Spirit of Nippon.

You know, if all these Japanese ghost stories that I’m watching on YouTube – and which purport to be dramatisations of actual experiences – are true, Japan must be about the most haunted country in the world. That’s something that used to be said of Britain, but maybe their rising sun is eclipsing ours now that we’re becoming more internationally-minded.

Their ghosts are weird, though. Comfy British ghosts do nice comfy things, like rattling chains and walking through walls trying not to drop their heads in the process. Japanese ghosts are much darker of habit. They do things like lying in front of women’s lavatories, long black hair spreading around their recumbent heads like pools of blood, tripping people up. Or pushing bicycles along city streets when the living are trying to ride them. Some of them are even funny. Here’s one to be going on with: