Case 7: Doryo-do Ruins (Trip to Japan 1)

Time for a little background context. So, me and my family travel to Japan almost every summer to reunite with our extended family back there. They came from a small town on the eastern coast near an American naval base called Harukawa. For some trips, though, we’ll spend a few days in Tokyo before heading to Harukawa, and this year would be no exception. What would be different, however, was that we would also have Ashley, Marie, and Jared coming with us.

After traveling all the way down to New York City and taking a flight out of JFK to Tokyo, we arrived in Japan late in the morning on August 10. We planned to stick around in Tokyo until the evening of August 13, when we would travel to Harukawa, and then stay there until August 22.

Knowing we would be in Tokyo for a few days, I managed to talk my parents into letting us go to Comiket, perhaps the largest fan convention in the world. It would be taking place on the 12th and 13th, and would be much unlike the smaller conventions that me, Ashley, and Marie were used to. Marie in particular was looking forward to it the most, putting a lot of research into how to prepare for it. All five of us would be going, as we had even convinced Jared to come along to at least try it out.

The night before Comiket, however, we had an idea.

You see, there are a set of ruins in Tokyo that once was the site of a temple known as Doryo-do. It is far removed from the hustle and bustle of center Tokyo, although it is technically still within the city limits in an area called Hachioji. Contrary to what you might initially think, Doryo-do is not an ancient temple by any means. In fact, it was only built in 1874. Initially, it saw much financial success as a temple along what was then a heavily-traveled rural road heading to Yokohama. However, in 1908, a railroad was built nearby, resulting in the road seeing less travelers. Despite this, the temple lingered on until it finally was deconsecrated and closed in 1983.

Not only did a lack of traffic affect it, but so did a series of murders in the same area. In 1963, an elderly woman who was a caretaker at the shrine was attacked and killed by a man in a robbery gone wrong. This, however, was rather tame compared to what would happen exactly ten years later. In 1973, a student at Saint Paul’s University was murdered by a professor named Hiroyoshi Oba from her college after she confided in him that she was pregnant with his child. Not wanting the affair to leak out, he lured her to Hachioji and strangled her to death, dumping her body near Doryo-do. Some time after, Oba committed murder-suicide by forcing his entire family to jump off a cliff in Shizuoka Prefecture and then jumping himself after they did. Seven months after the murder, the young woman’s body was located and dug up before being properly taken care of.

It is alleged that an old woman can be heard crying in Doryo-do, said to be the ghost of the old woman who was killed in the robbery. Also, shortly before the young woman’s body was found following the murder in 1973, locals recalled hearing a young woman say ‘I’m here! I’m right here!’ to passers-by, but with no one being seen saying it. These legends have led to many Japanese ghost hunters visiting the spot to take photos and see if they can capture these restless spirits. We, however, would be perhaps the first foreign ghost hunters to do so.

…

We spent the first half of the day in Akihabara, visiting various shops as me and Yukiko acted as the guides given that no one else in the group spoke Japanese. Ashley was talked to in Japanese by several people on account of also being Asian, but she had to politely tell them she could only speak Korean and English. While we were in one shop that happened to be selling merchandise related to several anime we were fans of, I remarked to Ashley, “I’m surprised how many people think you’re Japanese.”

“They probably see you and your sister speaking it while I’m near and assume I can speak it too,” Ashley pointed out as she pulled out a manga volume in Japanese. “Wow, this is pretty cheap compared to the prices in the US.”

“Well, it is from the source.”

Then, a man walked over to us, asking us Ashley in Japanese, “Are you looking to buy that? We’re running a deal where you can buy two volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen and you get a third for free.”

Ashley, of course, understood none of it. “Ah, uh…”

“I’m sorry,” I said to the man. “My girlfriend is Korean. She doesn’t speak Japanese. We’re both from America.”

To our complete surprise, the man then replied in fluent Korean, “Ah, I see. As I said, you can buy two volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen and get a third for free.”

Ashley was stunned, while I was unable to follow along since my Korean was limited to a few greetings and some swear words she had taught me. “Wait, you speak Korean?”

“I do,” he replied. “My father is Zainichi Korean. We actually have some Korean and English volumes of some of our more popular series we imported here. They’re more expensive, but you can take a look at them.” He then pointed to another section of the store. “There’s a whole shelf of manga in Korean, Chinese, and English right over there.”

Confused, I asked Ashley in English, “What’s he talking about?”

“He says they sell some manga in Korean, Chinese, and English over there too. It’s more expensive, though.” She then told the man, “Thank you for telling me.”

