Itsuki

Kanji: 縊鬼
Kana: いつき
Pronunciation: Itsuki (ee-tsoo-kee)

TRANSLATION: Strangling Ghost / Hanging Demon
ALTERNATE NAMES: Iki; Kubire-oni; Chōsatsuki; Chōshiki
ORIGIN: Edo period; first written in the anecdote collection Hōgo no Uragaki (反故の裏書), with older roots in Chinese folklore.

HABITAT: Meikai, the underworld of the dead; rafters, gates, and lonely trees where a person once hanged themselves.
DIET: None in the bodily sense; the spirit only takes another soul to replace its own.

ABILITIES:

• Possession by suggestion — gives the victim an overpowering urge to hang themselves.
• Voice from the shadows — calls out to people who are alone.
• Place-binding — stays at the site of a past hanging and waits for new victims.
• Memory wipe — survivors usually remember nothing of the encounter.

WEAKNESSES:

• Interruption by another living person.
• Buddhist prayer.
• Strong will, though the impulse is very hard to refuse.

OVERVIEW: The Itsuki is a ghost yokai from Edo-period anecdote. It tells the living to hang themselves so it can finally leave the underworld and return to a new life.

APPEARANCE: The Itsuki has no fixed body across the legends. In the inn story it appears as a dark shadow in the rafters above the victim. In the Kōjimachi story it appears as a stranger standing near a gate. Sometimes the Itsuki is only a voice in the dark. The rope is the one constant feature, either around the spirit's own neck or held out toward the victim.

BEHAVIOR: The Itsuki must stay in Meikai, the shadowy underworld with a fixed population. A soul may leave to be reborn only when a new soul of the same death-type comes in. The Itsuki grows tired of waiting and looks for the living to take its place. It picks people who are alone at night, near a gate or under a rafter.

INTERACTIONS: Encounters with the Itsuki are deadly. In one legend a traveler at an inn hears a woman talking softly in the next room and sees her putting a noose around her neck. He removes the rope before she can use it, and the spirit disappears. The woman remembers nothing. In the Kōjimachi banquet story a friend tells the host, "I promised to hang myself at Kuichigai gate," and the host holds him back through the night. A messenger later reports that a different man has hanged himself at the same gate. The Itsuki, tired of waiting, had found a substitute. To protect a person who acts this way, keep them with others, hold them back from the place, and use Buddhist prayer.

OTHER FORMS: The Itsuki may appear as a shadow in the rafters, a human-shaped stranger at a gate, or only a voice. Later retellings, including the GeGeGe no Kitarō manga, give it a more demonic form called Kubire-oni. In every form the spirit shows the rope.