The Cursed Burial Mound of Tairano Masakado

Tonight, once again, I shall tell you a strange tale from Japan.
Relax… but do not turn around too quickly.
I am watching just behind you.
Heh, heh, heh…

Masakado’s Kubizuka, the burial mound of his severed head.This is the account of a group of young tourists who visited Tokyo.

In Chiyoda, Otemachi, among glittering office towers,
there remains a lone stone monument and mound—
cut off from the flow of time, standing solemn and strange.

Yet the young visitors only laughed at its heavy atmosphere.

A kubizuka is a mound built to bury the severed head of a fallen warrior or criminal.
Among the most feared is this one, dedicated to Taira no Masakado,
a samurai who led a rebellion in eastern Japan during the Heian period.

Defeated by the Genji clan, his head was displayed in Kyoto.
But legend says it wailed at night,
then rose into the sky and flew back to the Kanto region.

To pacify the restless spirit,
the mound was built here in Otemachi.

Since the Edo era, authorities have tried to remove or relocate it,
but each attempt has ended in sudden accidents and mysterious deaths.

Even now, in the very heart of modern Tokyo,
the mound cannot be touched.

People whisper of “Masakado’s curse,”
and treat the site with fear.

The tourists, of course, knew nothing of this.

Instead, they decided to record a TikTok dance in front of the mound.
They shouted, laughed, danced again and again.

One flicked a cigarette butt onto the ground,
another left a plastic bottle before the stone.

Some even pointed at the monument and shouted crude insults,
their voices echoing in the night.

That evening, back at their hotel, they checked the video.
It was blurred beyond use.
Disappointed, they abandoned the upload.

Yet after returning home, they watched it again—
only to find it strangely clear.

And in the background…
countless faces glared at them.

They joked it might actually “go viral,” and felt no fear.

But when they showed the video to outsiders,
everyone else insisted:

“There’s nothing there.”

Only the group themselves could see those angry eyes,
those endless faces.

Puzzled, they experimented—different phones, different screens. Still, the faces remained.

Then, one of them died suddenly in an accident.
Another was struck by a sudden illness, and passed away.

It was then the survivors realized something horrifying:

Each time a friend died, one of the faces in the video disappeared.

From that day, one of them stopped leaving his room entirely.
Soon after, he too vanished without a trace.

So—did all the faces finally vanish from the video?
Or are there still some left, staring, waiting?

The one who left behind this story was never heard from again.

Masakado’s Kubizuka is not a place that even Japanese people approach lightly.
There are countless tales tied to this mound—
but those will be for another time.

Chasing “likes” and “shares” may be the essence of travel today…

But I would urge you:
know the roots of a place, and show respect.
Especially here.

Ah, yes… such dreadful things truly do happen in this world.
And so, until our next tale, we must part ways.
May you remain safe… until then. Heh, heh, heh…