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''For the Japanese Film, see School Ghost Stories. For the Japanese TV anime, see Ghost Stories (Japanese TV series).''

School ghost stories (学校の怪談 Gakkō no Kaidan) is the general term of horror stories, terrible rumors and mysterious phenomena, especially attaching to Japanese schools.

It is the field which similar to Japanese folklore and Japanese urban legend, but it can characterize with two points: 1) the stories have strong links between school buildings, the history of each school and school events 2) the stories circulate between students or teachers, the people who gathers to schools.

The Origin
In the late 1980’s, Tōru Tsunemitsu (常光徹) had been publishing school ghost stories to a special paper, which had collected meticulously using a way like gathering old tales from folkloric stand. He rewrote the stories to be easy to read children and published as Gakkō no Kaidan (Kodansha, 1990). It became a best-seller, and this was the very beginning ‘school ghost stories’ became popular in Japan.

Because of the characteristic of ghost stories (or oral tradition), it is almost impossible to identify who are the rumors’ original speakers, and it is inevitable that each stories have little differences in the details or conclusions. There are too many patterns of stories, so it is also impossible to collect all them completely and write down here.

The followings are the few examples of school ghost stories.

The School Building
At a public high school, for five or six consecutive years each, incumbent school stuffs had died. The causes were a cancer, a heart disease, an accident in a mountain and so on. Meanwhile, a rumor began to circulate: ‘This school building had been built with removing cemetery, so probably this chain of events is the curses.’ However, another one also died after first purification, so all teachers joined to the second purification; and finally no one has been dead.

The Schoolyard
In a school in Tokyo, when students were running on the schoolyard, sometimes a hand came out from the ground and tripped up their heels. The yard was dogged up and bones of hand were found. Ever since they were purified, strange phenomenon has been stopped.

The Swimming Pool
When I was a junior high school student, I heard this tale from my friend; a few years ago, when a swimming-club-student was practicing, the hair tangled with his (or her) feet and he (or she) was nearly drown.

The Corridor
When you are walking on the corridor, variety colors' girl faces appear on the wall and ask you, 'Which color is the best?'

The Principal's Office
An elementary school was going to be closed. When the school’s principal woke up at his office, six successive principals had come out of the pictures and been sitting on a sofa. He was surprised, and they looked at him and brought up, ‘Please don’t close this school.’

The Night Duty
In the 56 or 57 years of the Showa period, when a school guard was on night patrol, he heard an extension telephone rings noisily. Of course there ought to be only him in the school building then.

The School Gym
In the evening, after the club activity finished, a volleyball is bouncing of itself in the empty school gym.

The Gymnasium Warehouse
In a school’s gymnasium warehouse, there was an apparatus which didn't use ordinarily. One day, some students were near the warehouse; then one of them entered there and suddenly vanished. The windows had been closed. Nothing unusual on the wall and the ceiling. He didn’t even come back just like being spirited away (神隠し, Kami-kakushi). The rumor ‘he might enter a different dimension space’ spread, and finally the warehouse has been kept closed.

The Toilet
I heard this tale when I was a fifth grader, in the 52 years of the Showa. When you walk around at the most oldest, vault type toilet and call “Hanako-san (花子さん)”, her reply may come. Many students had tried it and two types of theories, the reply came and didn’t come were.

The Classroom
In the 46 or 47 years of the Showa period, I heard this tale from my classmate. A student did the table turning “狐狗狸さん, Kokuri-san” with her friends. She was a little sensitive to spiritual things, and even the class began, she was sitting in a vacant-eyed stare with gesturing “the sign of the horns (in Japan this gesture means 'the fox')”. Everyone patted and shook her and at last she recovered consciousness. And said, ‘I had been to Kokuri-san’s place. I had heard it likes deep-fried tofu too, but the favorite one is the dead cat.’ After that, to purify Kokuri-san, the member dedicated an Inari shrine at the backyard of the gym.

The Stairs
In the junior high school, there had been a dormitory for the students attending from far spots. And this is the tale about the dormitory’s stairs. It has been said that when you count the number of stairs with going up and going down, one stair increase or decrease in each patterns. The another tale says that comparing with the day and the night, the one-stair-gap would arise.

The Library
During the time the night duty system on the library still had been, only Mr. A had exempted the duty officially. The reason is, when he was on duty and sleeping at a night, a suicided student’s Yūrei (ghost) appeared and got on the top of his chest.

The Science Room
It is something that the frogs in formalin, on the science room’s shelf, begin to croak in the after school.

The Music Room
This is one of the “seven-strange-stories” of an elementary school; at midnight, a piano in the wooden lecture hall makes sounds of itself. In the past, when a student was playing that piano, suddenly the lid banged, so all her fingers were cut off and she died. The sounds are that she has still been playing.

The Art Room
In the school, it is something that the picture Mona Lisa in the art room sometimes cries or smiles. One schoolgirl went to the art room at night to get what she had left behind, but someone’s sobbing heard in the room, so she got scared and ran away. In the next early morning, she went the room again; then Mona Lisa extended her arms and choked the girl. Despite being surprised, she hit Mona Lisa’s hand with a vase and escaped. Later when she went the art room to check it, there was a bruise on Mona Lisa’s hand in the picture.

The Home Economics Room
This is one of the “seven-strange-stories” of an elementary school; when you turn on a gas stove in a home economics class, sometimes a dead teacher’s face appears in the fire.

Slit Mouth Woman (口裂け女, Kuchisake-onna)
Being contributed the influence of the media, the rumor ‘emergence of Kuchisake-onna’ rapidly spread centering on elementary schools. Schoolchildren’s fear had swelled up and some of    them said they saw the real Kuchisake-onna. Other ones bought Bekkoame (Japanese: 鼈甲飴, means the candy of tortoiseshell; the Japanese candy made from sugar and a little of water, and the color is like tortoiseshell) and put them in the schools’ desks, and others wrote the word “pomade” on every single wall which is around the school to flee the Kuchisake-onna’s disaster.

The School Camp
On the first day’s night in the school camp, if you are hard to get to sleep, a strange old woman come noiselessly, looks into your face and says “Will I put you to sleep?”

The School Trip
Before the school trip to Ise, a twins’ older one had got killed in a traffic accident. The survived younger sister joined the trip. Somebody saw that when the younger sister was sleeping in the inn, her dead older sister was beside her with same sleeping face. She was also in the souvenir photograph with her younger sister, and some students saw her during the trip.

The Gakushū juku (Japanese: 学習塾; see cram school)
Around eight at night, after the class of juku, two students were on their ways to each homes. Suddenly they noticed a man’s shadow was between them walking alongside. They quickened their paces and the shadow followed them quickly. They looked back, but no one was there and the shadow also disappeared. They got feared and began to run; then that man’s shadow appeared between them again and began to rum together! They couldn’t look back no longer and desperately went back their homes.

The "Seven-Strange-Stories of School"
Here, the seven-strange-stories, or the seven wonders, have no relation to “the Seven Wonders of the World.”

Just like the above examples (2.1.14 & 2.1.16), if a school has many individual horror stories, all them are sometimes put together and called “seven-strange-stories.” Of course the stories’ lineup are different between each schools. Moreover, in spite of the name “seven,” some school may have “eight” stories or another ones may have only “six” stories.

Sometimes the contents are rounded off with this phrase: ‘you mustn’t find the seventh tale. If you did, you would meet with misfortune, or even lose your life.’