Last Updated: Nov 29, 2022

Japan’s Kimon Superstition

The Northeast’s “Demonic Gate”

As I sit down to write this, I’m many kilometers up in the sky aboard a FinnAir flight bound for Helsinki. For the next few days, I’ll dutifully be escorting a group of Japanese journalists around the Finnish capital. While I much rather be digging up hidden gems back in Japan, I need to fund my travels somehow (these trips don’t pay for themselves after all) and managing press tours like this is one way for me to make a quick buck or two. So, seeing as I can’t actually introduce a new destination to you this week, I want to take a few minutes to cover another topic that I’ve been wanting to examine for some time now, the phenomenon of the Kimon (lit. “Demon Gate”).

Now if you’ve never heard of the Kimon before, know that, like death and taxes, it is something that everyone under the sun is subject to. You have one. I have one. Even the emperor has one. We all have one. It’s the place where the terrifying oni (Japanese demons that are loosely analogous to the western ogre) and other malignant spirits sneak into your house. Unlike the far more benevolent Santa Claus though, these foul fiends don’t come bearing prettily wrapped presents. Instead, the haunts entering via the Kimon have little but malevolence and ill will to share. Yikes, not exactly what…