This Paranormal Life - #220 Jikininki - Human-Eating Ghosts

Episode Date: July 6, 2021

This week Rory and Kit investigate the legend of the Jikininki, Japanese ghosts that roam the earth devouring the bodies of the dead... Rory also gets drunk in VR and investigates the legend of cat girls.BUY OFFICIAL TPL MERCHwww.thisparanormallife.com/storePatreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Edited by Kami Tomanwww.tomanedits.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are skinwalkers the real king of the jungle? Could a fully grown man eat a chair? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale, case, claim, beast,

and come to the conclusion at the end of this podcast as to whether or not it is truly paranormal. My name is Rory Powers, and I am joined by my co-investigator, Kit Greer. Howdy, Rory. I gotta say, just bouncing off some of those questions in the beginning, I can tell you one thing for free. This grown man can't eat a chair. Cannot or can eat a chair?'t okay have you have you tried i bought an eames lounger uh this is a very sought after very beautiful chair most people love it because of its design ethos i love it

because it looked delicious yeah i feel like some of the names of those ikea chairs sound delicious there's probably a couple i'm gonna look up ikea chairs right it'll be called like plume or something and i'll be like well now i'm thinking about plums so i could devour a plume borge having a slice of borge well that doesn't sound like food at all do you want some nilzo? These are terrible examples. What about Voxlov? What about a heaping plate of Voxlov? I think I had that at a buffet on my last summer holidays. There's one here just called Stefan. Would you like a piece of Stefan? This is entirely disproven, the idea that they have any kind of delicious names.

Yeah, that was a bad example. But anyway, welcome to the podcast. We told you about the concept. As you know, we don't like to. But anyway, welcome to the podcast. We told you about the concept. As you know, we don't like to dilly dally at the start. We like to dive right in. But I feel like I should talk about my week because I'm in a pretty unique situation right now where I am quarantining at home. I've been stuck here for five days now and um losing my mind a little bit quite frankly yeah it's kind of just as the rest of the world was getting out you're going back in which really sucks it's also a gorgeous day it's really sunny outside and i'm stuck in here but i told you i i recently bought a virtual

a vr headset an oculus quest and i've kind of been spending almost most of my time in virtual reality for the last five days. So I can't really tell if I'm even plugged in anymore, if this is the real deal. So is that something to worry about? Maybe, who knows? You're podcasting with a giant armadillo. I mean, Kit looks pretty much the way I remember him.

So it's nice to uh to be able to do this podcast and have a have some human interaction for once yeah but i'm doing okay i'm doing all right i'm doing all right are you sure don't worry about old rory he's fine all right so without further ado let's just dive right into today's episode now today's episode is is a bit of a fun one it starts off with basically a huge story a really cool kind of ghost story so listeners just sit back relax and enjoy the ride today's story begins in the mino province of japan at an unknown point in time can we get a ballpark? Olden days, we'll say. A traveling Zen pre... Don't interrupt for a start. I didn't say anything.

No, you did before, and especially at the start of the story where this is the most important bit where we're setting the scene. I literally didn't do anything. What are you talking about? Do you think at the start of Lord of the Rings where they were like, oh, long time ago, a hobbit lived in a hole. Do you think someone goes, what time, though? What time did the hobbit live in the hole?

It feels weird that you kind of moved on from that. And then just it's like you couldn't move on yourself in your own mind. You had to come back and call me out for it. Some things are just irrelevant, right? Just enjoy. Enjoy the story. Yeah. The thing is, that was fiction.

Lord of the Rings is fiction. I'm hoping that this is fact this is absolutely fact and treated as such moving forward please an elf talk to a it was the olden days and a traveling zen priest named muso kokushi was journeying alone through the mountains of the mino prefecture of j. After some time had passed on his journey, he realized he was lost. No matter which direction he chose, he couldn't find a hint of civilization, and it was getting dark. After hours of helpless searching, Musou was ready to collapse. But suddenly, he saw a house high up on the hilltop in front of him.

He mustered his remaining strength and staggered up the mountain. There on the peak stood an anjitsu, which is a little house built for kind of refuge. The place was so old, it looked like it was falling down. But with nowhere else to turn, Musou knocked on the splintered wooden door. It was answered by a wizened old Zen priest. Sumimasen. Watashi wa samui desu. Can you grant me the favor of a night's lodging?

I've been lost in the wilderness for hours. But the old Zen priest wasn't having any of it. No! Get out of here! Try your luck in the village down that road. Just leave! Wow, that's really rude for a priest. Aren't things supposed to be nice yeah well i mean it's already a bit of a strange situation to have this zen priest kind of just living in an old

rickety building in the middle of nowhere right i don't know who's the scary one in this situation is it weird for a stranger to find your house in the wilderness and ask to come in or is it weird to put to the only house in the wilderness to be this old crookedy down building it's kind of strange yeah no neither people want this situation right right that's a good way to look at it our traveler he doesn't want to be knocking on a wizened old hut uh in the middle of nowhere late at night on death's door yeah he was looking for a hotel motel holiday inn and none were available because as i established earlier it is in fact the olden days that's right there is no after party in the lobby or anything like that so disappointed and exhausted muso made

his way to the village in the valley and when i say village I'm talking maybe 10 houses at most. This is not a big place. Yeah, do you know the name of the place? No, I do not. And I resent you for asking because you know that there's not a lot of information in the story. So he limped his way to the nearest door when he reached the village and asked for help. Luckily, it was the village leader's house and he was a kind man. Oh, you poor thing. Come in. Let's get you something to eat and somewhere to lay down your head. But as Musso stepped into the house, he was greeted by a strange scene. There were around 50 people gathered in the front room. He stepped closer to see what was going on, but the leader's wife steered him away. Over here, dear. She led him

into a small room with a meal in a bed. The sight of the tray and food made him forget all about the party in the living room. He gobbled it down and then passed out immediately. But around midnight, he started to stir. He could hear something. Somebody was crying, howling, by the sound of that they were in the house next over, and yet it was loud enough to rouse Musou from his sleep. He sat up in bed, and at that very moment, the village leader came into his room. I'm so sorry your sleep has been disturbed. Let me explain. My father passed shortly before you arrived.

