Kaidan (怪談, sometimestransliteratedkwaidan) is aJapanese word consisting of twokanji: 怪 (kai) meaning "strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching apparition" and 談 (dan) meaning "talk" or "recited narrative".
In its broadest sense,kaidan refers to anyghost story orhorror story, but it has an old-fashioned ring to it that carries the connotation ofEdo periodJapanese folktales. The term is no longer as widely used in Japanese as it once was:Japanese horror books and films such asJu-on andRing would more likely be labeled by thekatakanahorā (ホラー, "horror").Kaidan is only used if the author/director wishes to specifically bring an old-fashioned air into the story.[citation needed]
Kaidan entered thevernacular during theEdo period, when aparlour game calledHyakumonogatari Kaidankai became popular. This game led to a demand forghost stories andfolktales to be gathered from all parts ofJapan andChina.The popularity of the game, as well as the acquisition of aprinting press, led to the creation of a literary genre calledkaidanshu.Kaidanshu were originally based on olderBuddhist stories of adidactic nature, although the moral lessons soon gave way to the demand for strange and gruesome stories.
The word was popularised inEnglish byLafcadio Hearn in hisbookKwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. The spellingkwaidan is aromanization based on anarchaic spelling of the word inkana - Hearn used it since the stories in the book were equally archaic. The revisedHepburn romanization system is spelledkaidan.
When film directorMasaki Kobayashi made hisanthology filmKwaidan (1964) from Hearn's translated tales, the old spelling was used in the English title.
Originally based on didactic Buddhist tales, kaidan often involve elements ofkarma, and especially ghostly vengeance for misdeeds. Japanesevengeful ghosts (Onryō) are far more powerful after death than they were in life, and are often people who were particularly powerless in life, such as women and servants.
This vengeance is usually specifically targeted against the tormentor, but can sometimes be a general hatred toward all living humans. This untargeted wrath can be seen inFurisode, a story in Hearn's bookIn Ghostly Japan about a cursedkimono that kills everyone who wears it. This motif is repeated in the filmRing with a videotape that kills all who watch it, and the film franchiseJu-on with a house that kills all who enter it.
Kaidan also frequently involve water as a ghostly element. In Japanese religion, water is a pathway to theunderworld as can be seen in the festival ofObon.
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