In the end, Ashley purchased three Japanese volumes of Jujutsu Kaisen, a Korean volume of Jujutsu Kaisen, and a Korean volume of Demon Slayer. She said that in her whole life, she had never read manga in Korean until then, although she had read some webtoons in their original Korean, usually when it was a series that was a bit ahead of its English translation or one that had not yet been translated.

…

Later on in the night, after we had dropped off what we had all purchased back at the room, we took a train out to Hachioji and then walked to Doryo-do. As we arrived in front of the ruins, we set down the three backpacks we had taken with us and unzipped them, pulling out our equipment. As Marie got a video camera ready, she remarked, “Man, we purchased a lot.”

“I’m surprised we spent so much in Akihabara,” Yukiko replied. “I bet you’re glad you worked that summer job now, Takeo.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I replied. I had begun to work in landscaping, lawn mowing, and pool water filling starting in May with Jared’s family, making and saving as much money as I could before heading out to Japan. While the hours were long and the work was hard, it was well worth it. “I’m still a bit sore from the work I put in before I came here.”

“You’ll be fine, pussy,” Jared joked.

Ashley then turned on the second camera and handed it to Yukiko before picking up the EMF meter. “How much activity are you expecting, Takeo?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied as I grabbed a digital voice recorder. “There are posts with ghost photos taken here, but it seems like there’s not much in the way of other kinds of evidence. I got no clue what to expect.”

Once all of our equipment was ready, we headed in. For obvious reasons, me and Yukiko would do pretty much all of the talking to the spirits for EVP sessions. All EVPs present from this point on were in Japanese and have been translated into English for the sake of this report.

At what was originally the foundation of the temple, which was now guarded by a fence, me and Ashley began taking pictures of the area while Yukiko began an EVP session. Normally, as an equipment tech, she would not do this, but we determined it would be best if she did it since she could speak Japanese and I was busy with photography. “Hello everyone,” she said to them in the most polite Japanese she could muster. “May you speak to us? We want to speak to you. Can you tell us your names?” Pause. “Did you live or work here at the shrine?” Pause. “Did you pass away here at the shrine?”

Marie, who was holding the EMF meter, then noticed it began to pick up moderate readings. “Hey, check this out. It’s going up, but… Not too much.”

Jared zoomed in on the EMF meter screen, but as he was getting footage of it, all of us then heard footsteps from nearby and turned. “Huh? Who’s there?”

To our surprise, two younger men, both probably recently out of high school, were walking towards us, both with photo cameras of their own as well as an analog voice recorder. Realizing they probably could barely speak any English, if at all, I spoke first, asking them, “Are you guys ghost hunting, too?”

“Yeah,” said the taller of the two men. “We’re from a nearby university. Where are you guys from?”

“Harukawa,” I replied. Realizing I had defaulted to my extended family’s hometown, I corrected myself and clarified, “Actually, we’re from America, but my family is from a village in Niigata Prefecture. We’re ghost hunters, too.”

“Nice,” replied the taller man. “We think we actually caught something on one of the photos we got and on the tape recorder we have.” As me and Yukiko walked over, he showed us an instant print photo he had taken.

Ashley asked me in English, “What did he say? Did he get something?”

“Yeah,” I replied to her. “They’re ghost hunters from a nearby college. They said they got a photo of a ghost and maybe an EVP.” Me, her, and Jared then looked over the photo, which seemed to show a white mist in the shape of a person near the shorter of the two men. We cannot verify the photo’s authenticity since we did not take it, however.

“Check this out,” said the shorter man as he then began to play back the analog tape recorder he had used. “I think it says ‘I died here’ or something similar.” After rewinding the tape and fast-forwarding to the right section, he played back what he and his friend believed to be an EVP. Sure enough, it sounded like a woman’s voice in Japanese saying that exact phrase. Again, we cannot verify the authenticity of this EVP as we did not record it, but it was chilling to hear nonetheless.

While we were reviewing the evidence from the other ghost hunters, Yukiko had gotten no luck with her own EVP session, and thus tried again, but not before taking three photos of the foundation of the shrine. “Okay,” she said to Marie as she put her photo camera down and pressed record on her DVR again. “Let’s see what happens now.” She then began asking questions in Japanese once more. “Can you hear us? Can we hear from you? Do you have anything you want to say to anyone? We can deliver a message if you want.” Pause. “What brought you here?”

Marie then turned the camera towards the small mountain road that led to the shrine, having heard something that was only later heard when we enhanced the camera audio. “Hey, over there. I heard footsteps.”

