Sugisawa Village: The Vanished Settlement

Sugisawa Village: The Vanished Settlement

[Music] Good evening, friends of the spooky and mysterious. This is Supernatural Japan, where history, folklore, and the things we whisper about after dark all meet. Today, we hike into the cedar thick hills of Almie to chase a village that people swear existed and was erased. This is the legend of Sugisawa village. The massacre no one will officially acknowledge. The map that suddenly had a blank spot and the spirits that still carry out from beyond the trees. [Music] According to the tale, Sugi Sawa was a tiny farming hamlet somewhere in Almuri city’s hinterland. And one day, accounts vary between Magi and Early Showa, someone in the village snapped. They took up a farm tool, sometimes an axe, sometimes a sickle, and slaughtered the entire community. When authorities arrived, the horror was so complete that the government decided to erase the area, to erase the village. Road signs gone, maps altered, and the name struck from records. Visitors say a lonely Tori stood at the entrance near a rock shaped like a skull. Some claim the village gate still appears, then vanishes when you turn back. From there, the story mutates. Some versions warn that no one who finds Sugisawa returns. Others insist vengeful dead lure intruders deeper, or that the killer’s ghost stalks the ruins forever, replaying that night. To understand why Sugisawa endures, you have to feel the Tohoku atmosphere. deep winters, mountain passes, and a long tradition of spirit work that keeps the invisible world close. Itaco mediums of Almarie, especially around Mount Aoree, which we did talk about in a previous episode of the podcast, have long served as conduits to the dead, performing ceremonies, spiriting rights for grieving families. Even today uh now again episode 30 of this podcast volcanic wasteland hosts festivals where the itaco channel voices from beyond that living practice keeps the boundary between the worlds thin. Tohoku’s folklore is crowded with household and roadside spirits. Sashiki washi which are childlike house yo-kai who bring luck. Kappa along the rivers and other presences cataloged uh since the Tono Motoari era. Ghost belief here isn’t fringe. It’s woven into everyday cautionary wisdom about places, seasons, and behavior. So, a tale about a village disappeared, I’m using air quotes there, by tragedy fits the region’s storytelling style. There’s an isolated settlement. There’s unresolved dead and a road that only some can find. This is classic Kaidon. Classic Japanese ghost storytelling. [Music] Sugisawa is often discussed along with other you’re not supposed to find it places especially the Inunnaki village which is in Fukuoka or said to be in Fukuoka area and that was also featured in the Supernatural Japan podcast episode number 18. Inunnaki’s legend says there’s a settlement past a warning sign where Japanese law doesn’t apply. Those who trespass risk death at locals hands online. The modern form crystallized around the late 1990s message boards then cross-pollinated with real tragedies at the old Enunnaki tunnel. The vibe is the same. A forbidden enclave outside the social contract and outside the map. When where Inunnaki leans into the taboo community beyond the constitution, Sugi Sawa leans into eraser after atrocity, a cover up myth. Both center uh so both center and liinal roads, missing signage, and a dread that the official Japan might hide certain histories. Other media echo the template. We’ve heard of fictional lost villages cut off by landslides, dams, and rituals. So, this kind of genre or theme of a missing village, a missing place, it’s not new in Japan. The legend survives because people keep trying to find it. On Japanese and English blogs, posts pair blurry maps with shrine names tracing Tory gates with air quotes skull rocks near Amry City. Some articles link the name Sugisawa to local toponyms, which are place names created from topographical features, and to Kosugi, a historic hamlet whose characters suggest cedar and stream, feeding the rumor that Sugisawa is a folk misremembering of real geography. Explorers report seeing an old sign one night and then not the next. Others chased GPS pins only to hit logging roads and nothing. On forums and later Reddit threads and related legends for related legends, the pattern repeats. Someone post coordinates. Someone else warns of angry locals or a private road. A third person shares a photo of a Tory and insists this is it. Then a counterpost debunks it with a view, a street view or shrine records. The friction, maybe it’s real, maybe it’s misdirection, is rock fuel for a modern Kaiden. Now, there are lots of movies, TV shows, and video games in Japan that kind of fuel fuel this type of story. And even when creators don’t say Sugisawa, its DNA, its concept is all over Jor. In Howling Village, the two 201920 film, Tekashi Shimiz’s film centers on the Enunaki as a cursed settlement you should never enter. It popularized the no laws beyond this point motif for a global audience. And the premise and the hidden village reveal um revealed