Okiku お菊

Okiku (お菊), the “Plate-Counting Ghost,” is a tragic and haunting figure—a girl whose life was taken for a single missing dish, and whose voice still echoes from the depths of a castle well, forever searching for the number ten.

Meaning and Origin

The name Okiku means “Chrysanthemum.”

Her origin is the Banchō Sarayashiki (The Dish Mansion at Banchō). This legend is one of the “Big Three” ghost stories of Japan and has been retold in countless Kabuki, Bunraku, and Ukiyo-e works. While several castles (including Himeji and Edo) claim to be the site of the original well, the core of the story remains a social parable about Injustice and Power. Okiku represents the ultimate victim of a feudal system where a servant’s life was worth less than a piece of pottery.

Characteristics

Okiku is a typical Onryō (vengeful spirit) and a Yūrei. She appears as a pale, beautiful girl in a white burial robe, rising slowly from the mouth of a stone well amidst a cold, blue mist.

Her defining characteristic is her Repetitive Counting. Night after night, her voice floats up from the well: “One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight… nine…” When she reaches nine, she release a chilling, soul-shattering shriek of despair or begins to weep uncontrollably, because the tenth plate is missing. This auditory “glitch” is the essence of her haunting—she is a soul trapped in a loop of her final traumatic moment.

Legends

The most common legend involves a samurai named Aoyama Tessan. He desired the beautiful Okiku and tried to force her to become his mistress. When she refused, he devised a trap. He hid one of his ten highly valuable Dutch plates and accused Okiku of stealing it. He told her she could avoid the death penalty only if she agreed to his advances.

Okiku, choosing her dignity over her life, continued to refuse. In a fit of narcissistic rage, Aoyama beat her and threw her down his garden well, killing her. From that night on, her voice began the nightly count. The legend concludes with a clever solution: a neighborhood priest, hearing the counting, waited until she said “nine” and immediately shouted “Ten!” Upon hearing the missing number, Okiku’s spirit was finally satisfied and was able to ascend to the afterlife. She remains a symbol of the innocent who deserve a “restoration of the whole” after being broken by the world.