Bathroom Ghosts

Hanako, the ghost in the toilet, almost achieved the status of a national phenomena in Japanese legend 20 years ago, when a wave of stories of ghost-sightings swept through the nation’s school yards.

Every child had a “Hanako” story to tell. The stories, of course, are many and varied but every schoolchild in Japan, at one time or another, has stood in dread and anticipation as he or she ventured into the school toilet alone.

This is similar to the legend of Kashima Reiko, a female ghost without legs who also lives in school bathrooms. She calls out “Where are my legs?” when people enter the bathroom. The correct way to answer her varies. In one version, you have to say: Kashima Reiko: KA = Kamen (Mask), SHI = Shinin (dead person), MA=Ma (Demon).

Yet another version features Aoi Manto or Aka Manto, a male ghost who waits in the last stall in the girls’ bathroom. Anyone entering the bathroom hears a voice asking, “Which do you prefer, the red paper or the blue paper?”

If they pick “red,” he kills them by slashing their back or neck repeatedly with a blade, to make them look like they’re wearing a red cape. If they pick “blue,” then they’re killed by hanging.

He’s known as Aka Manto, Aoi Manto, Aoi Hanten, Aka Kami, and Aoi Kami.


Denise Ching from NY, NY

Another Version – Aka Manto (Red Cape)

This is a Japanese urban legend about a boy who was brutally murdered in a public restroom and his killer is still unknown to this day.

In the 1980s many people were injured or murdered by the spirit of this boy. They say that any people who goes in a public restroom alone at night can see the ghost. The ghost wears a red cape and a golden mask to hide his face. The ghost asks his victim “Do you want red cape or blue cape?”

If the person answers “red”, then the ghost rips off the person’s skin and put it on him which looks like that the person is wearing a red cape.

If anyone says “blue” the ghost will cut off the person’s head and sucks out all the blood from the body which makes the skin all over their body turn a blue color.

If they do not answer or answer, or try to beg for mercy or say anything else, then the ghost drags them to hell.

The people who were saved or escaped said that if the person says “yellow” then the ghost will plunge the person’s head into the filthy toilet which makes the person’s head turn a yellow color because of the dirty water. As gross as this fate may be, it is the only way to survive and you will be saved from the ghost. The ghost may ask other questions like “Do you want red paper or blue paper”, but results are same.


Zephry Jonson from New York