it. It really mirrors Sugi Sawa’s theme. Uh there is also a game for the PlayStation 2 back in the day called Siren or Forbidden Siren. And the fictional Hanuda is a village cut off by a crimson tide trapped in ritual time and press coverage and fan wiki’s note real abandoned v Japanese towns as visual inspiration reinforcing that you can’t leave the valley dread. There are also other games and other movies that fit into this same genre. And across these works, the beats reoccur. Caught off road, community wronged or complicit, a ritual fault or social crime, and a lingering presence that won’t let the living off the hook. So, why does this legend endure? Well, there’s geographic plausibility. Almury’s back roads and forestry tracks make a place you can only reach once feel real. What is the cultural? There’s a cultural texture with Itacoan and the dense Tohoko Yo-kai lore in the background. Audiences already accept the spirit world as possibly real. There’s a moral unease. The Sugisawa incident, the Sugisawa history frames a mass killing and cover up. And that also dramatizes anxieties about who gets written into the record and who’s erased. There is a mystery, a participatory mystery that people, online netisonens, online slooh like to take part in. Every blog post, GPS pin, and nocturnal drive is a new chapter. The legend is designed to be played with. You can test it yourself. There’s also what they call a media feedback loop. There’s so many games and films with the same kind of template, the same kind of theme, and then the internet reads these fictions back into the landscape, and it just kind of goes around in a cycle, a circle. So, researchers and local history buffs haven’t produced verifiable records of a Sugisawa massacre or a village wiped from official maps. proposed entrances, air quotes, usually resolve into known shrines or ordinary ritual sites when you see them in person. Now, that doesn’t kill the legend at all. It powers it, makes it stronger. The gap between evidence and experience is exactly where Kaiden thrive. Imagine you’re driving north out of Almory City. Night presses in. The GPS loses its mind. A side road appears. It’s a bit narrow, a bit too eager. There’s a Tori ahead and beyond it, something that looks like a skull in the rock. Your phone camera won’t focus. You hear children. Do you keep going or do you remember the name Sugis Sawa and turn back promising yourself you’ll look it up in the morning? Thanks for listening to this episode of Supernatural Japan. If you found this episode spooky, interesting, and fun, please give the podcast an excellent rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can help the podcast grow by sharing it on your social media as well. Supernatural Japan continues to grow, but it could use a lot more support and a lot more help from you guys. Um, as you have already maybe noticed in this episode, I am suffering from some pretty serious allergies. It’s it’s making it hard to to do the podcast reading this week and it’s making it really hard to breathe. But this is what happens when you move to a new location. Actually, it doesn’t matter what location I move to in the world. I always suffer from a lot of different allergies, pollen, dust, all these different things. Um, but you know, it is what it is. This is uh this is the life some of us have to live. Um, hey folks, be sure to follow the podcast on social media. Check out the Instagram @ supernatural Japan and uh the Facebook group as well. The links are below in the show notes. And I want to thank there have been a few more people popping over to the Instagram the last couple of weeks. Um, so thank you to all the people who’ve come on over to the Instagram. Really appreciate it. Hope you’re enjoying the photos over there, the different things I’m posting. Um, well, that’s it for me. Uh, my name is Kevin O’Shea and you can follow me on X and Blue Sky for you can always email the podcast uh just to say hello with your ideas for episodes, some feedback over at [email protected]. Of course, you can also support the show over at Buy Me a Coffee. You can do a onetime donation or become a monthly member. Links are down below in the show notes. It would help a lot. And I just want to thank all of you for listening and I’ll be talking to you all again next week. And remember, if you find yourself in the middle of nowhere in northern Japan on a cold winter’s night, best to avoid looking for massacre villages. Just keep on driving home. [Music]

Discover the chilling mystery of Sugisawa Village, one of Japan’s most infamous urban legends, in this episode of Supernatural Japan. We explore the eerie origins of this “vanished village” in Aomori Prefecture, its deep ties to Tōhoku ghost traditions, and the unsettling rumors of mass murder and government cover-ups. Hear how this haunting tale endures through horror films, games, and online forums, and why many believe the cursed village still lurks in the shadows. If you love Japanese folklore, true crime, and creepy lost places, this episode is a must-listen!

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