Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai (百物語怪談会, lit. "A Gathering of One Hundred Supernatural Tales") was a popular didactic Buddhist-inspired parlour game during the Edo period in Japan.
Play edit
The game is played after nightfall in one of two ways.
The simplest form involves participants sitting in a circle in a room where 100 andon lamps or candles are lit. As participants take turns telling ghost stories and tales of the supernatural, a lantern is snuffed out after each story, causing the room to become darker and darker as the night and the game progress.
A second variation integrates elements of a kimodameshi 'test of courage' into the game. Rather than one room, three connected rooms are used. In one of the end rooms, 99 andon lamps or candles are lit, and a small mirror positioned on a table. Guests gather in the other end room, with the 100th lamp. The center room remains empty and unlit. Ideally, the rooms are arranged in an "L" shape so guests can see the light from the lantern room, but have no direct line of sight from the storytelling room into the lantern room, but this is not required. After each story, the storyteller takes the lamp, leaving the other participants in darkness as they pass through the center, empty room and into the lantern room. There, they extinguish one of the 99 lamps, look into the mirror, and then return back to the group. The final lamp is extinguished after the final storyteller, or entire group, travels to the lantern room to snuff it out in front of the mirror.
The game is considered a ritual method of summoning spirits, with the supernatural arriving and being present in the darkness after the 100th lamp is snuffed out. Due to this superstition, it is a common practice for participants to leave the game incomplete, and stop after the ninety-ninth tale, symbolically leaving the 100th story untold and the final lamp still lit to prevent summoning any supernatural beings who may have been drawn by the stories. On a practical note, completing all 100 tales takes many hours and players may run out of stories, so shorter versions of the game are popular.
Because so many stories are required to complete the full game, guests often began to bring books and anthologies of ghoulish encounters and folkloric tales passed on by villagers who claimed to have experienced supernatural encounters to recite. These tales soon became known as kaidan.
History edit
The exact origins of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai are unknown. It is believed that it was first played amongst the samurai class as a test of courage. In Ogita Ansei's 1660 nursery tale "Otogi Monogatari" a version of the game was described in which the narrative tells of several young samurai telling tales in the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai fashion. In the tale, as one samurai finished the one hundredth tale, he began to extinguish the candle when suddenly he sees a giant gnarled hand descend upon him from above. While some of the samurai cowered in fear, a swipe of his sword revealed the hand to be merely the shadow of a spider.[1]
Summertime is the traditionally-preferred season for playing Hyakumonogatari. This is both because Obon, the Japanese festival of the dead, takes place in summer, and because of the Japanese folk belief that the shivers and goosebumps from being afraid have a cooling affect desired in the sweltering summer heat.[2]
At first, the game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai was popular amongst the aristocratic warrior class, but it soon garnered favorable reputation amongst the working class peasants and town people. With a heightened interest in telling newer and original kaidan, people began scouring the countryside for tales of the mysterious, many of which combined a mixture of ghostly vengeance and elements of karma in Buddhism.
A true popular phenomenon, the hype of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai combined with new printing technology created a boom in the publication of kaidan-themed books collecting appropriate tales from every corner of Japan and China. In 1677 the first kaidan-shu was published. Known as Shokoku Hyakumonogatari, or 100 Tales of Many Countries, the book earned popularity for having been a compilation of tales from people residing in several countries, and who further claimed each tale was true.
Later books in this genre also often used the term Hyakumonogatari in the title, and the popularity of many of these tales continued long after the fad for the game had faded.
In other media edit
The game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai became a cult phenomenon in Japan, and while the hype of these tales has receded, many J-horror films and Japanese urban legends can be attributed to the parlour game's influence.
