Tag Archives: Hidden gems

The Curious Case of Chocolate Button

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My day begins with a visit to a chocolate factory. Luckily, this chocolate factory is more a museum of chocolate facts than a factory made of chocolate, which, in 30-degree heat, would be somewhat messy. I’m still in Hokkaido, so while it’s hot, the humidity is reasonably low.

Today marks the 30th anniversary of Shiroi Koibito Park, a chocolate-themed factory with gardens. The translation of the name is unusual and means White Lover Park. However, the word for dwarf is the similarly spelt kobito, meaning little person, and has been named that way as a cheap pun which we’ll see later.

Entering the park, I buy a ticket (not golden), and receive a small wrapped square containing the exact chocolate that this factory makes; a bit of a spoiler, giving me the final product at the entrance. Inside, everything smells faintly of white chocolate and mild concern. There are a lot of stairs, the sound of cats meowing through speakers, and a room full of video screens telling the story of the factory.

In the quirkily named Time Travel Room, we learn about how this chocolate came about. One of the screens checks to make sure we’ve all been paying attention by offering up a quiz question answered by show of hands. The question is: What is added to chocolate to make it sweet? a) Powdered Milk, b) Powdered Cheese, or c) Powdered Snow?

“Hands up if you said powdered cheese?” says the woman running the tour, as she looks around rather confused. “Nobody said cheese??? How about snow?” It turns out I wasn’t paying attention, but still managed to correctly guess that chocolate can be sweetened by adding powdered milk. Next, we follow some cat prints on the floor up some more steps to the factory.

The factory floor is impressive, fully operational, and producing just one product: cookies. There is a counter that displays how many of each product has been produced today: 33,645 Shiroi Koibito cookies; 0 Baumkuchen cakes. I suppose they are using the lack of cakes as a comparison.

Remember that pun I mentioned? Well, in the next room it is on full display. All good factories have their slaves. Oompa Loompas, Wonkidoodles; but here at Shiroi Koibito Park we have White Dwarfs. They perform all of the tasks here, including milking the cows and creating white chocolate.

After yet more stairs, the sound of cats meowing, and multiple rooms of chocolate-related trinkets, we reach the end. I realise that we never did get an explanation for the cats. I exit through the gift shop and use the restroom. I notice someone has left some chocolate in one of the toilets.

I take the stairs up and into the café, where I decide to take a rest from all the walking and climbing. The factory really needs to invest in an elevator; preferably one made of glass. Speaking of glass, I order a glass of Shiroi Koibito Wine, not sure exactly what to expect.

It doesn’t taste like chocolate. It tastes like regret. Perhaps one of the worst wines I’ve ever had the displeasure to drink. I was expecting notes of white chocolate; however, this wine is unfortunately made from Niagara grapes, which are more commonly used for grape juice than wine.

At exactly 12 o’clock, the distant clock tower chimes and opens up, and there’s a little animatronic parade. I slowly sip on my wine, trying not to wince. I watch the White Dwarfs trapped in a loop of mechanised merriment. I finish my glass before finally taking a stroll out through the gardens.

Taking the train back to Sapporo, I get off at Odori Station. The train station is connected to a huge underground shopping complex called Aurora Plaza. I decide to take a stroll through, passing shops selling clothes and souvenir-fit cakes. I also see some T-shirts with terribly translated English: Fun up necessary!

As I continue my stroll, in the distance I hear what sounds like birds chirping excitedly. I then see a sign for ‘Bird Corner’ and decide to see what all the chattering is about. It turns out to be a glasshouse full of parakeets called The Little Bird Square.

There are a couple of blue birds, multiple green birds, and that’s about as good as my knowledge of birds goes, I’m afraid. Although I’m pretty sure keeping them down here in an underground plaza means they will most likely die before they ever see natural light. Credit though, as it does seem that someone at least cleans out the enclosure, and I’m certain that one of the birds did smile at me.

Further along the shopping complex, I stumble once again on a glass enclosure. This one, however, unusually contains scarves. The cloth appears to be well tended to, not the least bit ruffled. I think it’s supposed to look like a sea of clouds, but I can’t be sure. I do know that the scarves aren’t harmed in any way, and none of them seem likely to die anytime soon. They’ve already been dyed indigo!

