The Cursed Japanese Poem

Introduction -

The year 1919, living in Japan, Saiyo Yaso wrote a poem by the name of "Tomino's Hell" which was published in 'Sakin' poetry collection book. After the poem was published, people started believing that this poem is cursed.

History -

During the 1920s, people believed that whoever reads "Tomino's Hell" loudly either gets in an accident or suffers from misfortune, or in the worst case, the person dies. Not only that but it is also believed that the person's soul starts getting rotten or decaying in Hell.

After the publishing of "Tomino's Hell", it was always related to some strange cases due to which people started believing that the poem is cursed.

Incidents -

The year the poem was published that time some readers experienced sudden heartache after completing the poem and the majority of the readers complained of having sudden headaches.

In the originally published book, before the poem on a page there was some ominous warning written that "If you read this book out loud, tragic things will happen".

Obviously, during those days, this poem got famous. But slowly people started forgetting about it. And then suddenly came the Internet due to which this poem is now available online.

On one of Japan's websites, "Tu Chen", the story of the poem suddenly got famous and its readers from different areas, starting sharing their experiences through the medium of pictures and videos.

If we talk about one more incident then in the year 2000, there was a common connection between the suicide cases that year which was that the people who attempted suicide, the poem was present in their house at that time.

If we talk about another famous incident then Reddit user, Misiko Karakozo, explained in detail an incident that she experienced in one of her posts. She wrote that she got to know about this famous poem and thought of reading it. After completing the poem, she experienced a sudden pain in her right knee and from the bathroom, she could hear the screams of her girlfriend. When she got there, she saw that due to a spark in the water heater a fire could have broken out but luckily, it didn't. That day, she understood how much the poem was cursed and unlucky.

Now all thanks to the Internet, people started translating this poem into different languages. But in those other countries, after the translation of the book, no abnormal things happened after reading it. Now, this is the reason why people started believing that if it is not read in Japanese then there is no harm.

And because of this, I am writing some lines of this poem in English.

Poem - Tomino's Hell

"The elder sister vomits blood,
  The younger sister's breathing fire.
  While sweet little Tomino just spills
  up the jewels. All alone
  Does Tomino go falling into that Hell,
  A Hell of utter darkness, without
  even flowers."

Those are some of the lines of the poem 'Tomino's Hell'.

About the story in the poem -

The poem tells the story of a little girl named, Tomino, whose two sisters behaved badly towards her. They always punished her and even hit her with a whip. Eventually, Tomino died and her soul traveled to Hell.

If you interpret the last lines of the poem, "A Hell of utter darkness, without even flowers", then you will understand that Tomino died and she was buried in a dark coffin. Since no one loved her, so there were no flowers kept on her burial. You can even say that Tomino was living a life worse than Hell and the word 'Hell' was used to depict her worse conditions.

Now, it's also believed that since Tomino's sisters always abused her due to which she was mentally disturbed and because of her mental condition, "utter darkness", is used to depict her loneliness.

The tone of this poem is quite depressing and whenever someone reads this poem, they feel sorry for Tomino.

Now, let me make it very clear that I am not recommending you guys to read this poem.

About Author of the poem -

Now if we talk about the writer of Tomino's Hell, Saiyo Yaso, then there is no hard proof or evidence about him. But it is believed that he wrote this poem after his sister or father's death.

He has arranged the words of the poem in such a way that it will trigger a sudden burst of emotion in the readers when reading it.

Rational Reasons -

One of the reasons why the poem is not effective in other languages is because, after the translation, the material wouldn't be as much good as the original one. It's because of this reason that after reading the original work, people get emotionally triggered and they connect this is to one of their guilty or depressing moments. Due to these emotions, people do some unexpected things and because of this, the poem is considered cursed.

Other Reasons -

While on the other side, it was also said that the writer of  'Tomino's Hell' suffered from a very bad personal loss due to which he mentally suffered a lot. No one came to support him because of which, before dying, he created 'Tomino's Hell' as a curse. He wanted the readers to know that how much the writer suffered from emotional turmoil.

Conclusion -

To scare people off and get fame for themselves, some people started making false stories and experiences like 'After reading the poem, I got a headache.' or 'I got into an accident.' etc.

Thousands of people have shared their experiences after reading 'Tomino's Hell' but out of all them, very few would be true. Coincidentally even if something bad happens to someone, that person relates this to the poem.

This poem leaves a psychological effect on its readers and these people think that something bad is destined to happen to them after reading it. Because of this mindset, some way or something bad will eventually happen to them.

Even we have heard that "Agar chappal Ulta hai toh Ghar Mein kalesh hai", meaning if the slippers or flats or shoes are upside down then something bad is going to happen in the house. And sometimes, this happens but not because a stupid shoe is upside down but because of people's mindset.

And same can go for the poem too.

At least, I have heard it. It's ok if you guys have not. (About the chappal or flats thing.)

Now, some readers are already experiencing some difficulties in life and when they read this poem, they get more depressed.

There were some readers in the starting who said that the poem's setting is very emotional and depressing, and can greatly affect some people psychologically. Because of this, some readers started exaggerating the after-effects of reading this poem and related it to accidents or misfortune. Hence, this poem started being called cursed.

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Sorry guys, I couldn't find many pictures related to this topic. 😔

This is it, guys. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Please tell me your thoughts on this in the comments. If there are people who are from Japan and know about the poem then please tell me if I was wrong somewhere in the comment section.

Well, my personal opinion is that 'Tomino's Hell' because of its writer's death and other famous people's death due to these it started getting popular. But this is my opinion, yours might be different.

Also a question for you guys: Do you believe in this whole curse thing or not? Please tell me about this in the comment section.

And please don't forget to vote, share and follow me.

Peace out ✌️.