Japanese Horror Fiction

In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: 'rokuro-kubi', whose heads separate from their bodies at night; 'jikininki', or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless 'mujina' who haunt lonely neighbourhoods.

“Congratulations, you’ve won the lottery!” shouts the angel Prapura to a formless soul. The soul hasn’t been kicked out of the cycle of rebirth just yet - he’s been given a second chance. He must recall the biggest mistake of his past life while on "homestay" in the body of 14-year-old Makoto Kobayashi. It looks like Makoto doesn’t have a single friend, and his family don’t seem to care about him at all. But as the soul begins to live Makoto’s life on his own terms, he grows closer to the family and the people around him and sees their true colors more clearly.

A Heian-era mansion stands abandoned, its foundations resting on the bones of a bride and its walls packed with the remains of the girls sacrificed to keep her company. It’s the perfect venue for a group of thrill-seeking friends, brought back together to celebrate a wedding. A night of food, drinks, and games quickly spirals into a nightmare as secrets get dragged out and relationships are tested. But the house has secrets too. Lurking in the shadows is the ghost bride with a black smile and a hungry heart.

Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, listeners will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries on more than 50 individual creatures.

In Ghostly Japan collects 12 ghostly stories from Lafcadio Hearn, deathless images of ghosts and goblins, touches of folklore and superstition, salted with traditions of the nation. While some of these stories contain nightmare imagery worthy of a midnight creature feature, others are not ghostly or ghastly at all. "Bits of Poetry" offers an engaging study on verse, and "Japanese Buddhist Proverbs" explains the meaning of several aphorisms based on Japanese cultural references.

Vampires: murderous creatures in the shape of humans, they stalk the night feeding on the blood of innocents. Seemingly immortal, they can be destroyed only by the use of a stake through the heart, severing of their heads, or exposure to sunlight. By the year AD 12,090, vampires have ruled the Earth for almost 300 years, and it is only these weaknesses that have kept these foul monsters from totally overrunning the world. But what happens when those rules no longer apply?

Four years ago, five kids started a game. Not all of them survived. Now, at the end of their senior year of high school, the survivors—Owen, Madeline, Emerson, and Dax—have reunited for one strange and terrible reason: they’ve been summoned by the ghost of Ian, the friend they left for dead. Together they return to the place where their friendship ended with one goal: find Ian and bring him home. So they restart the deadly game they never finished—an innocent card-matching challenge called Meido. A game without instructions.

The picturesque coastal town of Florence was known for millennia as a pleasure resort for the Nobility. As retribution for their decadence, the cruel and beautiful vampire inhabitants were "punished," driven out more than a thousand years ago by a solitary traveler in black. Only one—Baron Meinster—refused to leave, only to be thrown to the waves by the mysterious assassin. Summoned to contemporary Florence by Su-in, sister of a murdered village girl, the enigmatic Vampire Hunter D discovers a vampire curse ravaging the town's human inhabitants.

「あたしを?このあたしの器量が気に入ったから嫁にほしいっていうんですか?」 不器量で大女、貧しい棒手振りの娘・お信に舞い込んだのは、美男で有名な木屋の繁太郎との縁談だった!困惑しつつも嫁入りした彼女は、木屋の人々の不可解な言動を目の当たりにし、何かがおかしいと感じ始めるのだが……!?数々の時代劇小説を発表し続ける宮部みゆきの傑作短編集「幻色江戸ごよみ」(新潮社)から、読者に圧倒的な支持を受ける「器量のぞみ」をオーディオブック化しました。朗読は、コメディーからシリアスまで幅広い演技で知られる女優・斉藤由貴。軽やかで優しい声音で、聴き手を物語の世界に引き込みます。怪談なのに、くすりと笑える。怪談だけど、涙がこぼれる。宮部みゆき作品ならではの“人情怪談”をお楽しみください。

After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen—Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss.

In this gloriously over-the-top tale, Aoyama, a widower who has lived alone with his son ever since his wife died seven years before, finally decides it is time to remarry. Since Aoyama is a bit rusty when it comes to dating, a filmmaker friend proposes that, in order to attract the perfect wife, they do a casting call for a movie they don't intend to produce. As the resumes pile up, only one of the applicants catches Aoyama's attention - Yamasaki Asami - a striking young former ballerina with a mysterious past. But she is a far cry from the innocent young woman he imagines her to be.

The strange kid at school, the odd woman in the apartment building, the troublesome man at work. Such people exist everywhere, in everyone’s lives. All it takes is a word for it to start. An unsettling question, a bizarre remark, or even a kind apology. Once their hooks sink in, the cracks form. Darkness floods into the recesses until nothing else remains, and then...Sirens, screaming, dull thuds on the pavement. They have always existed. They just are. And when they show up, people die.

"ALICE CROWLEY'S EROTIC STORIES ALWAYS HAVE SURPRISE ENDINGS!" ~ Hwk "I LOVED THE IMAGINATION OF THIS AUTHOR!" ~ Satisfied Kindle Reader "ALICE CROWLEY IS ONE OF OUR GREATEST LIVING WRITERS!" ~ G. Taylor Jane is a naughty, dirty nurse who works for a plastic surgery clinic in Los Angeles. One day she and her friend Roxy witness a tentacle monster mutant manhandling a lady at the beach, an event which inspires a massive group session where everyone joins in for some exhibition. Later, Jane heads to work and tends to a paranormal patient. Only her patient is no normal man. He has something ...