My final stop for the day is a place called Retro Space Saka Hall. It’s a strange little museum that’s only open for a few hours a day, a couple of days a week, and houses the personal collection of curiosities owned by Kazutaka Saka, an 82-year-old Japanese man.

The museum is full of tightly packed shelves in every direction, arranged in sections and side rooms; a very well-organised collection of… well, of things. I don’t know where to look. There are things everywhere. If you can imagine it, Mr. Saka has probably collected it: Showa-era relics, gas masks, a large collection of syringes, musical instruments, a whole section dedicated to Eiffel Tower-shaped whiskey bottles, toys, figurines, bottle caps, buttons, stamps, cigarettes, women’s underwear, and photographs of women wearing underwear…

I begin to wonder whether Mr. Saka started out by collecting pornography and then, over time, began adding other random items like glass beakers and rocking horses to distract from all the images of naked women. Eventually it grew into this sprawling collection of almost one million objects. I don’t mind saying, I wouldn’t fancy having the job of dusting.

I have another thought as I pass by a wall of photographs of pin-up girls and a big pile of dolls: do other people just come here with stuff they no longer need and leave it behind? I can’t imagine anyone would actually notice the odd addition to the collection.

Just looking at the photograph of the pile of dolls, there’s so much going on in just that one area. Now imagine multiplying that by a hundred; you’ll get a good idea of just how overwhelming Retro Space Saka Hall really is.

I’m about to leave, heading toward the exit, but decide to take one last look at a shelf to my left. I must have missed it on the way in, overwhelmed on arrival by the treasure trove of everything mixed in with that odd smell of bygone. The shelf I’m standing before features a lot of dolls, tied up with string. The tied-up dolls on the bottom row are neatly arranged, all sitting on plastic toilets.

As I walk back to the train station, I decide that something about Mr. Saka is not quite right. Anyone with an entire shelf dedicated to Eiffel Tower-shaped whiskey bottles has a serious problem.

Life of Pipes

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I’ve finally decided to visit Hokkaido Prefecture, specifically Sapporo, the capital of northern Japan. The area I’m staying in over the next few days is seemingly charming. The first thing I notice about it is the open spaces. Then the neat symmetry of the streets. Then the pipes.

The nearby Odori Park slices across twelve neatly gridded blocks. There’s a river, a large red-brick mansion, and an illuminated TV Tower looming at exactly 147.2 metres in height: Sapporo’s artificial Polaris.

My first destination today is a bit of a hidden gem. So hidden in fact that the building itself is only identifiable by a single blue water droplet painted on its side. A grey concrete block of a structure in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the city. To find it, I am told to just follow the Soseigawa River. If you haven’t guessed it yet, the place I’m looking for is the Sapporo Sewerage Science Museum.

I don’t notice the single blue water droplet painted on the side of the building. What I notice instead is the stench; the kind that makes you immediately try to locate the source. Which, in this case, is the Soseigawa Wastewater Treatment Plant: right next door.

Inside the museum, there is nobody around. It’s actually free admission so I freely explore some of the exhibits. I quickly discover that there are mascots everywhere. There is a bacteria mascot, a sludge mascot, an activated sludge mascot, and a pipe-shaped mascot sporting sunglasses named Dr. Pipe. The water droplet is the star of the show and its name is Kurin-chan. There are no further details or backstories for any of the mascots.

The museum features a huge panorama theatre with empty seats, the movie they are showing today is called “Where Sewage Goes” and is an animated educational video. There’s a detailed diorama of the seemingly charming Odori area of Sapporo. Underneath the model of the city are drawers that can be pulled out to reveal the fascinating inner workings of Sapporo’s sewerage system.

I imagine children would love this place and its various petri dishes of animal fæces and eleven interactive games (some genuinely quite fun) where you can train to be an Operations and Maintenance Master, a Sewage Pipe Cleaning Master, or even a Sludge Treatment Master. There’s also a massive decorated pipe with artwork seemingly unrelated to the other parts of the museum.

Speaking of hands-on activities and pipes, the museum also features an 800-year old decommissioned sewer pipe that you can touch anywhere you like. I decide to only touch the outside of the pipe. I sanitise my hands and wave goodbye to Kurin-chan as I leave for the station.

In a city called Sapporo, it’s almost impossible to avoid seeing signs, sponsorships, and advertisements for a beer company that shares the city’s name: Sapporo. So, moving from one thing that comes out of pipes to another, I just hope this one tastes markedly better.

