Ghost Stories episodes

Siblings Satsuki Miyanoshita and Keiichirō Miyanoshita move with their father Reiichirō Miyanoshita to their deceased mother Kayako's hometown. When their pet cat, Kaya, whom Keiichirō had taken to school hidden in his backpack, jumps out and runs into the old "haunted" school building, they decide to go in after him. There they meet Hajime Aoyama, Leo Kakinoki, and Momoko Koigakubo, and after running from several ghosts they meet Amanojaku. Amanojaku, a demon who feeds on children's fears, and as they become more scared, he grows larger and stronger. While trying to get away from Amonajaku, Satsuki finds an old diary which had belonged to her mother with notes on how to seal demons. The children exorcise Amonajaku, however, the camphor tree he should have been trapped inside had been chopped down, leaving him trapped inside Kaya.

The next day in school, the flushes of the new school building's restrooms start malfunctioning, prompting the teachers to instruct the children to use the old school's restrooms. There, a monster, Akagami Aogami, frightens people by asking them if they want red paper or blue paper. Both options represent different terrible ways of death, "red" meaning the victim getting his blood drained out and "blue" meaning suffocation until the victim becomes blue due to asphyxiation. Hajime tries to trick the demon by answering "yellow" and opens a vortex to the spirit world instead. Satsuki seals Akagami Aogami using a jar filled with water and marked with the symbol of a Torii, rescuing Hajime in the process.

Satsuki's class decide to stage a drama. Keita, the student playing the lead role, which sees his character get cursed by a ghost and almost killed, wants to avoid acting in the play. He is afraid because of a story he read about an actor who played a similar role and subsequently died under mysterious circumstances. He wishes for the gymnasium to catch fire so the show will be cancelled, the gym is then struck by lightning and goes on fire. The damage to the gym means the festival is moved to the old school house. He gets injured when a basketball net falls on him and Leo, as his understudy, replaces him. A kitsune-like ghost, Kutabe (くたべ?), which haunts the fourth step of an old stairway near the school is behind the incidents. It has the power to make any statement or wish spoken on that step come true. The stairs are demolished by construction workers allowing Kutabe to appear on stage during the play. When Leo gets on stage and starts performing, the ghost almost overpowers him, but is sealed away by the rest of the group before it harms Leo.

The old school building is haunted by the ghost of the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, which plays a piano and curses people through the song Für Elise, stating that they will die if they hear the song four times; he can accomplish this by making his victims hear his song through various objects, even ones that could not normally play music. Satsuki is cursed when she accidentally hears the piece while helping the music teacher move some boxes to the old building. In the end Momoko, being possessed by Kayako, seals him inside a metronome.

While Keiichirō prepares for the race in the school's sports competition, he meets a young boy and befriends him. The boy is a ghost, known as Datto, with two distinct personalities: one of which is a boy, who can run barefoot at incredible speed; the other is a diabolic hare-like scythe demon. Ever since the boy died when he was hit by a car while training to win the same race Keiichirō is now preparing for, he slashes off and gathers legs of sprint runners. The ghost decides to prey on Keiichirō as well, but when Satsuki tells him that Keiichirō believed him to be a friend, he redeems himself and even stops his evil alter-ego from slashing off Keiichirō's legs when he was about to win the race. With the fall of his evil counterpart, Datto's spirit is freed.

The children of the town are attacked by a spirit, which leaves them shaking in fear for days, while their parents are not home. The spirit Babasare (ババサレ?), which resembles the Grim Reaper, has the power of altering reality and haunts children that are home alone and those who believe in and fear him. However, he cannot appear to adults or brave children (like Momoko). When he comes to Satsuki's house to attack Satsuki, Hajime, Leo and Keiichirō, Satsuki tries to destroy him through spilling hot water on him. This stops him, but it is shown that this does not permanently stop him.

Another ghost is let loose in the old school building, which inhabits an old mirror (うつしみ Utsushimi?). He captures people in the mirror world and replaces them with a replica who wears glasses and has no reflection. He tries to replace everybody in the town, but was sealed away by Satsuki who put another mirror right in front of his, thus returning everything back to normal.

While searching for the internet website Yomi-net, which connects to the underworld, Leo nearly falls victim for the underworld demon hag (Datsue-ba). In the past, he used to take lost people to the boats of the Sanzu River and then force them to get into a boat and cross the river, which leads to the underworld. His activities stopped with the installment of lights in the city, and thus he uses the Yomi-net to achieve the same goal online. Satsuki and the others help Leo return by scanning him an o-fuda and telling him to wish to go back home.

Satsuki's school pet keeper, Mio, brings a rabbit, Shirotabi, back to life through a black magic ritual. The spell works, but with a side-effect, Shirotabi is now cursed and turns into a demon every night. Although Mio tries to stop Shirotabi, she realizes Shirotabi no longer even recognizes her. So, Satsuki and the others to convince Mio that Shirotabi's place should be with the dead, and Mio agrees. Mio breaks the spell, and Shirotabi is released from the curse.