When her cozy hometown is visited by death, Emma's investigative skills are enlisted by a secretive ghost. But with the uncooperative spirit holding so much back, and with the handsome local doctor pressing Emma for answers, will she ever get to the bottom of the case? Or will the Hollow be forever haunted by the secrets of the past?

悲しい事件を機に故郷を離れ、叔父の営む袋物店・三島屋に預けられたおちか。彼女は「変わり百物語」として、人々から江戸市中の不思議な話を聞き集めていた。ある日、ひどくやつれたひとりの男が三島屋を訪ね、おちかに話を聞いてほしいと懇願する。番頭の八十吉は、男の尋常でない様子に不安を覚えるが、おちかは必死の訴えに心を動かされ、彼の話を聞くことを決めた。元差配だという男は、自身の過去を訥々と語る。勝気な一人娘、おもんのこと。店子の看板屋夫婦が拾った物言わぬ捨て子・末吉の、奇妙な“泣き癖”のこと。だが、おもんが片恋に破れたとき、惨劇の幕が上がる……。宮部みゆきの「三島屋変調百物語」シリーズ第3弾「泣き童子」より、表題作をオーディオブック化。朗読は、出演作により大きくイメージを変える名優・平田満です。末吉が突如泣く、その理由は何なのか。真実が明らかになるとき、物語は衝撃のクライマックスに向けて一気に加速します。人間の恐ろしさと哀しさ、断ち切れぬ業を鮮やかに描き出す宮部みゆきワールドを、存分に味わってください。

「〈ばんば〉というのは、強い恨みの念を抱いた亡者のことでございます……」 箱根湯治の帰り道、雨に降り籠められた若夫婦。わがままな若妻に頭の上がらぬ婿養子・佐一郎は、宿で相部屋となった老女・お松から、忌まわしい昔語りを聴くことになる――。ミステリーだけでなく、味わい深い時代劇小説でも熱い支持を受ける、宮部みゆきの時代劇短編集「ばんば憑き」(角川書店)。その中から、表題作をオーディオブック化しました。朗読するのは、実力派女優・中嶋朋子。穏やかながら凄みを感じさせる語りが、聴く者を怪談の世界に引き込みます。ぞわりと背筋が寒くなる、極上の怪談を、お楽しみください。

神無月、毎年かならず一度だけ行われる押し込みがある。黒装束、黒ずきんに身を包んだその男が脅し取るのは、その場にある現金のみ。襲われる家はばらばらで、共通点も見つからない。欲をかかない鮮やかな手口が特徴の、年に一度の強盗。その最後の現場には、なぜか小豆の粒が落ちていた……。奇妙な押し込みが、同じ人間によるものだと気づいた岡っ引き。病弱な娘のため、良心を押し殺して盗みを働く父親。追う男と追われる男、2人の男それぞれの胸の内とは?現代を代表する作家の1人、宮部みゆきの時代劇短編集「幻色江戸ごよみ」(新潮社)から、ミステリーテイストの傑作短編「神無月」をオーディオブック化しました。朗読するのは、あらゆるジャンルの役柄を演じわけ、“300の顔を持つ男”の異名を持つ俳優・大杉漣。深みのある声が、2人の男の心情を濃やかに描き出します。苦く切なく、しかし温かい。涙なしには聞けない、江戸の一夜の物語をご堪能ください。

A writer fascinated by the macabre is approached by an acquaintance who is considering purchasing a second-hand house in Tokyo. With its bright and spacious interior, the home seems perfect. But looking closer, the building’s floor plan reveals a mysterious ""dead space” hidden between the walls. Seeking a second opinion, the writer shares the floor plan with an architect friend only to discover more “strange spaces” dotted across the house.

長屋の“何でも屋”に舞い込んだ依頼は、木槌の物の怪退治!?深川三間町、八兵衛長屋の何でも屋・柳井源五郎右衛門は、ある日、娘の加奈から奇妙な頼みごとをされる。加奈が可愛がっている野良猫のタマは実は化け猫で、源五郎右衛門に話があるから聞いてやってほしいというのだ。半信半疑の源五郎右衛門だったが、ある夜、人間の姿に化けたタマが本当に訪ねてきた。あ然とする彼に、タマはさらに驚くべきことを告げる。 「悪さをする物の怪を、一匹、退治していただきたいんです――」 それは木槌の化け物、野槌。ある事件をきっかけに、人に仇なすようになった野槌を斬ってほしいという化け猫の依頼に、源五郎右衛門は……!?日本を代表するベストセラー作家・宮部みゆきの時代小説短編集「ばんば憑き」より、個性豊かな物の怪たちが登場する人気作をオーディオブック化。多彩な演技で人々を魅了し続ける名優・佐野史郎が朗読しました。軽妙ながらも胸に迫る切ない物語を、お楽しみください。

――あんたには、姉さんがついてるから大丈夫よ。
死してなお妹を守ろうとする姉の心が、商家に潜む魔物に立ち向かう。
代々の主人が早死にすることと、奉公人へのしつけが厳しいことで有名な酒屋・兼子屋。
そこで働く女中・おさとが急死した。彼女に代わって、妹のおゆうが奉公に上がることになったが、兼子屋には、新入りの奉公人を店の「布団部屋」で一晩一人だけで寝かせる変わった習わしがあった。やがておゆうにも、布団部屋で過ごす夜がやってくる。そして彼女が見た悪夢とは……？
ベストセラー作家・宮部みゆきの短編集「あやし」から、「布団部屋」をオーディオブック化。朗読は、愛らしい声と豊かな表現力で様々な役を演じ分ける女優・前田亜季です。