“Huh?” Yukiko turned around to find nothing. “You heard that too?”

“Yeah, it sounded like someone walking over here.” Unbeknownst to everyone, right as Yukiko and Marie were talking about this, a chilling EVP was captured that we found later while reviewing our evidence. A female voice was heard crying, but nothing could be made out. This voice belonged to no one who was present.

Shortly after this, we said goodbye to the other ghost hunters and resumed our investigation. We decided to focus on ghost photography from this point on, taking various pictures of the area. Me, Ashley, and Jared took photos along the mountain road, while Marie and Yukiko took photos of the shrine site itself.

Along the dark and lifeless mountain road, we got to talking about plans for Comiket the following day. “I’ll tell you,” I said to the others as I led the way. “I’m gonna be dead tired for Comiket tomorrow, but I don’t even care, to be honest.”

Ashley pointed out, “Didn’t you go to a local con with three hours of sleep?”

“Yeah, and I was fine.”

“I had to wake you up twice that day after you dozed off.”

Annoyed by her remark, I replied, “Oh, whatever.”

Then, as Jared kept filming us, he began to feel the air around us get colder. “Is it just me or did it get cold all of a sudden?”

“Yeah, I fe-” I then noticed my breath was now visible, which shocked me. “Holy shit.” It should not have been possible for it to get so cold in the summer, especially in Japan where the summers were notoriously hot and humid. “I feel like someone else is here with us.”

“I feel that, too,” Ashley replied. Just after she did, we all heard a woman’s voice shout in a state of panic from the woods, causing us to stop and stare at the trees in stunned silence. The voice called out, ‘Stop it!’

Jared and Ashley knew enough Japanese to know what the woman said, and a feeling of dread fell upon us. “God, I hope that was just a ghost.”

Ashley asked me with fear in her voice, “That wasn’t your sister, right?”

“No.” I then got a phone call from Yukiko and answered it. “Hello?”

Yukiko said on the other end in a panicked voice, “Takeo, did you hear that?!” It sounded like she was running in the background of the call.

“Yeah, did you and Marie?”

“We sure did!” I then heard her yell to Marie, “Keep running!”

“What the Hell is going on?!”

We then heard Yukiko and Marie yelling and screaming as they ran towards us from the direction of the shrine ruins. Ashley called out, “Marie! Yukiko!”

We ran in the opposite direction to catch up with them as fast as we could, and when we did, we learned what had happened. Unfortunately, Marie’s camera had died shortly before the voice was captured, but the two of them were able to recall everything that happened after it did.

Apparently, the two of them were taking photos, and were inspecting one photo that seemed to show a face hovering above the shrine ruins when Marie’s camera died and the temperature dropped around them like it had for us. Marie then began to feel like there was a woman watching them from the ruins, and when she looked up, they both heard a disembodied female voice yell from the foundations, the same voice we had heard. Panicking, both fled down the mountain road, with Yukiko calling me while they ran.

As we all calmed down from what had happened, I reviewed the digital voice recorder Yukiko had been carrying, which, by chance, she had started to record on just a few seconds before the incident took place. The recorder captured the voice in more detail, but it also revealed a male voice right after the woman screamed that no one else had heard: ‘Get back here…’

As soon as Marie in particular heard this second voice, she asked me, “Takeo, what did that mean?”

“It said ‘get back here,’ I told her as all of our blood ran cold, realizing who this spirit potentially was.

“Oh my God,” Marie said as she began to take deep breaths. “That… There was someone else in those ruins. It wasn’t just the woman. I could sense them, too.”

“Wait a minute,” Yukiko then asked her. “Are you saying it was one of the killers?”

“It has to be,” Jared pointed out. “With that kind of message, there’s no way it isn’t.”

“I think we got enough evidence,” I then said to the group. “Let’s go back to the hotel. We’ll review what we got. I’m not putting anyone else at risk given there could be the ghost of a murderer here.”

…

We spent about two and a half hours reviewing all the photos we took at the ruins when we got back to our hotel. In total, we found six with anomalies that we could not explain out of the two-hundred and sixteen we took of the site and the mountain road.

The very first was of the entranceway to the ruins. This photo showed Yukiko standing under the decaying sign leading to Doryo-do, but her right arm was missing, obscured by a black shape standing right next to her.

The second was of the ruins themselves, which showed a streak of light running across the entire frame. We could not debunk this as a camera strap since the camera used for this photo did not have a strap attached to it at the time.

