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Study 118 - The Reconciliation / The Corpse-Rider (Patreon)

Published:
2025-01-16 21:44:19
Edited:
2025-02-06 17:42:19
Imported:
2025-01
Tags:

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Content

We're covering The Reconciliation and The Corpse-Rider by Lafcadio Hearn, both adapted for the '64 Japanese film Kwaidan!

Special thanks to reader Erik Peabody of Viking Guitar Productions (whose guitar stylings also rock the outro).

Here's that interview about Kwaidan with Guillermo del Toro.

And more information about Koizumi Setsuko!

Next up: A Wig for Miss DeVore by August Derleth

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Comments

Daniel Restione

Great episode and it reminds me- I freakin love this outro music. You’ve used it before and I’ve meant to say something. Where did it come from?

Nekko The Odd

I always get a little excited when Kwaidan gets discussed. I have a soft spot for folklore of the paranormal persuasion and the 60s film is just so damn beautiful to watch. awesome show as always fellas.

Oleh R

The second story sounds like something you’d find in Sapkowski’s Witcher stories, ie a rather bizarre way of resolving a curse. Also has anyone else listened to Ningen Isu? Not totally relevant to this episode besides being Japanese, Lovecraft-inspired, and metal as hell.

Mandy Reznor (She/It)

Gods, I love Kwaidan. I'm glad Chad shouted out the second story in the film—it is by far my favorite and stars the exceptional Tatsuya Nakadai, who was also the main character in the perfect samurai film Harakiri. I've always had the pet theory that if one wanted to do an anthology film of Chambers' The King in Yellow, one should approach the set design like Kwaidan. IE, soundstages so big they become liminal, at once being spacious enough your brain *almost* feels like it is open air, yet restricted enough that it lends a stage play quality to the scenes, and with the skies meticulously painted in with uncanny touches that are visible to the viewer but not the characters. "The Snow Ghost" in particular displays what I mean by that last touch.

Kip Barnes

I wrote a paper in college on the Kwaidan film. I had to watch the film many times and I still love it. Japanese film making even today has a different slower pacing to it that I think can drag on for western audiences. I enjoy the slower pacing. Hoichi the Earless is my favorite in the collection. What do you think the moral of that story is? Houchi is blind, he has no idea he’s playing for ghosts. They love his music and want to spirit him away and only his fellow monks really know what’s going. In the end Hoichi gets punished for someone else not protectionist well enough. I felt so bad for his character. Like many of the classic fairytales it also ends abruptly. Is it an allegory for parenting? I purchased the kwaidan book so I’m eager to get through it. Also, if you like weird Japanese films and monster cats, House is streaming on HBO Max. It is bonkers. Chad, I think we may have watched it together at one point.

Ann Knight

I've never read A Wig for Miss DeVore, I hope there's a bit more substance to her wig than Jerry Jarvis's.

Eldritch Golem (JPM)

I'm always happy whenever you guys get back to Japanese weird fiction. This was a great way to start my Friday morning as I'm currently working on an essay I've been asked to contribute to a forthcoming volume on Lovecraft's influence on Japanese pop-culture. On that note I wanted to say two things about this episode. The first is that while Chad's etymological breakdown of 怪談 (Kaidan) is correct, his conclusion that the word should be translated as "ghost stories" fails to capture the full depth and breath of the genre. A more accurate translation, in my estimation, would actually be much closer to the title of your own show: "strange" 怪 (kai) + "stories" 談 (dan). We see this in the full title of Lafcadio Hearn's book - Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things, so even closer to the title of this very podcast! I also can't help but add that if one wanted to grant a bit of poetic license to the translator you might even render "Kaidan" as "Weird Tales." The second point concerns Hearn's interpolations within the stories he collected. While I can't speak to "The Reconciliation," I do know that scholar Yoko Makino has shown that Hearn almost certainly "improved" upon the version of the tale of the Yuki-Onna (or "Snow Ghost" as Chad put it) found in Kwaidan. The older folkloric versions of the Yuki-Onna story are very rudimentary in comparison and contain none of the pathos found in Hearn's rendition, which was subsequently adapted by Masaki Kobayashi and therefore becoming the template for all future renditions. Makino speculates that Hearn - conversant in French weird fiction, as you both noted - likely appropriated these dramatic touches from Charles Baudelaire's “Les Bienfaits de la Lune” (The Moon's Blessings). So while Hearn certainly deserves all the praise you heap upon him for helping to preserve and reinvigorate interest in Japanese folklore, it is also important to remember Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: that whatever you study, you also change.