Founded in 1876 by German-trained brewers, Sapporo Beer survived relocation, stereotypes, and wartime censorship. The Tokyo facility was shut down for reasons that may or may not involve pipes. A year later, the first beer was delivered in boxes of ice back to Tokyo, and the years that followed saw Sapporo Beer’s popularity begin to soar across Japan.

As I enter the Sapporo Beer Museum I am instantly struck by the size of the massive gold Walt Pan. Used from 1965 to 2003, this historic steel sphere is capable of brewing 280,000 cans of beer at once. For context, that’s 280,000 cans of beer. A sign at the bottom of the ramp politely asks: “Please do not climb on the Walt Pan.”

In 1908, Sapporo Beer began using geisha in its advertisements, an image later viewed as stereotypical. All advertising ceased in the late 1930s for unclear reasons. When it resumed in the mid-1940s, the geisha were gone, replaced by more glamorous and recognisable stars.

As I leave the museum I exit into a roped-off line of people queueing to buy tickets for beer at a vending machine. I pay ¥450 for a ticket that I then exchange for a small 240ml glass of beer. I don’t mind though, it tastes very good and makes for a great photograph.

In Japan, there’s a concept called wabi-sabi. It’s hard to explain, but that photograph of my small 240ml beer does a decent job. The lighting is perfect, the glass pristine, the faded backdrop of a crowd of people in the beer hall, but something is out of place: a bubble, or the absence of a bubble. One missing pixel at the top of the glass. An imperfection. But for wabi-sabi, that bubble is a missing thing of beauty.

I take two sips of beer and realise my glass is empty, so decide to move on to my final stop of the day: the Mount Moiwa Ropeway. Unironically, right next to the ropeway is the Sapporo Waterworks Memorial Museum (more pipes). Luckily, it’s long closed today, so I admire the exterior and move on.

I pay ¥1900 and enter the ropeway. I am carried alone, lifted above the city, above the pipes, and past the skyline’s edges. The sun to the west sets behind the Shokanbetsu mountain range. I read a sign stating that Mount Moiwa has one of the three best night views in all Japan; at sunset, the view from the gondola is already stunning.

At the top, I await the gloaming. As the darkness of night blankets the city below, Sapporo shrinks and becomes less of a grid, and more of a circuit board of blinking lights. What makes the view even more satisfying is drinking my 500ml can of Sapporo Beer, whilst relaxing, staring down at the connected lights of my day below me, as I enjoy the moment.

Earlier today, I touched an 800-year-old sewer pipe that once carried the waste of people who don’t exist. I watched beer pour from a golden pipe into a glass, and now, I’m looking out at a city of interconnected lights.

I take in the view. Breathtaking. Yet all I can think about is that pipe. The one with the sunglasses.

Good News About Hell

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In the far north of Japan, where the land is as silent as the dead, there is a mountain where nothing grows. A place where souls hesitate. Osorezan, one of the three most sacred sites in Japan, is known by another name: the Jaws of Hell.

I often find myself drawn to stories of mortality and the afterworld. Today, I will glimpse into the hellscape of a Buddhist afterlife.

Sacred Mount Osorezan seen from the base, shrouded in cloud and myth, believed to be a path to the underworld.

Before I reach the summit, I come across Osorezan Reisui, a fountain flowing with cold, clear water. It looks like a typical purification site, but legend has it that drinking the water from this spring will make you ten years younger.

Desperate to claw back lost time, I reach for the water, drink from its flow, and fill up my water bottle before continuing the climb.

Lush spring of Osorezan Reisui, legendary fountain said to make visitors ten years younger with a single sip.

Further up, the trees and grass make way for shale and volcanic glass, and it is dry. There has been no rain of late to keep the dust down, so with every step the sulphurous ash creates clouds under my feet. Some gets into my mouth, and I choke. Luckily, I still have water from the fountain of youth, so I wash away the bitterness and the years before carrying on.

Higher up, the mountain opens its mouth wide. Nothing moves. There are no roots. There are no birds. Just the crunch of my footsteps echoes through the wasteland. Everything else is… still.

Desolate volcanic wasteland of Mount Osorezan in northern Japan, sacred Buddhist site known as the gateway to hell.

