A Spectral Tribunal: Ghosts as Agents of Justice in Japanese Imagination

Ghosts are a popular subject in Japanese stories: countless examples may be found in folk tales, bunraku (puppet) and kabuki theatre, ukiyo-e woodblock prints, and recently in movies, series, manga and anime. Such stories experienced a “Golden Age” in the Edo period (1603–1868) and to date never went out of fashion. While the primary purpose of ghost tales is entertainment, they also often encapsulate the constant tension between “law” on the one hand, and “justice” on the other. A recurring theme in such stories is indeed injustice: a legally “weak” person (farmer; wife; servant) is oppressed by a “strong” actor (daimyō - feudal lord; husband; master) and cannot resort to the legal system to prevent the abuse. The aggrieved person dies, and they come back as ghosts to commit revenge: by doing so they restore the moral equilibrium, and justice is achieved. One of the reasons why ghost stories became so popular during the Edo period is that they convey criticism to the ruling élite, and as such were appreciated by the general population, but at the same time they were indirect enough to avoid the strict censorship imposed by the Tokugawa Shogunate. A very noticeable element is that ghosts, as such, are scary creatures. Their visual representation, whether on stage, paper, or screen, is terrifying: the archetypal Japanese ghost, a floating woman dressed in white with long hair and eerily pale skin is unsettling today (in the form of Sadako from the movie Ringu—The Ring) as it was in the eighteenth century (represented by Okiku, the abused servant of the bunraku play Banchō Sarayashiki). This feature is important, however, because it prevents a full identification of the audience with the character: while spectators or readers may celebrate the justice the ghost brings forth, they are unable to fully associate themselves with such a creepy being. Catharsis may happen, but not sympathos. This paper critically investigates the role of ghosts as agent of justice in Japanese imagination, with a specific focus on their visual representation and the ambiguities it implies. Drawing from a wide array of sources, the essay aims to highlight the recurring features of the most popular ghost stories under the perspective of “legal injustice” (borrowing Dolin’s lexicon), and to further contribute to the debate about law and culture with specific regard to the Japanese legal system, a field which is still developing and is currently underrepresented in scholarship in English language.