The children’s song “Sacchan”
“Sacchan” is a children’s song published in 1959, with words by the writer Sakata Hiroo and music by Onaka Megumi. A cheerful song about a little girl named Sachiko, it has three verses. Sung in kindergartens and elementary schools, it is one of Japan’s best-loved children’s songs.
The Sacchan urban legend
From around the 1990s, however, a frightening rumor about the song spread among children: that “Sacchan” really has a fourth verse no one knows, telling how Sacchan lost her legs in a railway crossing accident and died.
Sometimes more is added: “Sacchan, who lost her legs, comes at night to anyone who has heard this story, looking for her legs,” and “to be saved, put a picture of a banana by your pillow.” A ghost who has lost her legs also resembles the story of Teke Teke.
Is there really a fourth verse?
The real song has only three verses; there is no fourth. There is no record of the lyricist writing such a verse, and the phantom fourth verse is thought to be a rumor made up among children and spread by word of mouth and online.
Precisely because everyone knows the cheerful song, the surprise that “it really has a scary meaning” caught children’s interest and spread as a rumor. Similar scary rumors are told about Green Green and Ichinensei ni Nattara.
