A Japanese Story

by Steven Clarke (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Japan

A decapitated head tied to balcony railings by the hair. A body hung on a rope from the loft cavity by a vengeful ex-wife and left to bleed and fester in the summer’s heat. At least a casual throat-cutting using the broken remains of a bathroom mirror, surely. As I stand looking at Tokyo’s latest suburban offering, the large structure seems ominously innocent. “So, what’s wrong with this one?” I ask my realtor, Aiko. “This one…” she replies with a grimace as we head for the steps to the second floor..., “I don’t want to say.” Crikey. It must be bad. I’ve spent the last two months since my arrival in Japan desperately needing a house and today, I’m searching for a property the Japanese call Jiko Bukken: a house that has a story of an unfortunate murder, suicide, fire or accident. Not only are these houses quite a lot cheaper than others but in the competitiveness of the Tokyo housing market, they are also easy to get. Nobody else wants them. The Japanese are unwaveringly credulous of ghosts, rancorous spirits and other karmic spectres. I think it’s fair to say, I’ve become a bit obsessed with the horrible histories these houses hide. This morning alone, Aiko’s taken me to houses with stories of previous occupants being burned alive from a misplaced New Year firework, a crushed skull from the weight of a toppled refrigerator, and a school boy so convinced his parents were going to sacrifice him on his sixteenth birthday, he murdered them first. Aiko’s only required by law to tell me what type of death the previous occupant suffered, but she can’t resist the Japanese penchant to indulge in a good horror story at the same time. She told me how the boy, plagued for months by a malevolent ijin living in his cupboard, snuck into his parent’s bedroom at night and choked his father with one of his own work ties before bashing his mother’s head with a hammer and then sleeping the night in their bed. It’s a horrifying thought, but it tingles like wasabi. Other trips revealed stories of alternative nightmares; death from the teeth of a possessed Kabosu yokai; lung puncture from the barbecue fork of an inheritance seeking in-law. The stories are enthralling, and told by Aiko with true Japanese gruesomeness, but the houses attached have so far been equally unpalatable. I’m getting desperate. We arrive at the door and Aiko opens it anxiously. “I won’t go in this one” she says as she ushers me inside. I step in. It’s a 2LDK. Two bedrooms. One multi-purpose room. The cabinets and floors are a cellophane-smelling new. The walls a juvenile magnolia. The rooms are all fourteen square metres or more: bigger than almost all Tokyo houses. It’s got shoji doors, and unspoilt windows and sills meaning any traces of whatever happened here has long since been bleached away. It’s perfect, and at only 55,000 yen per month, it’s an absolute steal. Maybe I’m also influenced somewhat by the cult horror movies of Japan that reached Western shores, but as I look around I can’t help speculating over what could have happened in this house to be so unspeakably bad. I imagine a dutiful red oni demon peeling off the skin of a serial adulterer only to leave him alive for weeks before orchestrating a falling knife, dropped from above, and straight into the mouth he would have used to gasp. After celebrating with a justice dance, the oni demon disappears to punish another wicked soul: the perfect mystery. I think I’m getting hooked. As I return to the open air, I have to know, so I ask Aiko again. She hesitates at first. “Kodoku-Shi. Do you know what that mean?” I shake my head. “The worst death of all. It mean she die alone here. Her body was here more tha’ two month before her neighbour smell something.” “Oh”, I said, trying to conceal my disappointment at her lack of embellishment. That’s it? No rotting corpses being eaten by carnivorous cats? No disembowelment followed by human cannibalism? “That’s terrible” I say, “Well…, maybe we should look at the next one then.”