What are Kaidan?
Kaidan is a genre that has persisted in Japan for as long as the known history of Japanese literature. The popularity of kaidan, although that has not always the name been associated with the genre, has had its ebbing and flowing over the centuries, but never entirely disappeared, vanishing only for a short time until a new generation rediscovers these classical tales of the weird and mystifying.
The word kaidan should not be confused with horror or any other Western genre, or even the popular j-horror genre that came from Japan in the late 1990s. The word carries with it a specific nuance, and is used in Japanese for only a particular type of story, not for general ghost or monster stories. Nakata Hideo’s (中田秀夫; 1961 – ) film Ring (リング; 1998) is not kaidan, nor is Shimizu Takashi’s (清水崇; 1972 – ) film Ju-On (呪怨,; 1998).
In fact, many kaidan are not intended to be frightening at all. The stories can just as easily be funny, or strange, or just telling about an odd thing that happened one time. This element of kaidan often confuses Westerners, and a common complaint heard about yūrei stories is that they “aren’t scary.” This is because they are not intended to be. They are kaidan.
The Definition of Kaidan
Translators have always had a difficult time deciphering the word. Kaidan often ends up as ghost stories or mysterious tales or some such variation simply due to lack of options. Animated TV series like Gakkō no kaidan (学校の怪談; School Kaidan) (2000) wind up in English as Ghosts at School or Ghost Stories, neither of which captures the nuances and cultural impact of the word.
The best way to grasp the meaning of the word kaidan is by deconstructing the kanji that make up its composition.
The first kanji in kaidan, 怪 (kai), means weird, strange or mysterious. Like the kanji 霊 (rei), 怪 is a kanji that makes several appearances in Japanese folklore, the most important being in the aforementioned word 妖怪 (yōkai) which combines 妖 (yō) meaning attracting or bewitching with 怪 (kai). Yōkai is the term used for Japanese folkloric monsters like the water-dwelling kappa and mountain-dwelling tengu. The second kanji in kaidan is 談 (dan), means to discuss or talk. The kanji carries the nuance of transference of information, of passing from one mouth to another, and is found in words such as 雑談 (zetsudan) meaning idle chatter.
The most literal possible interpretation of kaidan would be something like a discussion or passing down of tales of the weird, strange or mysterious. Personally, I prefer to either use the word as it stands, kaidan, or if I must put it into English I take a page from Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu, most famous for his lesbian-vampire story Carmilla (1872), and who called his stories of the supernatural and sublime weird tales. I like the term weird tales for both the nostalgia it invokes and the nuance of the type of story the reader expects, somewhat similar to kaidan.
Kaidan or Kwaidan?
A large number of translators and authors through the years have chosen to preserve the word kaidan in English, although the spelling depends on the era in which you are translating. Most modern translators use the Hepburn system of romanization, first published in 1887 by James Curtis Hepburn in the third edition of his Japanese–English dictionary. The Hepburn system was specifically designed to make Japanese more easily pronounceable to English speakers. Other systems, such as the Nihon-shiki romanization, are designed for use by native Japanese speakers with words that approximate the sounds better, but are more confusing to English speakers.
Older translations used a different system of romanization, one that preferred a kw sound instead of a hard k. This method of translation results in the term kwaidan, which was used by Lafcadio Hearn for his 1904 book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things. In modern times, the kw form of kaidan has become synonomous with Hearn’s work, and is only preserved when a direct connection is desired such as with Kobayashi Masaki’s 1965 film Kwaidan.
J-Horror and Kaidan
In modern Japanese, kaidan carries a nuance of the past, of old-style Edo period ghostly tales. Few modern Japanese horror films are referred to as kaidan, but instead use the English loan word horror. The word kaidan is used conspicuously to set a tone and establish content before the first picture flickers on the screen.