(Voice actor) Ms.Carolyn Miller

It is kind of an occult story, but there is a chair called Busby’s stoop chair in England. They say the chair places a death curse on anyone who sits in it and has already killed 65 people. This chair is said to be cursed by its former owner, Busby, and since four people who sat in it in the 1990’s later died of some accident, the chair was hung from the ceiling in an exhibition so no one can now sit in it. There are many allegedly stigmatized items, such as the Hope Diamond, that brings misfortune to their owners all over the world. There was one in Japan too. It was a furisode (*Kimono with long trailing sleeves). This furisode belonged to a girl named Umeno who was a daughter of a pawnbroker, Enshuya, in Azabu Hyakushomachi. When Umeno was strolling through Ueno mountain with her mother, they walked past a tera-kosho (a young samurai who waits on the monks at temples). Apparently this tera-kosho was fairly good looking, and Umeno fell in love with him at first sight. Since that day, she thought only of him, day and night, and came to lose her appetite. Umeno became weaker day by day. Her parents’ attempts to find the tera-kosho ended unsuccessfully. They replicated the clothes he was wearing when she saw him to console her but she passed away smiling, wearing the furisode. It was an untimely death at the age of seventeen. After her funeral, her parents dedicated the furisode to Honmon-ji temple as a votive offering and received a prayer for her. But of all things, the temple sold off the furisode. Sometime later, Honmon-ji temple was asked to hold a funeral service for a seventeen year-old girl. At the funeral, Umeno’s furisode, which they had sold off, came back to them with the deceased. They thought of it as a coincidence and sold the furisode again. However, there was then another funeral for a 17 year old girl and the same furisode was brought to the temple. They could no longer take it as a coincidence and thought it must be cursed by Umeno. So they arranged a memorial service for the three girls. However…. This triggered a calamity in the town of Edo. What was the tragedy that befell Edo?