Richard Upton Sinclair Lewis Pickman

Sooo, does this mean next week you’re bringing back the Wig Song? Yes, I am calling it that because I don’t remember the actual name of the song.

Jb Lee

You may want to check out the THRILLER version of A WIG FOR MISS DEVORE, which is out there on YouTube. It makes some changes in Derleth's tale, and for my money, makes them for the better!

Jerome Arnold

I am currently reading the book "A History of the Vikings : Children of Ash and Elm" by archaeologist Neil Price. Many of the preserved burials that are well-over a millennium old still have the occupants' hair almost fully intact. That being said, it's still not the oldest hair that was ever recovered. Try 257,000 years ago: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/257000-years-ago-a-hyena-ate-some-human-hair-and-probably-the-rest-of-the-person-too-419574/#:~:text=257%2C000%20Years%20Ago%2C%20a%20Hyena,the%20Person%2C%20Too)%20%7C%20Smithsonian

Anne Ominous

Just like all the weird bear stories, I'm shocked into discomfort by all the weird hair stories. You want weird hair? You should see my high school grad pic circa '92

Ben A

I love the Japanese ghost stories of Hearn, which I first read perhaps 20 years ago. They have a universal creepiness mixed with Japanese cultural mores, which I agree with you all was made a little more exotic by Hearn's translations. When you said you'd be covering The Corpse-Rider, I immediately was brought back to the eggcorn of Chad saying you saw Bram Stoker riding Dracula. Now all I can think of in this story is Bram Stoker on Dracula's back twisting his hands into Dracula's mutton chops to keep from getting bitten. On a completely different note, you're right that hair can far outlast most other tissues after death. There are the famous cases of long-lasting posthumous hair, like locks of Abe Lincoln's or Napoleon's hair that are held by museums and personal collectors. But these are downright modern compared to other archaeological hair. Back when I was researching variation in body form and the peopling of the Americas, I examined some of the oldest human remains found in North America. Among these was one approximately 10,000 year-old partially mummified man buried in Nevada, long since repatriated to the Shoshone & Paiute. Along with rabbit fur slippers, an elaborate woven blanket, and other grave goods, the reddish-brown hair on his head was perfectly preserved. No hair-related hauntings or shenanigans ensued from studying him. Though I'll add that his remains were stored in a large wooden crate secured by two locks (one key held by the curator of the museum and the other by the state governor), and when they wheeled the crate out to open it I admit I said, "Let me guess, the Ark of the Covenant."

Karl Haikara

I love Kwaidan, I saw it the first time as a teenager i believe in the late 90s early 2000s with the Criterion vhs that I rented from the library, I also had read the original book before watching it. Beautiful film, and it was cool to see where they got the symbols painted all over the body in Conan The Barbarian, John Milius specifically mentioned Kwaidan as an influence for that scene. Love Japanese ghost media, they really have the creepiest ghost stories and movies I think.

Jim Cannon

For those interested, I highly recommend the recent folklore study _The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore_ by Michael Dylan Foster. There's quite a bit on Hearne in there, and of course loads of information on Japanese monsters, spirits, and weirdness.

Darth Pseudonym

I'm honestly surprised you didn't know the yin/yang stuff is associated to feminine and masculine, because that's right at the core of the whole concept. Yang is associated with a whole list of qualities -- masculine, outside, cold, dry, and light -- while yin is all the opposite qualities -- feminine, inside, warm, wet, and dark. If you think about it for a second you can probably figure out why those specific qualities would be respectively grouped together with male and female. (Sex. It's about sex. It's always about sex.)

Tara Murphy

I love the outro with the scream incorporated into the music. Chad, did you mix Erik's guitar with some of your own stuff? It was great.

Sweatin' to the Great Oldies

I'm coming in rather late on this, but I reckon it's worth mentioning: don't look for cosmic justice in Japanese folktales. Sometimes shit just happens. No reason. No comeuppance.

Stephenomenon

I don't suppose there's a place where I can pay for the privilege of having a copy of that amazing outro music.