I didn't tell you because I could see that you needed help. Musou felt terrible, but he was also touched, and that explained why the whole village had been assembled when he got there. But the village leader wasn't finished. I wanted to let you sleep as long as possible, but now it's time to go.

We're all leaving. The whole village. What? Pretty creepy. I mean, that's not what you want to hear when you wake up in the morning. He knew it was too good to be true. God damn it. He came to this place.

They weirdly just had a room with food and drink and everything set up. What kind of cult does he join? What kind of f***ing up situation has he walked into? He's probably a human sacrifice now or something. Can you imagine waking up in the morning and someone's like, Hey morning sleepyhead uh it's 4 a.m the city's being evacuated and we're all we all have to leave or we'll disintegrate at sunrise i made you a smoothie so genghis khan is here and we have to go i mean you can't really complain too much you you got a full meal you got a couple hours you gotta take what you can get here i mean it's better than yeah encountering that first uh grumpy

priest who uh you weren't gonna get anything out of although at this point muso might be thinking to himself i should have killed that priest and taken his hut i don't think that kind of thought would pop into his head as a traveling zen priest i don't know you said it was old in time he's a traveling zen priest i mean what would you do would you leave well i mean you just say to the village elder no i'll be staying right here you put your eye mask and earplugs back in it was already kind of weird that um you crashed the funeral of his dead father they should have brought that up they should have when he was at the door they should have been hey you're obviously going through a lot of stuff we'd love to have you in just so you know this is a wake there was a corpse in the kitchen at this

point it's kind of a dick move that the village elder doesn't mention it because musa is not like no i look like the asshole like is this his is this his bedroom am I in his room here take my father's clothes he shan't be using them anymore they're still warm is he on yeah I love this idea of uh them waking up uh Musa when they're like uh you you have to leave right now and it's like well it's it's 4 a.m I'm not even dressed I don't have anywhere to go well it's the least you can do after you crashed my father's f***ing funeral. And it's like, you didn't tell me that. People's in shock on, whoa!

Yeah, he's been kind of thrown into this. I would have liked to have been tipped off at the door. It's like when, I mean, even just in simple modern mortal terms, not ancient Zen priest times, you know, if you stay at someone's house and they're like uh you're like oh hey i'll just i'll just sleep on the sofa and they're like no i insist you take my bed i sleep on the sofa it's like no because that's weird i'm gonna feel guilty all night i'm not gonna get a good good night's sleep i'm gonna sleep better as a humble little sofa

peasant totally yeah totally you don't want to feel like you're intruding on at least i don't i think i think we're both pretty self-aware when it comes to like staying at someone else's place right like in the morning i'm like hey i'm all my shit's packed up i'm ready to go i don't want to impose at all there was uh way back when the xbox first came out we had a one friend who got it like quite early on before other people. So we used to go to his house all the time and just play the Xbox. But we used to love playing there so much that we would stay there throughout the whole day. Right.

So at times like his dad would come home from work and they'd have dinner together as a family. And they'd be like, hey, I'm going to go have dinner with my parents and my siblings. You guys can just stay in my room and play Xbox. It's totally fine. The only problem was his room didn't have a door. It was just a curtain that you pulled. And the other side of the curtain was the dinner table. It's unbelievably awkward.

And you didn't have the same courtesies you have now by the way so you cranked halo to to max volume you're throwing sticky grenades oh yeah the epic music is playing they can barely hear themselves chew they're sitting down at the table being like so um uh how was everyone's day today triple kill kill. Oh, I nailed him. There's some ketchup in the freezer if anyone wants those. I'm teabagging this son of a bitch. Lick my balls. Yeah, so this is as close as I can relate.

It's like feeling welcome in a situation, but also a little bit uncomfortable. Well, as I said, this is the strangest part of the story so far is that not just Musso has to leave. Everyone is leaving. He was so confused. The leader went on to say, it's our custom on a day such as this when one of our number has died.

Terrible things happen to anyone that stays in the house with the corpse. Nobody except a priest would be brave enough to stay the night here. What are the chances? Musou told his host, yo, I'm, dude, I'm a f***ing priest. So I can, you guys leave, I'll stay. I'll stay in your dad's bed, in your dad's clothes. I'm a priest. I'm bulletproof. He not only told him that he was a priest but he promised to perform a service and stay by the body meditating until sunrise the village leader was ecstatic but

also eager to get out the door wow i mean even if you're a priest that's got to be a little unnerving right i i guess maybe if you've done it if you've done this sort of thing a bunch of times it's not that scary anymore yeah yeah and you've probably dealt with a lot of uh suspicious um village people who are worried that ghosts are going to haunt them and stuff with the priest like i've been i've seen loads of dead bodies i'll be fine yeah yeah i remember i want to because my mom is a nurse she's been a nurse for like wow like 40 years or something sure and uh i remember one time as a teenager i was like have you ever seen like a dead body and she's like i've been face to face with someone while they've died sure mid

