Hanako-san of the Toilet

Hanako-san is a famous, test of courage, hope you don't really have to pee type ghost. Supposedly, Hanako-san began haunting the third stall of the third floor girl's bathroom in the 1950s. At the time, Hanako was a famous name to give young girls. She is supposed to be a WWII era girl. Her stall always has a crude "Out of Order" sign hanging from it. Even if the toilet works, the sign appears there.

How this poor ghost came to be varies. One person will say she was killed in when the area next to her school was bombed and the building collapsed while she was playing hide and seek with friends. Another person will say he was a victim of bullying and committed suicide in the third stall of the girls bathroom on the third floor. And a third person will say she fell from a window, supposedly on accident,but you never know.

Anyway, to tell if Hanako-san has taken up residence in your school's bathroom is simple. There is the sound of a girl talking to herself in the third stall, even if no one seems to be in there, the crude sign, the lights flicker on and off by themselves, and possible banging noises of doors shutting by themselves.

The test of courage is this: You go to the third stall of the girl's bathroom on the third floor and knock three times. Then you ask, "Are you there, Hanako-san?" After a pause, and everyone has ran away, you will hear a young girl say, "Yes, I'm here."

What happens next is different for each school. In Yamagata prefecture, you enter the stall and a three headed lizard eats you. Iwate prefecture says that a white hand emerges from the stall after she answers you. Kanagawa prefecture is similar, but the hand is all bloody when it appears. However, there are stories of how a hand will burst through the door and kill the person who summoned Hanako-san. But there are those who have seen Hanako-san as the little girl she is.

She is described as a girl of school age with short black hair in an old style and white skin. She is always wearing a red skirt. Her reasons for sparing some visitors and not others is unknown. It could be because the person is being bullied and needs a friend, or that they are pleagued by other ghosts and Hanako-san is protecting them. No one knows for sure, but this test of courage is still popular to this day. Everyone in Japan has a Hanako-san story to tell.