The third was also of the ruins, and showed Marie standing next to the fence surrounding them. Next to Marie was a black shadow figure, which Marie later told us was of the male spirit whose presence she had felt.

The fourth was along the mountain road, and showed Jared and Ashley walking down it while I took the photo from behind them. The photo seemed to show a full-bodied apparition walking with us down the road, and was the clearest photo of a ghost we got during the investigation.

The fifth was the photo Yukiko had taken prior to the disembodied female scream and male EVP being captured. Upon further examination, we were able to make out a faint shape of a head surrounding the face.

The sixth and final photo with an anomaly was taken just as we left the area, also along the mountain road like the fourth photo. This photo showed a white mist forming next to Yukiko, who later told us she felt a comforting presence as she was walking with us down the road when we showed the photo to her.

Overall, this investigation proved pretty fruitful in terms of photos, even if we did not capture much else in the way of EVPs. After getting some sleep, we all made our way to Comiket, and in the cosplay section, we ran into two familiar faces…

…

To preface, Comiket requires all people in cosplay to change in and out of their costumes before entering and exiting the convention, which me, Marie, and Yukiko did. Marie dressed up as Mitsuri Kanroji from Demon Slayer, while Yukiko dressed up as Nezuko Kamado and I dressed up as Tanjiro Kamado from the same series. Jared and Ashley got photos of all of us and recorded some videos around the giant convention center Comiket takes place in, known as Tokyo Big Sight.

We got quite a bit of attention in the cosplay section, in a good way, of course. Me and my sister did most of the talking aside from the occasional English-speaking attendee. It was while we were posing for two photographers that we realized we recognized them.

As we were changing poses, Marie asked me, “Takeo, hold on. Didn’t we see those guys last night?”

“Oh shit,” I said as I recognized them. “You’re right.” After we did our second posed, I asked them in Japanese, “Wait a minute. I think we saw you guys last night at Doryo-do.”

One of the two photographers replied, “You did?” He then looked at his partner and realized, “Wait a minute, you’re the Americans from last night?”

“We are,” I replied. “We got some good photos of the site, actually. We found six with ghosts in them.”

“Six?!” Both he and his partner then walked over as I pulled up the six photos on my phone and went through each one. “Woah… That’s creepy.”

“You’re damn right, it is. We got scared off by a woman screaming.”

Yukiko took her bamboo muzzle off and asked me in Japanese, “Oniichan, are those the guys we saw last night?”

“Yeah.”

Marie chuckled, asking her in English, “Did you say that in Japanese only because you’re cosplaying Nezuko?”

“No,” Yukiko denied. “I always call him oniichan when I speak Japanese to him…” After a pause, she admitted, “Okay, yeah, it was kinda because he’s cosplaying Tanjiro.”

“Wait a second,” the other guy among the two then asked me and her. “You two are actually brother and sister?”

“Yeah,” Yukiko chuckled. “He’s my older brother for real, not just in cosplay.” She then pitched her voice up a bit to humorously imitate Nezuko, specifically her Japanese voice actress Akari Kito. “Oniichan, can I get into the box now? I’m tired.”

I replied back to her with my best impression of Natsuki Hanae’s voice as Tanjiro. “Nezuko, shouldn’t you have a muzzle on?”

Yukiko laughed and put the muzzle back on, saying, “Hmmm… Mmm hmm!”

Both of the men were surprised by our imitations of their voices. “Woah… How cute! Your Mitsuri is pretty cute, too!”

“Thank you,” I replied to them, but not before giving them a warning. “Just to remind you, though, our Mitsuri is sixteen right now. Same with me. Our Nezuko is fourteen.”

“No way,” one of the men replied. “You guys are great at cosplay given how old you guys are.”

“Our Mitsuri is the reason why. She’s been doing this for a while. Me and my sister just got started.”

Marie knew enough Japanese to know I was telling the men how old we were, which I told her about as a warning just in case she came across any creeps at Comiket. She asked me, “Hey, is everything okay? You mentioned I was sixteen to them.”

“Everything’s fine,” I assured her. “They were just impressed with our cosplays given how young we were.”

“Oh.” She then told both men in the best Japanese she could muster, “Thank you very much.”

“Your Japanese is good,” replied one of the men. “Your Mitsuri cosplay is really good, too.”

Overall, Comiket went pretty well for us on both days. After we left Comiket for the second time, we quickly got changed and met up with my parents at the train station with an hour and a half to spare. From there, we would spend the rest of our time in Harukawa, where we would perform two investigations.