In the distance, Lake Usori lies in eerie repose, a lake of poison. The acidity is so high that nothing can live here. Even the wind seems unwilling to touch the surface, but I am.

Kneeling, I dip my hand into the water. A freezing chill shoots up my arm. For a moment, the water feels alive, tightening impossibly around my fingers. Not liquid, but something with intent. I wrench my hand away, breath unsteady, as if something almost followed me out.

Eerie, acidic waters of Lake Usori in Aomori Prefecture, Japan—still and lifeless, at the heart of Osorezan.

I remain kneeling a while longer, lost terribly in thought. I watch as the ripples in the lake distort my own reflection. I see not just my face, but the faces of every version of myself I’ve left behind. I watch them shifting, like a shimmer of sorts. I take a deep breath, stand up, and walk away, before something walks away with me.

Draining from Lake Usori is the Sanzu River; its waters flowing silently, black and sluggish, like blood oozing from a wound that will never heal. It is at this river the dead must cross to move into the next world. The journey across this river reflects the life one has led: the good cross by bridge, the average wade through the shallows, and the bad must swim amongst the river’s monsters.

Red bridge over the Sanzu River at Osorezan, symbolising the soul’s crossing into the afterlife in Japanese Buddhist lore.

I watch the river for a time, wondering which path I would take. I approach the bridge, its red painted wood the only colour I’ve seen up on this mountain. I take a step toward it, but something inside me pulls back. Not fear or superstition; just a quiet, sinking knowledge that maybe I was here before, and I don’t think I should be here again.

Along the riverbed, piles of pebbles litter the landscape, said to have been stacked by the spirits of unborn children or those who died young. These children build piles of rocks as an offering to Buddha, only to have demons knock them down, condemning the children to rebuild over and over, for eternity; forever trapped in the netherworld, unable to transcend.

Gravel mound with windmills at Osorezan, symbolizing unborn children stacking stones in the Buddhist afterlife.

Not far from the river stands Bodaiji Temple, where monks pray for the lost souls who wander Osorezan. After all the stories of sorrow, the temple stands as the only promise of mercy.

Inside, the air hums with low chants. The scent of incense curls through the dim light, thick as fog, as if the prayers themselves are rising. The monks recite sutras; their voices steady. For all the suffering that lingers in the air, this place feels… still.

Entrance to Bodaiji Temple at Osorezan, where monks pray for lost souls in Japan’s most haunted Buddhist sanctuary.

As the sky darkens, bruised and swollen with the weight of a coming storm, I take one last look at Osorezan. The myths here aren’t just stories. They are things we carry. Things we live. The demons at the river are the silent battles fought in hospital beds. The pebbles are the burdens we carry and rebuild, again and again. And the river, the slow, black current, is the harrowing divide between despair and hope; a crossing that everyone must face.

I turn away and begin my descent.

Dark storm clouds gather over Mount Osorezan—an ominous sky reflecting Japan’s Buddhist land of the dead.

Back at my hotel, an old building stitched together with crumbling wallpaper and tired walls, I try to relax, but the lights buzz like a wasp in a lampshade, and the floorboards creak even when I’m not moving, as if something beneath them is shifting.

I turn on the television. The screen blinks to life; the world rushes back in, bright, absurd, relentless. A puppet show flickers on, but the puppets are just human hands wearing tiny masks. They bow, expressionless. The audience laughs. I change the channel. Static hums for a second too long. An old woman in a blindfold stumbles through a collapsing obstacle course. Laughter again, louder this time. The world keeps moving. Always moving. And I am here… still.

I change one last time. A man in a bear costume is balancing ramen bowls on his head whilst a studio audience screams. I turn the TV off. Hell can wait.

Outside my window, the mountain holds its breath. Somewhere, beneath the floorboards, the dead keep stacking stones.

Where I End And You Begin

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I decide to do some sightseeing for the final time in a while. After taking three different trains, I arrive at Mitsumineguchi Station, the last stop. It’s almost three hours from Tokyo, and at times I wonder why I have made this journey into the middle of nowhere. Stepping off the empty train, I find the station is completely unmanned, so I place my ticket into a wooden box. I notice that the ticket machine doesn’t appear to be working either, so there is no way for me to purchase a ticket for the way back. I wonder if that’s to stop anyone else from leaving.