conversation i was like okay that's not a weird thing to you anymore yeah because it's like it's part of your life it's part of your profession maybe it's the same kind of thing with uh muso he's like dude i meditate all the time right next to dead bodies. This is what I do. This is my podcast. I would low key listen to that. So all the villagers and everyone in the house rush out the door. As they did, the entire village thanked him profusely as they left. Look after yourself. Good luck, said the leader as he closed the door behind him. Musou was now alone. He made his way to the living room where the body lay, surrounded by offerings of meat and fruit. He lit some incense and prepared

to recite his service. After performing all the traditional ceremonies, Muso stayed true to his word and remained in the room with the corpse. He was meditating, listening to the quiet of the empty hamlet at night. But suddenly, the silence intensified. In the corner of the room, Musou could see the door opening, but it made no noise. As soon as it swung forward, he felt his entire body stiffen. He couldn't move. He couldn't speak. he couldn't tear his eyes away from the doorway. Then right before him, a looming shape lumbered into the room, almost as tall as the ceiling. It was just a mass of black, unlike any earthly creature Musou had ever seen before. It advanced towards him, but stopped at the body laid out on the table in the center of the room.

towards him, but stopped at the body laid out on the table in the center of the room. Then it slowly lifted the corpse high into the air and engulfed it headfirst in seconds. What? Clothes and all. Holy shit. This night beast devoured the dad. This is no face from spirited away. This is a giant demon with a big mouth.

The dark being then collected up all the offerings left by the mourning family and devoured them too in one bite. When there was nothing left, it slowly retreated from the room. What was in that damn incense, Muso Lit? Whatever it was, it wasn't enough. I'm thinking, is he tripping right now? But I guess you're right. Whatever spells of protection he was trying to cast did not work. He was lighting incense when he should have been lighting

Jurassic Park style flares to distract the beast. He should have been erecting a electric fence around the property. As the creature left the room, Musou regained his ability to move. But when he looked around the door, he couldn't catch a glimpse of the creature. The next morning when the villagers returned, Musou was waiting for them. The head villager and his family were overjoyed to see him safe and well. Musou! Are you well?

We were so worried about you. Not well. I'm and well. Musou! O genki desu ka? We were so worried about you. Not genki. Genki arimasen. No genki, okay? No genki! No genki! What's Japanese for night beast? Musou's like, you f***ed me. You told me some bad

stuff would happen. You didn't say a T-Rex sized demon would come to eat everything in the house they left for a reason someone there has seen this thing before and that's why they leave and to not give him that to just be like oh you're a priest oh dude you're gonna be you're gonna be fine you're gonna love this now i'm starting to think they were uh trying to lure passers-by into the house on the night of the great purge right right to be like oh hey we need someone to stay behind while we go to i don't know gather berries um

everything's gonna be fine though good luck do you mind uh looking after my my dad over here yeah um you put on our traditional headrest which is is just a bunch of fruit and put these put spread this jam on your nipples because that's that's something we do here at this ceremony and just dip your ass in this barbecue sauce. It's all part of the ceremony that we have here at the village. Wow. I really hope no Airbnb I ever stay at. They asked me to dip my ass in barbecue sauce. Well, Musa was wondering how to break the news that the body and all of the carefully wrapped offerings had been eaten. But when the village entered the front room, nobody even turned a hair at the sight of the empty table. Noticing Musso's confusion, the man at the house explained that it was the law of the land to vacate immediately after a death.

And whenever this rule has been broken, great misfortune has struck shortly after. The village leader said, But as you were here last night, I'm sure you saw the cause. Musou then spilled his entire story about the terrifying visitor. The leader was nodding gravely as he listened. But there was still something Musou didn't understand. If they had wanted a priest to do the ceremony for the deceased, why didn't the family get the old priest in the Anjutsu on the top of the hill, instead of just hoping that a random traveler would pass by? When he asked about it, the family looked at one another, confused.

What are you talking about? There is no Anjutsu on the hill. I'm gonna add in some cool effects there. You don't seem as blown away by that statement as I thought you would be. I thought you're gonna really respond to that. I'm on the edge of my seat! I need to hear what happened to the Anjutsu! As much as Musou tried to tell them that he'd seen it with his own eyes, even talked to the occupant, the family were adamant. There had been no priest in residence in the region for generations. Deciding not to press the matter, Musou relented and prepared to get on his way.

But before he could continue his journey, he couldn't resist the urge to climb back up the hill to see if there really was an Anjutsu up there or if he'd been hallucinating. Seems fair enough, doesn't it? Climb up the hill. Gotta quickly find out if either you're mad or demons are real. Because things are trending in the latter direction

given last night's events. You don't really know what's true anymore. Musou's been through a lot in 24 hours. So it'd be a good thing to know when the crazy started. Was the hut real? Yeah. Or did things get weird when I ate those berries at the funeral? Is that when things got weird?

Do you think training as a priest is the right training for this situation? Do you think Musou is, is he like, man, goddamn, I'm glad I as a priest is the right training for this situation do you think muso is uh is he like man i god damn i'm glad i'm a priest because i'm trained to deal with this kind of shit or is or is he like uh nothing that i thought is real is real anymore what what's the point yeah because i mean he's described as being this a wandering priest, but he seems pretty blindsided by the fact that a 10 foot demon does exist in the real world. So it seems like he doesn't really have the training or knowledge behind this particular creature. You know, because it's like if there was a zombie outbreak today, just as an example, if I was a priest, I'd be like, this is pretty interesting.

