I have always had a soft spot for demonically possessed toys; maybe it’s the child in me, but I love the mysterious and terrifying idea of a demon or departed spirit lingering inside an object that you might be cuddling on a dark and stormy night. Chucky may give you chills, and Annabelle may give you nightmares, but this true story of a real possessed doll in Japan will have your knees knocking and your teeth chattering, so beware, unbelievers!
Back in 1918 in Hokkaido, Japan, a family by the name of Suzuki had a two-year-old daughter named Okiku, which means Chrysanthemum in Japanese. She was adored by her family, but being the youngest, she was a lonely and fragile child and spent most of her time indoors. Her brother, Eikichi Suzuki, decided to save his money and buy his little sister a doll to keep her company. He bought her a pretty porcelain 16-inch doll wearing an intricately embroidered kimono, with a closed smiling mouth, and shoulder-length hair cut in the okappa style, which was very popular back then.
The doll looked amazingly real and resembled the little girl rather dramatically. Perhaps fate had sent this doll to her. Soon, the doll became Okiku’s favorite plaything and constant companion, kind of like the creepy button-eyed doll in the movie Coraline, that Coraline likes to call “little me.”
A year after the doll came to live with them, the little girl Okiku suddenly contracted yellow fever and, clinging to her doll on her deathbed, she died. She would have been three years old by this time. Devastated by this turn of events, the family did what most Japanese families often do; they kept the doll that their beloved daughter had cherished so much and put it on their family altar. It was then that they began experiencing supernatural phenomena and poltergeist activities. They heard whispering voices, objects were flung around the room, lights went on and off by themselves, and the family would even wake up to a shadow child sobbing by their bedside, which would disappear when spoken to.
Terrified, the Suzuki family decided to bring a shaman from the village to see if they could contact the unquiet spirit. The shaman was called in, and he confirmed their suspicions. The spirit was, in fact, their dear departed daughter, and her soul had come back to reside in her favorite doll that stood on the family shrine.
How freaky is this! I can only imagine their confusion and heartbreak after learning their daughter was an unquiet spirit that had found no peace on the other side and had decided to come back and linger among the living. The Suzuki family reluctantly decided to move to a town called Sakhalin, but regretfully, they had to leave the doll in the care of a sympathetic group of Buddhist monks at the Iwanizawa temple in Hokkaido, Japan. The family did this because they felt that taking the doll away from where their daughter was buried would anger and upset her spirit. The monks began taking care of the doll, who was also called Okiku, the Chrysanthemum doll, and something bizarre began to happen.
The doll’s hair began to grow. The doll’s hair grew longer, wilder, and coarser than it ever had been before and has continued to grow to this day. Because of this very strange phenomenon, samples of the hair were sent away to be analyzed, and the hair samples were proven to be that of a human child. Another horrifying true fact is that if you should journey to see this possessed child-like doll, reports are that its mouth has slowly begun to open, and it is sprouting tiny baby teeth from its porcelain gums. You can visit this unearthly possessed doll at the Manneh/JI temple in Iwamizawa city in Hokkaido, Japan. But don’t bring your camera! Because the monks believe that taking a picture of Okiku might steal her soul away…
Diana Firefly is the author of this post; she is an avid reader and researcher of anything paranormal and mysterious! She is also the head of an all-woman horror film studio called Scoffer Studios!
How freaky is this! I can only imagine their confusion and heartbreak after learning their daughter was an unquiet spirit that had found no peace on the other side and had decided to come back and linger among the living. The Suzuki family reluctantly decided to move to a town called Sakhalin, but regretfully, they had to leave the doll in the care of a sympathetic group of Buddhist monks at the Iwanizawa temple in Hokkaido, Japan. The family did this because they felt that taking the doll away from where their daughter was buried would anger and upset her spirit. The monks began taking care of the doll, who was also called Okiku, the Chrysanthemum doll, and something bizarre began to happen.
The doll’s hair began to grow. The doll’s hair grew longer, wilder, and coarser than it ever had been before and has continued to grow to this day. Because of this very strange phenomenon, samples of the hair were sent away to be analyzed, and the hair samples were proven to be that of a human child. Another horrifying true fact is that if you should journey to see this possessed child-like doll, reports are that its mouth has slowly begun to open, and it is sprouting tiny baby teeth from its porcelain gums. You can visit this unearthly possessed doll at the Manneh/JI temple in Iwamizawa city in Hokkaido, Japan. But don’t bring your camera! Because the monks believe that taking a picture of Okiku might steal her soul away…
Diana Firefly is the author of this post; she is an avid reader and researcher of anything paranormal and mysterious! She is also the head of an all-woman horror film studio called Scoffer Studios!
