What is Yotsuya Kaidan?
Yotsuya Kaidan is a ghost story about Oiwa, a daughter of the Tamiya family of Yotsuya in Edo (today’s Shinjuku, Tokyo). It was first performed in 1825 as the kabuki play Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan, written by the playwright Tsuruya Nanboku IV, and was a huge success. It has been adapted again and again for kabuki, film and television, and “Oiwa-san” is perhaps the most famous ghost in Japan.
The story of Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan
The masterless samurai Tamiya Iemon is married to Oiwa, but he falls for the daughter of a wealthy family and Oiwa becomes an obstacle. Unaware of his change of heart, Oiwa drinks a “medicine” sent from the neighbors, but it is a poison that disfigures her face. When she combs her hair, it falls out in clumps; seeing how hideously she has changed, Oiwa dies with a grudge against her husband.
Oiwa then appears to Iemon as a ghost, driving his new wife and her family to their deaths one after another, and finally destroying Iemon himself. Stage tricks such as the “door-panel flip,” with the bodies of Oiwa and a man nailed to the two sides of a door, and the “lantern escape,” in which Oiwa bursts out of a lantern, also caused a sensation.
The real Oiwa and Oiwa Inari
The model for Oiwa is said to have been a real woman of the Tamiya family, but according to the family’s actual records, she lived happily with her husband and helped the household prosper. The Inari household shrine she worshipped later came to be called “Oiwa Inari” and attracted many visitors; Oiwa Inari Tamiya Shrine still stands in Samoncho, Shinjuku.
There is a tradition that if those involved in staging or filming Yotsuya Kaidan do not visit a shrine dedicated to Oiwa first, a curse will bring accidents and injuries, and many actors and staff are said to visit to this day. Other representative Japanese ghost stories include Bancho Sarayashiki and Kasanegafuchi.