You know, it seems like a kind of apocalypse type day situation which i know a little bit about but at the same time i'd actually rather be a policeman because i'd have a gun and a fast car and i'd know how to um break a zombie's neck or something you best at least hope that your church carries some sort of ceremonial sword to be able to whip out because holy water ain't cut no it actually riles them up a little bit if you will go out there with a super soaker and start shooting the zombies with holy water yeah you're gonna get that's how you get bitten pretty fast so muso climbed back up the mountain and sure enough when he made it to the summit

there it was the tumbledown old building. Without a warning, the door burst open, and the elderly priest who'd sent Musou away dropped to his knees in a deep bow. Whoa. I'm so ashamed! That came out weird. I was kidding. Please forgive me! Musou tried to calm the man, telling him that he forgave him for refusing him shelter.

At least the old man had pointed him in the right direction of the village. That pretty much saved his life. Did it? After almost dying at the hands of a demon? Well, he was pretty tired before. He would have been fine just having a nap in the field for two hours. Yeah, it's like, no, you can't stay at my house. You can't sleep by my tree.

But just down the road is Demon City. No, all right. See you later. I'm good. I'll keep walking. I'll just walk through the night. He got, I told you, he got a good couple hours sleep. He got a meal.

He had a, aside from the 24-night feast, he had a meal. If this was a filet mignon Michelin-starred meal, it doesn't make up for what came next if the dessert course is a demon from hell spanks your ass for 45 minutes it doesn't make up for the divine souffle well look it's the it's the ratatouille argument would you eat a delicious meal if the con was it was cooked by a rat? Would you- That con is on such a lower level than what happened to Musou. Would you not eat a delicious five-star meal if the chef was a black hole? Of course I would.

I think I might. I think I might. But even though Musou said that he forgave him, the old man wouldn't stop crying. He said, That's man wouldn't stop crying. He said, That's not why I'm ashamed. It's because last night, you saw me in my true form. I am a Jikininki, an eater of human flesh, and I only have myself to blame. Well, it was nice knowing you.

Take it easy. Have a good one. Don't know why I came back. All the signs Well, it was nice knowing you. Take it easy. Have a good one. Don't know why I came back. All the signs were there. All the red flags. My story begins. No. No.

I already know too much. I don't want to hear it. I'm going to go to a different village. One that just has a fucking KFC and a holiday inn. This is nuts. The guy's like, I'm a flesh-eating demon. Like, I'm good. Would you like a bowl of soup? Musou's like, I'm a flesh-eating demon. Like, I'm good. Would you like a bowl of soup?

Musou's like, I am pretty hungry, actually. I guess I could take a bowl of soup from a Jiki Ninki. You just know the next village he would get to is a little more modern. Maybe it has a drive-thru McDonald's. Sure. And as he walks through, he's like, yeah, can I just, I've had a rough day. Can I just get like a 20-piece McNugget meal, please. I'm the voice of the intercom is like of course, but first you must hear my story Another geeky ninkey. No, no, sir. This is demon city

No, I thought I took the left away from demon city No, ah, I thought I took the left away from Demon City I'd like to recommend the Happy Meal for I have never had a Happy Meal in my life Okay, this is this is just sad other than human flesh. I have to ask is the quarter binder is the quarter but human flesh Yes I'm good. I'm good I'll just get my six McNuggets and go, six McMahon nuggets? No, did you, did you say man? Did you say McMahon nuggets? I don't want, I want chicken nuggets. McMahon nugget. The fact that McDonald's went to the degree of branding this, this human flesh nugget.

I also love that there's that many Cheeky Ninkys, that an entire fast food restaurant of human flesh has been set up. The old man explained that decades ago, he was this region's priest, offering his services to all the small towns across the mountain range. But he got greedy, and it became all about the money and gifts. When his natural life came to an end, he was reborn as a Jikininki, cursed to crave rotting flesh until the end of time. Jesus Christ. The old man begged Musou to pray for him and perform a special rite, a Segaki service. But no sooner had the words left his lips, he evaporated, gone in an instant. left his lips. He evaporated, gone in an instant. Looking around, Musou was no longer in the hilltop Anjutsu. He was kneeling alone in a field of long, unkempt grass. Looking around for any sort of clue

as to where he was, he noticed something on the ground in front of him. Peeking between the blades of grass was a weathered tombstone belonging to a priest that had passed decades before. And that is the story of Musou and the Jikininki. I feel like we just experienced a cut scene from Legend of Zelda. So he was teleported from his location on the hill. He met with the old man. He played the song of healing. What don't you get? This is straight out of Majora's Mask, actually. You found the spirit.

You played the song of healing. Then it becomes a grave and you get his face now. Right. I don't know if it was either the old man confessing his sins or Musou saying that he forgave the old man whatever happened in that process uh his soul was redeemed and he was finally able to rest which is quite nice that's a quite nice little conclusion wow it's pretty funny like i was just asking you know it really are these kind of demons and ghosts part of a zen buddhist lore but um clearly clearly they are i'm guessing this story

must have been passed on among buddhists well yeah i mean uh yeah i don't know if it's necessarily uh buddhism but i mean japan in general has a huge rich history of folklore spirits and demons shinigami death gods and uh what do you call the little spirits? Yokai? Yokai, I believe it is, for ghosts. And there's so many of them. We've had a lot sent into this podcast to be investigated before, and this is kind of just one of them.

