When each legend entered the record.

Before 1945

Modern legends already moved through newspapers and word of mouth. Rumors could spread across a city fast enough to be reported as news in their own right.

1. Japan · 1880s

   Kokkuri-san — From Meiji-era table-turning to the coin-and-paper game of 1970s classrooms: what is documented about Kokkuri-san.

2. Japan · 1930s

   Aka Manto — How a 1930s rumor about a red-caped kidnapper became the “red cape or blue cape?” voice in school toilets.

Postwar to the 1980s

Mass schooling, commuter suburbs, and weekly magazines gave rumors new routes. Many legends from this period were carried mainly by children and only later written down.

1. Japan · c. 1948

   Hanako-san — A c. 1948 Iwate rumor that grew into Japan’s best-known school-toilet legend.

2. Kyoto · road tunnel since 1960

   Kiyotaki Tunnel — A 1929 railway tunnel turned one-lane road: what is documented, what is rumor, and why the signal became the legend.

3. Hokkaido · 1918 / 1962

   The Okiku Doll — The doll at Mannenji temple in Iwamizawa said to grow hair: the temple’s account and the versions that disagree.

4. Japan · 1965

   Ushi no Kubi — The ghost story no one will repeat: Komatsu Sakyō’s 1965 tale, a 1973 essay, and a possible 1926 predecessor.

5. Japan · 1978–79

   Kuchisake-onna — The slit-mouthed woman: a 1978 Gifu rumor that became a national school panic in 1979.

6. Japan · 1980s–2000s

   Teke Teke — An Okinawan recollection c. 1980, 1990s school-ghost books, a separate railway legend, and the 2009 film.

7. Japan · 1989–90

   Jinmenken — The dog with a tired man’s face: the 1989–90 rumor boom, its Edo-period precursors, and the magazine theory.

The message-board era

Anonymous boards such as 2channel let a single post be copied, extended, and debated. Many legends from this period have a traceable first post — and a long tail of later additions.

1. Fukuoka · 1999

   Inunaki Village — The village is a legend; the closed tunnel and the dam are real. What is documented and what is rumor.

2. Aomori · c. 1999–2000

   Sugisawa Village — A village said to be wiped out in one night and erased from the records: a late-1990s TV feature, a web boom, and real models.

3. Japan · 2000–03

   Kunekune — A 2000 web story, a 2001 2channel post, and the 2003 thread that named the white figure in the rice field.

4. Japanese web · 2000

   Saru Yume — An August 2000 forum post about a dream train — what the original said and what retellings added.

5. Japan · 2001

   The Samejima Incident — A 2001 2channel legend of an incident too terrible to describe, and the thread, rules and films that kept it alive.

6. Japanese web · 2003

   The Red Room — Akai Heya: a Flash horror work and web curse about a red pop-up you cannot close.

7. Japan · 2004

   Kisaragi Station — The January 2004 2channel thread: Hasumi’s live report of a train to a station not on any map.

8. Japan · 1919 / 2004

   Tomino’s Hell — Saijō Yaso’s 1919 poem and the modern warning that reading it aloud brings misfortune.

9. Japan · 2005

   Kotoribako — A June 2005 forum story, not an old Shimane tradition — how it was built and why its framing matters.

10. Japan · 2007

    Hitori Kakurenbo — The 2channel-era ritual in which a doll plays “it”: its 2007 spread, the media wave, and why it is better read than tried.

11. Japan · 2008

    Hachishaku-sama — A single 2008 2channel post about an eight-shaku visitor, the sealed room, and the 2021 revival.

Reading the dates

Each dossier explains what its date is based on — a newspaper report, an archived thread, a published collection — and how confident that dating is. When a story clearly existed earlier in spoken form, the dossier says so rather than treating the first written version as its birth.