Episode 4178: Dark Enigma - Mysterious Flesh Eating Revenants and Specters from Japanese Folklore

Please be aware the stories, theories, re-enactments and language in this podcast are of an adult nature and can be considered disturbing, frightening and in some cases even offensive.  Listener Discretion is therefore advised. 

Welcome heathens welcome to the world of the weird and unexplained.  I’m your host, Nicole Delacroix and together, we will be investigating stories about the things that go bump in the night, frighteningly imagined creatures, supernatural beings and even some unsolved mysteries and all sorts of weirdness.  So, sit back, grab your favorite drink, and prepare to be transported to today's dark Enigma.... 

And on today’s Dark enigma well, you guessed it, we have another listener suggestion, and this one is very exotic I had a ton of fun researching, so I hope you guys like the story!  So, with that said, we will still be playing our drinking game and as you know, the drinking game is only for those of us that are at home and have nowhere else to go tonight.  The choice of libation, as always my darlings, is yours, so choose your poison accordingly… Alright, now for the game part how about every time I say Soseki   that will be a single shot and every time I say Samurai, that will be a double shot.  Now that the business end is out of the way we can jump headfirst into today’s dark enigma… so don… your best Kimono and Obi, or if you prefer your samurai armor as we dive into today’s tale of Mysterious Flesh Eating Revenants and Specters from Japanese Folklore

A type of entity that is very pervasive across cultures is that of the flesh-eater, the wraiths and ghouls that lurk in the night to skitter about among the shadows and feed off of humans. Nearly every culture in the world has some form of this grim legend, the most instantly recognizable being vampires, but that is only just scratching the surface of how deep the macabre lore goes. The country of Japan, too, has its own creepy and bizarre legends of pale, fanged entities that come forward out of the night to feast on the bodies of the dead.

One very frightening type of carnivorous revenant from Japanese folklore is a type of flesh-eating ghoul known as the Jikininki, or also Shokujinki, which ominously translates to simply “human-eating ghost.” According to the lore, these creatures lurk about old temples, cemeteries, and abandoned ruins near human settlements, where they emerge at night to feast upon the remains of the dead, greedily devouring any remains they find, but never feeling satiated and eternally hungry. They are said to have the power to mesmerize people and to instill a primal fear in those who look upon them, yet mostly avoid human beings, preferring to go about their grim deeds unseen.