Woodblock painter and founder of the Maruyama-Shijo School of Painting, Maruyama Okyo is considered the first artist to offer paintings of the yurei who were frequently cast in kaidan.[3]
The telling of the tales in a hyakumonogatari Kaidankai formed the basis of the film, Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters released in 1968.[4]
In 2002, Fuji TV released the television program "Kaidan Hyakumonogatari" using the basis of the game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai to tell classic Japanese ghost stories. The series starred Naoto Takenaka and showcased 11 episodes, including an episode which focused on the tale of Yuki Onna.
The popularity of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai is not limited to Japan, in the Episode "Freshman Fear" of the A&E docu-drama reality television series Paranormal State, members of Penn State Paranormal Research Society play the Ancient Japanese Game of One Hundred Candles during their investigation of a supposed haunting in a student dormitory.
Other cultural influences include:
- In the tenth episode of the anime xxxHolic Yūko invites Watanuki, Doumeki and Himawari to the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.
- In Season 2, Ep. 13 of the anime School Rumble, the students of 2-C can be seen playing the game throughout the episode.
- An adaptation opens the anime series Ghost Hunt.
- In the manga Sundome the members of the Roman Club play Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai in one scene.
- In the spin-off manga "Girls und Panzer: Motto Love Love Sakusen Desu!", the girls in the Senshado club organize a Hyakumonogatari night (with the Edo Period history buff making full use of the rakugo conventions). The game is seen in a more comical tone, with the various team recounting mysterious events like everything was either completely normal or of no importance.
- One of the Conversation Skills in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment is the '100 Stories', with a special reward for when players manage to display all 100 scripted stories.
- Hyakumonogatari Kaidan can be read in Persona 4 to increase Courage.
- A 1968 film starring Miwa Takada
- In the fifth episode of the anime Sengoku Otome: Momoiro Paradox, the main characters are forced to participate in this by a group of undead samurai warriors.
- In the book Night Film by Marisha Pessl.
- In Kaidan Restaurant anime where each episode is broken up into three "dishes" (Appetizer, Main Dish, and Dessert), the "Dessert" is a ghost story told by one of the main characters while playing Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.
- In the 3rd novel of The Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village Series
- In MMORPG The Secret World, friendly ultraterrestrials explain in communications left around Tokyo's Oni-and-Elder-God-besieged Kaidan neighborhood that <<Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai>> was a name originally referring to themselves before it was given to the game, which they had in fact created in order to gently educate humanity about the dangers facing it in such places.
- In Anthony Bourdain’s comic series Hungry Ghosts, the game is used as a framing device to tell several horror stories derived from popular folklore.
- In the Legend of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game tabletop RPG, the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai features prominently in the sourcebook Book of Void, both as a game played by characters in the setting and as a particular book called Hyakumonogatari Kaidenkai.
- In the anime Yamishibai, the season finale has a group of characters playing the game and reciting all the past episodes throughout the series.
See also edit
References edit
- ^ http://www.sarudama.com/japanese_folklore/kaidan_modern.shtml Archived 2014-10-03 at the Wayback Machine A Brief History of Kaidan
- ^ https://workinjapan.today/culture/season-of-ghosts-the-japanese-tradition-of-scary-summer-stories/
- ^ "Japanese Ghosts | Ghosts around the world | all_pages". Archived from the original on 2013-11-10. Retrieved 2013-11-10.
- ^ Jane, Sarah (10 July 2017). "Overlooked & Underseen: Yokai Monsters: One Hundred Monsters (1968)". Talk Film Society.
- Addiss, Steven, Japanese Ghosts and Demons, USA, George Braziller, Inc., 1986, ISBN 0-8076-1126-3
External links edit
- Tales of Ghostly Japan Japanzine By Zack Davisson
- A Brief History of Kaidan
- Asian Folklore Studies: The Appeal of Kaidan Tales of the Strange. Archived 2011-08-11 at the Wayback Machine
- The Ghosts of Japan
- Information on The Kaidan Suite, a musical interpretation of hyaku monogatari by the Kitsune Ensemble.
- Hyakumonogatari.com