Blood Sucking Sakura Blossoms. - 血を吸う桜 - [Urban Legend]

Blood Sucking Sakura blossoms - 血を吸う桜 - [Urban Legend]

• About this Yokai: An urban legend where in a corpse is buried under a cherry tree, Often a school mystery where-in a student or teacher was murdered and buried under a nearby tree, the tree absorbed their blood, turning the blossoms a blood-red-pink.

• History: This rumour is most popularly said to originate from a short story, published in 1928, 櫻の樹の下には "Under the Sakura Tree" by Motojiro Kajii. The opening line of this short story has a strong impact: "Under the cherry tree, a corpse is buried!" - (There are of course a few other novels from around that time that used the cherry tree as the hiding place for chopped-up bodies as well.)

Dating back to the Edo period there are also various legends where the spirits of the cherry trees come to life as beautiful women. - Cherry trees are of course quite often considered sacred and are often roped up with Shimenawa too, this perhaps adds to the "school mystery" factor.

• Similar yokai: Thematically One could easily compare it to the yokai tree known as "Jubboko' (a yokai tree that drinks blood from once blood soaked battlegrounds and will also attack passers-by) - you could probably go as far as to label this a modern derivative of that? - however, the Jubboko is said to be a bloodthirsty and actively aggressive tree, whereas the blood-sucking sakura is simply a tree that grew up over a corpse, soaking in the blood as it grew. (it's different enough.)

• Personal experience: Since this was pretty short, I’ll take a moment to talk about my experience with this urban legend (or something similar from my hometown!) I don't think this type of myth is entirely exclusive to Japan. - Where I live in Vancouver, we often have cherry trees surrounding the school grounds. I vividly remember students spreading unfounded rumors about a teacher or student dying and being buried underneath the trees on the playground. – Of course, nobody was ever able to answer the question: "which tree was it again?" – (Most often it was said to be the biggest or most gangly looking tree or "that one right over there!!") - I'd say the macabre idea of bodies ending up where they shouldn't, & the idea of plants (such as roses) being red because they drink blood seems to often comes up in universal child-lore & school rumours in general. - (As another example, i remember someone saying "the lunch lady uses human blood!" or "the gym teacher killed a guy", etc.) Kids are very often overdramatic for entertainment because its silly and often love spreading baseless rumors like that, (whether or not the stories are true or meant to be taken seriously.) its a social factor I guess. – Unrelated but… I also specifically remember in 1st or 2nd grade, a group of kids that spent all of their recesses underneath a specific cherry tree, digging up & cutting worms in two because it would "make more worms" and dissecting the poor things using safty scissors... – I joined them once out of peer pressure and I immediately regretted the decision, horrified when I realized what they where up to... Of all my elementary memories, I think that stuck with me the most.

See also: Jubboko, Furutsubaki no rei, kodama, yokai bonsai.

Sticker Art by @Samkalensky (yo thats me!) - Part of my "Yokai Bonsai" series of art stickers, weather-resistant 4" Glossy sticker. Check my shop & follow @samkalensky for many more!