This idea of a hungry ghost, a devouring ghost. Wow. I hadn't really come across this before. A hungry ghost really cool i really like the idea that something they did on earth it's just filled them with this insatiable hunger it's pretty cool i mean it kind of makes sense doesn't it that if you're um a hungry little shit uh here on earth and you're never satisfied why would like everlasting peace come over you as soon as you die yeah i mean greed mean, greed, gluttony,

two sins that all involve kind of hunger and dissatisfaction. So yeah, it kind of makes sense. Now, I guess we should go over exactly what we've got on our hands here with specifically the Jiki Ninki. I'm going to level with you. There's not a lot out there about this particular type of cryptid.

He came into this world ate a man and then left it shortly after they uh this i believe was the story the earliest story that kind of set them up and told their their history um but there aren't many even contemporary cases of people having encounters with this creature but But let me lay down what we've got and we'll see what you think. Okay. The name translates to human eating ghost. So when you think about it, anytime somebody dies in the village,

that's why everybody leaves because they know that this creature is going to come down and devour the body. It's said that they are the spirits of greedy, selfish, and sacrilegious people who were cursed after death. They're trapped between the world of the living and the dead and can only manifest after dark. Like the ancient priest in this story, they exist solely to chow down on corpses and feel like shit about the situation.

Wow. Which I actually kind of like, you know, because a lot of times we'll have a ghost who is appearing haunting people and he's actually having a pretty good time like corny the irish ghost that's right you know that wasn't a curse he's just immortal and now likes to party he's living his best afterlife whereas i i like the idea of this creature that has to eat human flesh but it's pretty much miserable and feels really bad about it the whole time. Well, I don't like it. That seems evil, but it's a cool concept. I can completely relate.

I mean, I feel like a Jiki Ninki every time I have a Domino's meal deal. I have to devour an ungodly amount and then feel terrible about it afterwards. You're just in the bathroom at the end of the day looking at your own reflection in the mirror saying, forgive me. I'm so ashamed. Forgive me. Yeah, we've all been in a similar situation before where we've devoured an ungodly amount of food and wanted to pass away and become a tombstone. What I would have given for a Zen priest to come along and put me out of my f***ing misery.

That's the difference is no priest would forgive me for the amount of Domino's pizza that I consumed. You're a monster. I was going to, and then I heard you ordered the brownies as well. If you come to my apartment, everyone I live with is evacuating. They're like, we don't like to be here when the pizza arrives. We'll return at nightfall. But there's another way to become a Jiki Ninki. Some say that even a righteous human can be struck with a curse that compels them to engage in cannibalism.

This act is enough to transform the innocent person into a wretched beast, incapable of deriving any pleasure from life and suffering unending hunger. Wow. So don't get the McMahon nuggets. Don't eat any human flesh. That's fascinating, though. I mean, that sounds like normally you become a Jikininki after death.

Yeah. If you were a bad person, greedy person through your life. But what they're saying is that if a living person is simply cursed, they actually start being a Jiki Ninki while alive. It seems like they start eating flesh. Yeah. Or, or when they die, then they become a Jiki Ninki. If they ate some human flesh while they were alive, either way, I'm a huge advocate for not eating human flesh. I actually have a picture of an artist representation of what a Jiki Ninki could look like. Wow. If you want to see. Now, this is a little bit different

from the shadow creature. This is like another kind of version of what it could appear like. So let me send this over. It's pretty grisly. I'm not going to lie. I mean, this you already you didn't think this thing was going to look nice. Let's be honest. It is a ghost slash ghoul that eats dead humans. So... Whoa! Holy moly. This thing is hideous.

It's awful, isn't it? This is a very disturbing image. What is it? It's a gargoyle. It's basically a gargoyle. Imagine a big, fat gargoyle it's basically a gargoyle imagine a big fat gargoyle um a bit more human like maybe horrible purple skin um fangs teeth like a demon eyes like a demon pointy ears like a demon those eyes are like looking right at me uh it's horrible

this image is horrible because in the artist illustration it is just eating a a corpse head first so this it looks like it's ripped straight out of the grave it looks like it's ripped this body out of the dirt pure nightmare fuel basically guys well it gives you an idea as to why an entire village would flee as soon as someone dies because you don't want to come face to face with that thing no now as i've said information about these creatures is few and far between but i've managed to pick out some juicy little snippets locals say that they apparently loot corpses for valuables before eating them which i thought was kind of weird but maybe that's also piggybacking off the greed thing interesting they still want money they still want power they still want berries and shit that's flying around the place well the weird part is is apparently that

they you this is this is a bit nuts this is a little out there apparently they use that money that they steal to bribe the local officials to let them openly haunt villages and get enough corpses bad officials bad officials if you're takinges, bad enough to take bribes, right, from the Yakuza or local criminals, but to take bribes from a demon, how evil can you get? I mean, you're basically guaranteeing that you're going to be a demon when you die.

Why does this creature feel the need to negotiate with locals? Eat the officials. It can paralyze people on site it can pretty much do whatever it wants i don't know why it needs to slide a 20 bill across a table and be like hey would you mind looking the other way while i eat this woman tonight is it just is this just an explanation that people had to come up with for why the officials won't put a stop to the Jiki Ninki eatings? When it's in reality, the officials are powerless to stop the eatings. Maybe. Yeah, yeah.

Maybe that it's a way of the villagers directing anger. It's like, well, we can't be angry at the ghost because he's cursed and he has to eat humans to survive. But you are taking his dirty ghost money and you're letting this happen. So while there is limited information, there is a pretty comprehensive list of all of their abilities. So why don't we run through some of the powers that these creatures possess? Let's go. All right. Number one, immortality.

