Works Referenced

This work uses many preexisting true ghost stories and pieces of net lore as its motif. In particular, this section will note those which have been used directly. It will touch on the content of the main book, so if you are concerned about spoilers, please tread carefully.

■File 20: T is for Templeborn

As touched on in the story, T-san the Templeborn is a character who shows up in the middle of ghost stories to shout “Hah!” and blow away the monsters. The oldest records one can find are from the 2channel message board’s News Flash (VIP) board’s “Kowai to Misekakete Waraeru Hanashi” [Stories That Seem Scary but Are Funny] thread, posts 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, and 30 (9/9/2017).

• 24 is “Akai Wanpiisu no Onna” [The Woman in the Red Dress]. T-san uses a pale blue bead of light to blow away a woman who causes car accidents.
• 25 is “Namakubi” [Disembodied Head]. T-san catches and sets a disembodied female head that has been possessing the narrator’s girlfriend on fire.
• 26 is “Kaisuiyou” [Swimming in the Sea]. The narrator is being pulled in by a swarm of black shadows when his friend T-san surfs in to save him.
• 27 is “Akumu” [Nightmare]. The amulet T-san gives to the narrator blows the man with a saw who appears in his nightmare in half.
• 29 is “Yotsuri” [Night Fishing]. Countless humanoid figures try to make the narrator commit suicide until T-san spins his rod around and shreds them with his fishing line.
• 30 is “Rouken” [Old Dog]. T-san pats the old dog that has been defending the narrator’s house from the spirits of the dead and the spirits start to take a different route.

This thread saw a number of “stories that seem scary but are actually funny,” including the T-san stories, written in a short period of time by a poster with the same user ID. This poster’s ID also matched that of the thread starter. Therefore, we can conclude that the thread starter posted a number of stories he had collected from elsewhere or had already written in quick succession. In other words, it is highly likely that T-san did not originate in this thread.

There is a post in the Niconico Encyclopedia’s “Teraumare no T-san” [T-san the Templeborn] entry, comment 103 (27/10/2012). Here is a portion of it:

“The first one came from the comment section of a certain blog that had a fake ghost story with a joke in it. I think it was Night Fishing.”

“I remember seeing people who realized it was a joke, and those who simply enjoyed the idea of a ghost story destroyer.”

“I got carried away and posted The Woman in the Red, Night Swimming, and Nightmare one after another. Everyone loved them.”

“After that, someone said they wanted to make a thread on 2ch, and I enthusiastically approved.”

“That brings us to now. The only thing I can say when I see the influence those posts had and the fact T-san is still around today is, ‘Hahhhh?!’”

As noted above, this statement is consistent with the way the “Stories That Seem Scary but are Funny” thread was posted, so it seems highly believable, and yet there are no responses to this comment. No one has paid it any heed up to this day in 2021.

I tried to find where the comment section of the blog in question might be, but to no avail. There are few things harder to preserve than the comments of a personal blog, but it is still regrettable. The Niconico Encyclopedia page which I referenced will no doubt disappear someday too. Those who wish to do so should preserve it with copy/paste, screenshots, services like web gyotaku, or other means.

As I stated in volume three, as a general rule, I don’t use stories that are clearly stated to be fictional in this work, but this time marks the first exception. I struggled with the decision, but the concept for volume 6 was to make a “theatrical version” with a single volume-length file. By having the famous T-san make an appearance, I felt that would give it a slightly different, more festive feel than usual, so I decided to disregard my general rule.

The lines T-san speaks in the main story and certain situations are taken from the above mentioned posts (and likely, by extension, the originals).

The blue sun drawn on the wall in the apartment basement is based on Story #69 “Chikashitsu” [The Basement], included in Gendai Hyaku Monogatari Shinmimibukuro Daiichiya [Modern-day 100 Stories, Shinmimibukuro, The First Night] (Hirokatsu Kihara/Ichirou Nakayama, Media Factory, 1998). When a house is demolished to build a new one, another room five or six meters below the basement is discovered, and the west wall of that room, which is less than two tatami-mats in size, has a crimson sun with a diameter of twenty centimeters drawn on it. This report from Shinmimibukuro, a book which is one of the inspirations for this series and which I have drawn from repeatedly, was one that featured no supernatural elements and yet still left an intense impression on me after I first read it.

I know I always say this, but I would like to give my thanks to the people who reported the many other true ghost stories and net lore from which I have taken direct or indirect influence. And, for this time only, I would like to thank the writers of T-san the Templeborn stories too.

Thank you for your continued enjoyment and for being frightened. I hope this book can repay my gratitude in some small way.