Stepping out into the cold, the fog casts a haunting shadow over the hills and village below, a thick, dense mist that seems to swallow everything in its path. The kind of ghostly white fog you would expect to find in a horror movie; a sign of things to come. As I wander across a bridge, I stop for a moment to take in the breathtaking yet unsettling scenery.

As I continue my stroll from the bridge, I am enveloped by an eerie silence. The only thing that breaks the stillness is the soft whisper of the wind blowing through the fields. A village stretches out before me, a ghost town. Scarecrows line the streets, their lifeless eyes following my every move. They stand outside almost every house, yet the village is deserted, there’s not a soul in sight.

I feel a shiver run down my spine as I realise that I haven’t seen a single person since five stops ago on the train. I can’t shake off the feeling that I am being watched, that these scarecrows are somehow alive. I wonder what kind of village I have stumbled upon. As I wander deeper into the village, I eventually find a sign with a scarecrow standing proudly beside it, ‘Niegawajuku.’

Scarecrow villages are rural communities in Japan that create mannequins in the likeness of their residents as a form of folk art. These scarecrows are often dressed in traditional clothing and placed throughout the village. Specifically, the population of Niegawajuku Scarecrow Village has been decreasing over the years, as many residents have moved to Tokyo and other urban areas in search of better job opportunities and a higher standard of living.

To address this problem, a group of local farmers came up with the idea of creating scarecrows in the likeness of the villagers who had left, in order to remember and honour them, and to attract tourists like me to the village. Niegawajuku Scarecrow Village, once a lively and bustling community, now stands like a twisted fairy tale, where the villagers have been replaced by their eerie replicas. The scarecrows, with their lifeless eyes and frozen grins, seem like twisted versions of the villagers they represent.

Once teeming with the laughter of children and the chatter of adults, the village now stands abandoned. The only sounds are the soft rustling of leaves and the creaking of the scarecrows. The place feels like a forgotten graveyard, lost to the passage of time. The village is a mere relic of a bygone era, and the scarecrows, with their blank, lifeless eyes, serve only to emphasise the emptiness of this place.

I inspect the scarecrows, their faces weathered and their garments tattered. At times, they are grouped together, yet they remain so alone, like guardians of a lost world, preserving the memories of the village and its people, frozen in time. As I continue to wander through the streets of Niegawajuku, I feel as though I am traversing a dreamlike realm. The village is a labyrinth of memories, where each scarecrow holds a piece of the past, and each step I take draws me deeper into the mystery.

The only thing left here is the echo of bittersweet memories, of what once was and what will never be again. Time passes, and the sun begins to sink behind the skyline, painting the sky in hues of orange, pink, and purple, casting an eerie glow over the village. In the dying light, the scarecrows seem to come alive, their shadows stretching out, reaching toward me.

I leave the village with a sense of longing and loss, the memories of Niegawajuku etched in my mind like a faded photograph.

As I board the train, I ponder whether my transient form will one day be forever immortalised as a scarecrow, or fade into the annals of time like the villagers before me.

Welcome to the World of Mizuki Shigeru

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I stand at Yonago Station, my eyes fixed on the tracks as I await the arrival of my train from Track 0. This station, also known as Ratman Station, is located in Tottori Prefecture near the border of Shimane. The stations on the Sakai Line all have an alternative name, and this one is no exception. As my train arrives, I can’t help but notice the lively characters from the popular anime, GeGeGe no Kitaro, decorating its exterior. The walls are adorned with illustrations of Nekomusume, a supernatural cat known as “Cat Girl,” who, to my surprise, also serves as one of the train’s announcers.

As the train chugs along, it gently rocks back and forth, the sensation akin to being on a ship at sea. Nekomusume is normally a reserved yokai girl, however she is known to shapeshift into a fearsome catlike monster with razor-sharp fangs and piercing eyes, particularly when she is angry or hungry for fish.

Finally, I arrive at the port town of Sakaiminato and get off the train at Babasakicho Station, nicknamed ‘Kijimuna’ meaning Okinawan wood spirits. As I exit the station, I feel lost and consider whether I have made a mistake. But after a short walk, I see a sign pointing me to my destination: “Welcome to the World of Mizuki Shigeru.”