Like figures, they're ghosts, right? They're ghosts. I guess maybe that hangs on having to eat humans, but still immortality. Yeah, what happens if they don't? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Nevermind.

We got a lot to get through, so don't have a problem with that one, please. Next, invisibility. Oh. Pretty cool. Not if you're Musou, but yeah, invisibility. Oh. Pretty cool. Not if you're Musou, but yeah, I guess. Power number three, intangibility. The power to phase through physical matter. A lot of this is just ghost stuff. Yeah, I never heard that word before, but that makes a lot of sense.

This is ghost stuff. Power number four, super eating. The ability to consume enormous quantities of food with no ill effect that's what my that's what i claim to have but my doctor disagrees my doctor says i have super cholesterol from all the super eating my cholesterol's up here but it doesn't affect me doctor's like it does it absolutely does even if i have the power of super eating it's like yes it absolutely does uh that's actually going to be a problem because uh i don't actually have um super health insurance but you don't you don't have regular health insurance either so you're right this is a problem uh power number five cannibalism empowerment what the ability to gain strength from cannibalism

pretty sure that's how kirby gets on cemetery empowerment the ability to become more powerful while in a cemetery jesus and finally dimension travel this thing's like a d7d mode time machine it is it can psycho dive psycho dive fun fact you know i went back and tried to find the uh the web page for the d7d mode time machine yeah i think it's all offline now they took it all down the store is offline i think i found their linkedin but that was the best i could find which is sad in retrospect we absolutely should have uh bought one i feel like we could have got at least one viral youtube video out of it well i believe it was 75 000 for one of them we'll ask for a review unit then look with all those with all those powers how miserable can their existence be? Aside from the human eating part. Yeah, don't have the ability of super happiness

or life empowerment though. Yeah, that's true. You must really have to love cemeteries and graveyards and eating humans, I guess. But if a Jiki Ninki wants to be freed from its life of interdimensional travel, there is hope. If a holy man like Muso, who never hurts

his family or anyone else, prays from the heart for peace for the Jiki Ninki, then they will be freed and the soul can finally rest. Wow, that's, it's cool there's a way out. It's also worrying they had to specify that the priest can't hurt his family. Clearly they had some issues down the line with priests trying to pray. That's a pretty awkward moment when they do the great prayer and the Jiki Ninki is still standing there. It's like, you told me before the prayer that you've never hurt your friends or family. It's like, no, no, I mean, no, I totally haven't. Emotionally though, would that count? Yes, of course it counts guns i think i'm just like that i'm just like like clown me about i'm just like yeah i just feel weird so i'm gonna let someone else do

it you're traveling alone i noticed would there be a reason why your family and friends don't want to travel with you if you've never harmed them before like that's kind of my wife's wife's a freaking all right well she's a freaking ball buster is why phrases like that maybe would leave me to believe that my reason oh my god that the sacred right didn't work is because you're you're talking like this about your little shits they're little shits they are and then but anyone would think that even a priest i really appreciate you uh you trying but i don't i don't think this is gonna work because it says in the in the lore that i need someone who's pure of heart it's just that um well sure but my i want to help but like i'm my heart is full of hate is okay the issue i saw you kick a

turtle by the way just down the road before you got to me funny he looked at me funny that's not a reason to kick a turtle and that would that alone would disqualify you from doing a passage like this. How zen can you be if you kicked a turtle? I feel pretty zen after I kicked the turtle. I felt pretty damn zen when I left my wife. So to round things off, I did a little bit more research into the theme of ghosts with curses relating to eating. And apparently it's a huge thing this concept of hungry ghosts hungry ghosts are described in buddhist taoist hindu sikh and other texts as dead individuals who are afflicted

with an insatiable hunger or thirst as a result of the bad deeds or evil they carried out in their lifetimes. You know? Jeff Bezos, hungry ghost. Bill Gates, hungry ghost. They're all going to be wandering around eating dead bodies for eternity. And no traveling Zen Buddhist is going to purge them of the curse. Scrooge McDuck, another famous hungry ghost. Oh, he's going to hell big time. And the more I read about all the different types of these hungry ghosts the more i realized that the jiki ninki actually got off pretty lucky

really some of these other ghosts can eat whatever food they want but however the curse works they find it impossible to find food in the human world others can find food and drink, but they have pinhole mouths and can't swallow the food. Whoa. That's terrible. I don't like that one. That freaks me out. Jesus.

They would have to shave down a McDonald's fry so it's like a freaking noodle and put it in. And that process would take about an hour and a half to get one McDonald's fry into your pinhole mouth. For other ghosts, food bursts into flames or rots as they

devour it. Wow. So dramatic. It's pretty wild, right? I've had that one when I try and eat a hot pocket fresh out the microwave. The food bursts into flames as I devour it. Oh, yeah. It melts my insides. Yeah. Do you ever bake a potato? They're like f***ing lava balls. You got to wait for like six to eight working days for that thing to cool to an edible temperature. I've cooked potatoes before where I feel like if I dropped it on the floor, it would do that thing where it melts through my floor and then the floor of the apartment below and then sinks into the earth's mantle. floor under the floor of the apartment below and then sinks into the earth's mantle uh and maybe the worst of all hungry japanese ghost called gaki can only eat shit who's making these rules what kind of overlord demon is making the rules because these are very harsh how bad must you have had to be in your human life that you are not only cursed to be a ghost for eternity but

you can only eat shit there is there is no more there is the greatest existential punishment possible is being doomed to be a ghost forever to wander the earth why also put on top of it oh yeah you gotta eat shit three times a day too those were two people dishing out the punishment those are two people that was one guy who was like being poetic about it yeah you will live but you will not live you will be there but not there trapped in a gray world your soul will will pointlessly wander the sands of time until the very fabric of reality is shattered in front of you. And then someone else goes, and you can only eat shit!

