiful woman,
while the lower half is hairy spider legs. We’ve all been there, right?
It will lure men to a shack in the middle of nowhere, snare their prey in a web, and
then eat them alive. Apparently, when a spider hits year 400, it
gains magical transformative powers. I don’t know what kinds of spiders live
that long, but who am I to judge a creature with that much longevity?
I probably won’t make it to 50! In addition to some Jorogumo using their feminine
charm to trap men, there are also versions that will manipulate good folks before devouring
them. These spider-women will show up with what
seems to be a baby, begging for help. Soft-hearted people spring at the opportunity
to help this poor mother, and end up being torn apart by thousands of freshly hatched
baby spiders. You ever seen a spider nest burst open?
Oh no no no no no no no no. NUMBER ONE: TEKE TEKE
A more modern piece of Japanese folklore, but with enough scare factor and staying power
to top today’s list. This is the tale of a girl who fell on the
train tracks, and was cut in half by a passing train.
Somehow, she was left alive, and continued to survive even when her torso was completely
separate from her legs. The upper half of this poor gal stalks the
night, attacking commuters and dooming them to the same fate.
Sometimes Teke Teke will cut the train-goers in half herself, using a sickle of some sorts.
Other times, she’ll just force them onto the tracks so they can experience a train
running them over too. One might wonder where the name Teke Teke
comes from, and like in a lot of Japanese folklore, it originates with onomatopoeia.
See, this half-person’s exposed spine scratches against the pavement, and makes a very distinctive
sound. And in Japan, that sound is characterized
as Teke Teke. Yeah, she’s named after bones being dragged
across concrete. Hardcore.
More than probably any of the other entries on this list, Teke Teke makes regular appearances
in horror movies, manga, and anime. It really feels like a modern tale, too. Much
more gruesome and human. Plus the method of disfigurement is based
entirely in modern times. OUTRO
As much fun it would be to visit Japan, I’m also sort of worried that I would get chopped
in half or tricked into being food for some godawful beast.
I suppose that’s true of visiting anywhere with plenty of folklore.
Maybe I’ll just stay in the basement forever. What did you think of the list?
Which of the five is your fave? What’s your favourite monster from Japanese
folklore? Make sure you let me know down in the comments.
Speaking of comments, let’s take a look at some of your more rugged ones from the
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Don’t worry, I won’t tell your boss. And that’s all the time we have for today!
Before I walk under a ladder while crossing a black cat and stepping on a sidewalk crack,
make sure to give this video a big thumbs up, and subscribe for more island-based beasts.
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you next time.