Japanese Ghost Stories: Oiwa and Okiku

In July 1825 Yotsuya Kaidan, the kabuki ghost play, opened at the Nakamura-za in Edo, one of the city's three main kabuki theatres. A real-size replica of the Nakamura-za is located at the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which reopened on 31 March 2026 after renovation. The pin marks the museum, not the original theatre site.

Location precision: The original Nakamura-za no longer stands; the pin marks the Edo-Tokyo Museum, which holds a replica.

Visitor guidance: Check the museum's current exhibits before travelling; it reopened on 31 March 2026.

In the play, the Itô family scheme to disfigure Oiwa by sending her a poison disguised as a facial cream. When Iemon sees his wife's ghastly new face, he decides he can no longer stay with her. The legend sets the couple in Yotsuya Samon-chō, and today the Oiwa Inari Tamiya Shrine and the Yōun-ji temple stand on opposite sides of one road there. The Yotsuya shrine, on the old Tamiya house site, burned in 1879.

Visitor guidance: The shrine and the Yōun-ji temple stand on opposite sides of a road in Yotsuya Samon-chō, Shinjuku.

Oiwa is supposedly buried at Myōgyō-ji, a temple in Sugamo, with her death date listed as 22 February 1636. Before staging any version of the story, the principal actors and the director traditionally make a pilgrimage to her grave to ask permission and blessing for the production. One Japanese source suggests the grave is probably that of a later Tamiya wife, so treat the name on the stone as tradition rather than proof.

Location precision: Tradition names this as Oiwa's grave, but a Japanese source thinks it is probably a later Tamiya wife's.

Some versions of the Okiku tale, Banchō Sarayashiki, take place in the Banchō area of Edo. In Okamoto Kido's version it is Edo in 1655: the shogun's vassal Harima Aoyama loves the servant Okiku. After her death her ghost enters the house and counts the plates, one through nine. Aoyama sees that her ghostly face shows beauty and calm, not vengeance. Banchō got its name because the shogun's guards lived in this district.

Location precision: The tale does not name the exact house; the pin marks the Banchō district in Chiyoda.

In the folk version, Okiku is a beautiful dishwashing servant at Himeji Castle. Falsely accused of losing valuable family dishes, she is killed and thrown into a well, and her ghost haunts it at night, counting dishes in a despondent tone. Whether the castle really is the legend's home is disputed, and the story is set in Edo in other versions. The alleged Okiku's Well is said to remain in the castle to this day.

Location precision: Himeji's claim to be the legend's true site is disputed, and the well is called alleged.

Visitor guidance: Himeji Castle is the visitable site; the well is said to remain within the castle.