Yeah, sure. You can only eat human shit too. Whatever. Okay. And your hands are... It's fine. They have to wander eternity until the fabric of reality disintegrates. Your hands are French fries, but you can't eat them. You gotta use the fries to

shovel the shit in your little pinhole mouth. We've covered it. We've covered everything. And even after the fabric of reality disintegrates, you gotta f***ing, you gotta drink d*** through a straw. That's quite enough. That is quite enough.

This is like if God had a shoulder devil for when he's dissing out judgment. Are you drinking Rock Shore? I've been drinking beer this entire podcast. What? I'm 16. Ladies and gentlemen, we're recording at 5.45 a.m. Rory is still hammered.

Dude, you got to take whatever you can in quarantine. Being in quarantine is like hammered. Dude, you got to take whatever you can in quarantine. Being in quarantine is like airport rules. You can have a beer at 9 a.m. You can do whatever you want. You just got to do whatever it takes you to get through. All right. Hey, I'm not a buzzkill. I'm not one to judge.

Last night, I sank four whiskey sours, put on my VR headset, and went to a world where cat girls are real. You're going to judge me for that one too, Malvanna? I'm actually. Something weird about having drunk sex in VR? There really is actually, yeah. Is there really? Is there really?

Because I might cut that from the podcast if there's actually. It's not illegal though, is it? It might be. Okay. The way the whiskey sours are hitting hitting you you're hitting on these cat girls what does a kitty have to do to get petted around here huh the other cat is like uh so i'm a uh 32 year old software engineer oh sorry your cat avatar is pretty hot though you can see where i was could you just mute your mic you know i will say i've been uh one of the games i've been

playing a lot of in with my new headset is vChat, which is this. You can just go to virtual reality worlds, hang out with Oculus users all over the world. You were about to say cat girls, but go on. Yeah, I got with cat girls all over the world. There is a huge, there's a pretty huge furry community in VRChat that I was not made aware of until very recently. They don't put that on the box of the Oculus when you buy it. They really don't. So that was pretty weird. Yeah. Sure.

It makes sense because you can choose whatever avatar you want. And no one wants to be someone else more than the furry community. Pretty much. They want to be foxes and stuff. Hey, more power to you. Go for it. You want to have a cat avatar and go to the cat world? Live your dream.

That's kind of a weird note to end the podcast on. But maybe not as weird as someone telling someone else to drink d*** through a straw. We're going to bleep that after as well. We're going to bleep a lot of this podcast, I reckon. Look, today we've dive into not just the jiki ninkee but hungry ghost is a concept this is a bit of a weird podcast because usually we tell a story or talk about a specific creature and come to a conclusion as to whether or not it's true as to whether or not it's paranormal. I think we can both agree that this story is more fiction.

It's more lore. It's more of a fantasy, a myth. Yeah. So it's been an enjoyable one to cover, but I don't think we need to have that debate of whether or not there are ghosts that eat humans after they die. Yeah. This is an amazing story.

Fantastically researched so thank you to um to rory and amy grisdale for for doing that an amazing um story uh yeah it's so it's fascinating more for how it crosses over with other um stories and ideas in the world um and less for its physical paranormal merit yeah yeah i think i mentioned before about uh no face from spirited away the studio ghibli movie it's that it's absolutely a hungry ghost right in the movie that's all it is uh yeah this is embarrassing because i actually wrote my dissertation at university on studio ghibli and talked about no face quite a lot and the inspiration behind him. It did come from a couple different sources. The face, I believe, came from a type of mask

used in Japanese theater. Right, like a kabuki mask or something? Yeah, I'm going to nerd out on you a little bit here. But this mask is designed so that depending on how the light is hitting the mask, it can appear as if it's either smiling or frowning. And that's kind of, it kind of reflects its surroundings. Wow. That's so cool. And that's a very similar thing to what you see in the movie Spirited Away, where No-Face is reflected in what he consumes in the world. So whatever he consumes, it kind of changes his appearance and how he acts. And as I said, at the start of the podcast, there are a ton of other ghosts like this in in the world so whatever he consumes it kind of changes his appearance and how he acts and as i said at the start of the the the podcast there are a ton of other ghosts like this in japanese

folklore we've we've had them all emailed in the uh the toilet ghost the weird slit mouth uh woman there's a there's tons of them um but this one i thought was really interesting for a number of reasons and i think there was enough for this particular one that it could be its own episode. As soon, as soon as I read that first big story about Musso, I was like, this is just great. This is just a great ghost story. This is perfect. But it is a double no and it's a waste of time.

It was. Yeah. Yeah. To get, to get to the point, uh, I don't believe it's real but what a story absolutely so thank you everyone for tuning into this week's episode of this paranormal life let us know if you enjoyed these ones you know these cases where we've done some like this before which are more folklore or we've done some before that are more creepypastas or legends so let us know if you enjoy them and if you have your own paranormal story

that you would like us to investigate. Whether it's one you've read about online or one that you've lived through. Whether you're recovering from it. Whether or not maybe you're still radioactive.