Mizuki Shigeru was a Japanese manga artist, born in 1922 and raised in the town of Sakaiminato. Upon arriving at Mizuki Shigeru Street, I am immediately struck by the abundance of weird statues that line the road. A total of 177 bronze yokai statues, each depicting a different supernatural entity from Japanese folklore, have been placed along the 800-metre street. Mizuki Shigeru made his name by portraying such entities in his work and the area here is dedicated to his legacy.

The street is filled with souvenir shops selling official Mizuki Shigeru goods, and the entire road is dedicated to the artist. It’s clear that even in death, Mizuki Shigeru has become immortalised with not only a statue, but an entire street and a train line. The vending machines are adorned with illustrations of monsters, there are photo booths where you can take a picture with yokai, there is a large museum, and even a place called Yokai Shrine.

The renowned Mizuki Shigeru Museum showcases many of Mizuki’s works, including manga books from his “only-for-rent-manga-period” and other masterpieces about yokai. The museum also displays numerous photographs and materials about the writer’s trips and his research of the yokai world. Visitors can even find yokai that lived in ancient times in Japanese households. The museum truly immerses visitors in the world of yokai and the brilliance and wonder of Mizuki Shigeru’s work.

The museum’s flyer sums it up best, “You will meet a lot of yokai. Hope you will become friends with them.”

Continuing my exploration of the museum, I pass books and board games, and a lot of comics, most of which feature imagery that depicts death. The museum spans a massive ten rooms and includes original cells, drawings, a bronze engraving of Mizuki’s palm print, his passport, and a complete timeline of his life.

Weird, creepy music plays as I pass through a haunted house. I learn in the museum of an interesting temple over in Matsue Prefecture, three hours from here by train. The temple is very much related to the story of Mizuki Shigeru’s life. As I leave the museum I pass a terrifying wall of heads in the Yokai Cave, and finally outside I discover a traditional Japanese garden littered with macabre images.

After a few hours on the train, I arrive at Ichibata-Guchi Station. The train station features a small statue of yokai. As I exit the station, a really old woman approaches me and starts chatting in Japanese. She is surprised to hear that I am planning to walk to the temple, as it is about five kilometres away and up a mountain. The walk is quite difficult, she warns me.

As I begin my hike, I walk down a conveniently straight stretch of road. The first car I see since leaving the station is driven by a Japanese man who, for no apparent reason, smiles and bows his head at me. A short distance later, I come across two stone lanterns that mark the beginning of the route, which will start to incline steeply. From this point, the footpath vanishes leaving two lanes of an empty road devoid of traffic or vehicles. As the path becomes steeper still, it meanders and curves up the mountain and I find that the further and higher I climb, the better the view becomes. At one point I can make out Lake Shinji in the distance.

As I near the top, I realise how hot it is, and it doesn’t help that I am wearing a thick winter coat. It must be 20 degrees. The breath of winter now a fiery gasp, as the planet scorches in its rage.

After a challenging hike I reach Ichibata Yakushi, a Zen Buddhist temple, and part of multiple pilgrimages, one of which includes visiting 108 Kannon temples in Japan. The temple was said to be founded after a monk named Yoishi followed three white foxes up this mountain, and decided to build a temple at the site where the foxes led him.

The reason for visiting this temple today is that the story goes that Shigeru Mizuki used to visit here a lot, and that a ghost of a really old woman would meet him here, whispering to him all the legends and stories he used in his creations. I explore the temple grounds, and get a feeling that someone ordered a few too many statues. It is said that there are 84,000 statues here, however, I count just 30,780.

As I continue to explore, I decide that it’s really quite beautiful up here. The area also features mountain cottages to rent for a night for as little as ¥10,000, offers stunning views of the landscape below, and for some reason, appears to be really popular with dog owners, as I count five dogs within the temple grounds.

I place some coins in the box next to some statues of yokai, and decide that this is the nicest temple I’ve visited. In the future, I wouldn’t mind visiting more temples on a pilgrimage trail, but for today, I decide it’s getting late, and I head back down the mountain passing a small mountain village, before stumbling across another yokai statute, sitting unassumingly at the bottom of some stone steps.

After climbing up the 1,270 moss covered steps, I arrive back at my favourite temple, exhausted and realising this was just an alternate route. I carefully climb back down the steps to leave. The really old woman I saw at Ichibata-Guchi Station smiles at me as I pass her on the steps, and I can’t help but wonder if she might be Shigeru Mizuki’s whispering ghost.