2023 | 6 min read
Tokyo has a rich store of urban legends. These ten tales will make your skin crawl, your toes curl, and your fingers do that weird cracking thing. Note: as with all urban legends, there’s a fair amount of truth-bending in these tales.
Private Utility Pole
There once lived a notorious hi-fi enthusiast who resented sharing electricity with his neighbours. Secretly, he began to covet his own private utility pole. Unsure what to do, this man did what anyone would do in the circumstances: he ordered one online. After taking delivery of his pole – he was careful to select the option “Just leave it outside” – the selfish audiophile then spent all of Saturday connecting it to the grid. On Sunday morning, he cued up King Crimson’s In the Court of King Crimson and settled back to enjoy pure unadulterated sound. It was like nothing else he had ever heard, as though English rock guitarist Robert Fripp was climbing through his internal organs, plucking and bending the strings of his body. Overcome with emotion, the man then did what anyone would do in the circumstances: he made some coffee.
Purikura for the Dead
Sunshine 60 in Ikebukuro was Asia’s tallest building on its completion in 1978. The 60-storey tower is notorious for being built on the grounds of the old Sugamo Prison, where seven Class A war criminals were hanged after World War Two. It’s rumoured that a small group of nationalist politicians continues to pay respect to the wartime leaders by posing for an annual group photo in the purikura photo booth on the 60th floor. Afterwards, it’s rumoured they play a commemorative round of simulation golf.
Imperial Train Set
The Imperial Palace in the centre of Tokyo is a modest building surrounded by trees. However, the palace is rumoured to sit above the world’s largest basement, which contains all the gifts ever received by the Imperial Family, as well as the world’s largest model train set. The Imperial Train Set is said to have 20km of track and over a million hand-painted trees, making it a favourite toy of the Emperor Emeritus. Ironically, all this subterranean model rail infrastructure is the reason why actual subway lines cannot be built under the Imperial Palace and must go around it instead.
Fake Fujis
The city of Edo, predecessor of Tokyo, boasted several scale replicas of Mount Fuji. These were actually giant mounds of construction waste that could be climbed in a matter of minutes for magnificent views across the city. Once at the summit, however, a great scam was revealed. The only way down was by wooden slide, with slide operators charging a hefty sum. This is the origin of the proverb “Only a fool climbs Mount Fuji twice.” Eventually, citizens became enraged at the scams and pulled down the fake Fujis. But the idea did not end there. After the real Mount Fuji was destroyed in an Imperial Japanese Navy live-fire exercise in 1908, the same techniques were used to construct the very fine replica that still stands to this day.
Deranged Melodies
Each station of the Yamanote Line has its own melody which honours a famous local resident or folk legend. These jingles sound innocuous, even lovely, when played at their usual sedate speed. However, if heard from a speeding train, these same jingles become frantic, deranged melodies that can bring about the most unpleasant transformations in the cityfolk. Women begin to fornicate freely on the trains, and men consider quitting their jobs. This is why Yamanote Line trains must stop at every platform and wait until the melody ends before moving away again.
Misplaced Stations
Shinjuku Station is so huge that it extends into neighbouring Shibuya ward. Meguro Station is not even in Meguro but in Shinagawa, while Shinagawa Station is actually in Minato. However, not many people know that Tokyo Station is actually in Saitama Prefecture. How has this last anomaly remained hidden for so long? Through a little engineering ingenuity. On the bullet train’s final approach through Tokyo, lines and chevrons painted on buildings either side of the tracks creates the optical illusion that the train is travelling more slowly, when in fact it is travelling farther.
The Gassy Dog
In the ward of Shibuya, there once lived a man who had an extremely gassy dog. After trying all kinds of Chinese medicine to quell his mutt’s emissions, the man gave up and moved all of his affairs to a distant suburb of the city. Abandoned by its master, the loyal dog was often seen waiting in front of Shibuya Station. Word of this reached the man, but nothing would make him return to Shibuya. Years later, this same man was deceived by business partners and fell into financial ruin. He finally understood the true value of the dog’s loyalty and berated himself terribly. He hurried back to Shibuya but it was too late: the dog had long since passed away. The man spent the rest of his days living as a vagrant in Shibuya Station, where he was moved on daily by police and beaten up several times by drunken crowds. A sanitised version of this tale later became a movie starring Richard Gere.
Ghosts of Easter Island
Shibuya Station is home to not one but two moai statues that were transported from Easter Island under a bizarre and uneven trade deal with Japan. The two statues, located at different station exits, embody the spirits of deceased ancestors as per the islanders’ burial custom. Separated from their homeland by the vast Pacific Ocean, these forlorn spirits now wander the perimeter of Shibuya Station, where they occasionally tap people on the shoulder and say: “Can you get a picture of me in the middle of the crossing?”
The Stubborn Sushi-master
Some Tokyo restaurants are so exclusive that they avoid all publicity. One such establishment is a sushi counter in Ginza that has neither a sign nor a name and admits only two people at a time and only on Fridays. It is rumoured to have a waiting list of 100 years. The master, already in his 70s, has vowed to honour every reservation, but he refuses to compromise by opening on other days or adding an extra chair. Meanwhile, a local priest with high-level connections in the construction trade has given the master a Buddhist name meaning “200-year life” after managing to get several important business associates onto the waiting list.
Exorcism Alley
In the chaos that followed the end of World War Two, most business in Tokyo was done out of alleys. When a person needed a loan or a forgery or an abortion, they journeyed on foot across a city in ruins to the alley that specialised in the trade. Some of these alleys exist today as nondescript gaps between buildings. Love Letter Lane, where translators catered to Japanese women involved with American GIs, was located in Shibuya’s Dogenzaka area, where a small plaque marks the spot today. Meanwhile, Exorcism Alley, where itinerant priests made homeless by war provided on-the-spot exorcisms and purifications for clients possessed by malevolent spirits, is said to have been located at, wait, isn’t this your home address?
Next: Immigration Services