Hanako-San, “Come Play With Me”

In the eerie world of Japanese urban legends, few stories send chills down schoolchildren’s spines like that of Hanako-san (花子さん). Said to haunt the third stall of girls’ bathrooms in schools across Japan, Hanako-san’s legend has become a staple of playground dares and ghost stories for generations. Her tale intertwines childhood curiosity with the universal fear of encountering something supernatural in the most mundane of places.