And if you thought this story was tanoshii if you thought it was sugoi you know, just let us know. If you thought it was genki if you thought it was Genki

just write on in if you want to write in Japanese I'm fluent please don't send it in in Japanese and if you do please send in an English translation as well just do it in

Nyangor in Kanji if possible set send them into this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com some of you may have listened to this week's episode and you're like well that sucks because now i'm up to date again now i got nothing left i've heard everything rory and kid have done and now you feel doomed to wander the earth aimlessly in a gray world until another podcast episode turns up. Wandering aimlessly, drinking through a straw. That's how life feels without new TPL episodes. But we're here to tell you that maybe that's not the case because over on patreon.com for as little as five bucks a month, you can get access to what I believe now is 43 bonus episodes.

Insanity. As we mentioned earlier, basically a whole year of TPL at your fingertips. We do have a store where you can buy merch online, which is in the description of this podcast. But if you want to support the show, keep it running for many, many years to come. The best way to do that is on patreon now i know what you're thinking hey what about these bonus episodes what if i don't like them maybe they're not the same as the regular episodes well we're here to put those fears at rest because we just released june's bonus episode haunted dis Disneyland, where we covered all the myths and legends and curses allegedly taking place at Disneyland's all across the world.

That was a really fun episode. I really enjoyed that. It's actually, it's pretty much, this is a great plug because that was a very, very fun episode. It really was. And just to give you a little taste of how that episode went and whether or not you want to listen to it, here's a little clip right now. In 1999, a family at Disneyland were enjoying the ride It's a Small World, when suddenly the ride came to a complete stop and everything shut down. Staff appeared immediately to evacuate everyone,

and an announcement crackled over the PA. Disneyland thanks you for your visit. Please evacuate the attraction in an orderly fashion. Keep looking forward and follow the directions of the staff. Well the mother of the family could see that there was an emergency vehicle waiting outside, so taking the opportunity to capture some cool pictures of It's a Small World while the ride was shut down, she took out her camera and began snapping. Maybe she was just trying to use

up the camera roll. Maybe she took the picture by accident. But after their trip was over, the family had the pictures developed and couldn't believe what she had captured on her camera. I'm so excited to see what this could be. Feast your eyes on this. Ladies and gentlemen, what I'm looking at, it appears to be a small child or person levitating at the top of the roof. Either that or this human is hanging from a noose, looking down on them, riding this ride. It looks like one of the childlike animatronics floating in the air like Mewtwo, hovering above the ride, looking down at everyone. It looks like kind of an action shot as well, like she was kind of getting off the ride, snapped this picture

up into the rafters. Oh, this is the last thing you see before you die, that's for sure. It's like Predator up there, hanging from a tree. They knew it was coming down. It's terrifying. Thank you for enjoying your stay at Disneyland.

One of the animatronics has become sentient and we believe has gone super safe. Our team of hunters has been deployed and will be dealing with the beast immediately. It can eject acidic goo from its tear ducts. Please watch for this as you make your way to the exit. We encourage all of our passengers to please move forward and refrain from don't look up don't look up in it oh my god he's broken into he's broken into the office control room save yourself oh what an episode that was a good one also in that episode we talked a lot about the behind the scenes of this paranormal life.

The tragic backstory behind me trying to set up a private members club website. Sure. And asking people to DM me on Twitter. But we also talk a little bit about the future of the podcast and the kind of changes that we want to be making to the online store and ultimately the Patreon. So if you are interested in all things this paranormal life and want to learn a little bit more about what we've got coming in the future that's a good place to start we should do a little more behind the scenes over there because as we always say here we dive right in we do but uh yeah sometimes it's good for you guys to see the tragic peek behind the curtain well i think the joke in the bonus episode was

for once we don't dive right in, and I ask you about your week. And very quickly, I remember why we don't do that at the start of the podcast. Yeah, well, don't ask if you don't want to know. Yeah. It was just weird because it was a bonus episode, and we were trying to keep the spirits high

and the energy high, and you actually hit me with a lot of really private, depressing uh personal shit which would you know it's if you want to talk about that off the podcast i'm here but it was just kind of like you know i would never talk to you off the podcast bit of a weird forum to i would never trust you off the podcast to not tell other people my private information right but you in turn then saying it on the podcast delivers that information to the public. F***ing hell. You never thought of it?

Shit, quite a lot of people listen to that. To this too? We've got to go. I need to take that down. I need to take that down. No, you can't take it down. It's already uploaded. I mentioned a lot of names.

I mentioned a lot of names. You did. I mean, first and last, you said someone's social security numbers. Yeah. Randomly. I told you not to do it and you just started naming social security numbers you got off the dark web. There's enough in that to get me put away.

There is. For a long time. For a real long time. I begged you to stop at one point, but you were so keen on bragging about how little tax you paid. I'm already under house arrest. So like one, if I, if I said a literal toe out of line, it's over. You're not at your house, by the way. I can, I can see the background. It looks like you're at a bar somewhere. Already you've broken house arrest. Don't say it out loud because a lot of people listen to this, bud.

You shouldn't air my laundry like that on the show. Yeah. The waiter's trying to get your attention, by the way, just, just behind you. Oh shit. Um, yeah. Uh, can I grab, I grab a bottle of grey goose and a bucket of ice yeah

and I can afford it too because I don't pay dick in tax we can your mic is on we can we heard that it was off mic

I just I was talking to the waiter don't publish that don't don't publish that to the patrons thank you for listening to this week's episode

of this paranormal life yeah I still want it obviously uh we'll be back next week uh with a brand new well i'll be back next week i actually have no idea where kid is gonna be at there's sirens we need to go thanks everyone all right thank you okay see you later thanks for tuning in Thank you.