The town is haunted by the ghost of a taxi driver who died in a car accident in the cursed tunnel Anamaneki (穴まねき?), filled with the restless spirits of those who died there, while he was trying to get home for his daughter's birthday. Since then, Anamaneki uses him to lure wanderers into his car and then bring them into the tunnel where they are attacked and deprived of their energy. The driver's soul is freed when Satsuki and the group encounter him. When Satsuki and the others are trapped in the tunnel, Kayako, through a telepathic conversation with Momoko, helps them to fight against the power of Anamaneki. They escape from it with the help of the taxi driver's ghost, after his evil side is exorcized.

Satsuki is stalked by a ghost called Mary (メリーさん Merīsan?) which resembles a beautiful European-looking doll, asking her if she wants to play with her. Despite her innocent behavior, she is a very dangerous deity, as stated by Amanojaku. Satsuki and the others try to get rid of her by leaving her in a doll house where the toys of deceased people remain. However, she gains the power to control the other toys and make them go after Satsuki, attacking her as though playing a game of Kagome Kagome. Ironically though, Satsuki is saved by Mary herself, who claims Satsuki "wasn't having fun" and decides to leave her taking a tissue that Satsuki had used to clean Mary earlier. Mary wears Satsuki's tissue as a cape and fades away forever.

A mysterious nurse-like figure appears before Keiichirō, and starts haunting him. The deity, described by Satsuki's mom as some kind of Shinigami, visits a person who is near death and tells them that his or her end is close at hand so the person can talk with their loved ones for one last time. Upon hearing that she's after Keiichirō, Satsuki believes the nurse wants him for an evil purpose, due to a childhood trauma related with their mother's death. However, it is revealed the nurse only wanted to give them a letter from Satsuki's mother, which she had intended to give them before she died.

Satsuki paints a picture, which coincidentally resembles her mother's painting from a long time ago, leading the ghost of an art teacher from the old school who had an obsession with the Italian artist Leonardo Da Vinci, to be set free. The ghost, also called Da Vinci (ダビンチ Dabinchi?), had gained the power to suck anything into his paintings when he died, making both humans and ghosts fear him. He was actually sealed by Satsuki's mother in the painting that portrayed the old school, and Satsuki manages to seal him again in the end.

One of the railway crossings in the town is haunted by the ghost of a once normal woman called Shizuko who was going to get married. She died by being run over by a taxi and became a yūrei spirit, haunting every taxi driver who passed the place where she died. She possesses Momoko and begins to drain her life force, until Leo stops her by finding her wedding ring and the taxi driver who killed her. Shizuko then comes after the driver and disappears taking him with her.

Satsuki and three of her friends are taught and compelled into performing a black magic ritual that can grant their wishes, by their classmate Shinobu. However, the spells are actually a trap for the girls to have their souls stolen by the darkness, and Shinobu in reality is the avatar of an evil deity called Yamime (闇目?). In the end Satsuki learns that Shinobu was once her mother's classmate who mysteriously disappeared. Possibly upon her "second death", she was forever engulfed by Yamime. Satsuki seals her by first binding her using her red lipstick and flashing her camera's light directly at her.

While Satsuki's father falls ill with a mysterious fever, after working on a building's demolition, she and her friends are lured to an abandoned building by a woman, whom they think is about to commit suicide. Unbeknownst to them, it is a trick played by a powerful deity that haunts the building, called Soma (巣魔 Sōma?). Soma originally lived underground, but was released with the construction of the building. Since then, it attacks and curses people who dare to enter the building, and it can control minor ghosts to lure or attract its victims. Satsuki, backed by Amanojaku and the ghost of a middle-aged man, seals him away using her psychic skills.

Satsuki and her friends decide to visit her cousin, Miyuki only to learn from Yuki, who claims to be Miyuki's younger cousin, that Miyuki died in a snowstorm and is now haunting the family cabin. However, it is later revealed that Miyuki is alive and Yuki is actually the ghost of a girl who had died a long time ago. Yuki was trying to get Miyuki to join her as a ghost for all eternity by using Satsuki and the others to chant a spell using a picture of Miyuki covered in blood. Yuki was a lonely girl who was left by her mother at a hotel and drowned in a lake while waiting for her. In the end Yuki rests after the gang repeats the chorus "Go with the snow, but not the snow that is yellow ", using an old photo from a newspaper.

Satsuki's teacher asks her to take up the job of school announcer. While doing her task, Satsuki realizes that the room is haunted by the ghost of Akane, a girl who died of a sudden heart attack during a radio show in the old school. Since then, her ghost curses all those who hear her voice and they will die at the sunset of that same day. Satsuki puts her into spiritual sleep by repeating the number four several times (in Japanese culture, "4" is an unlucky number, because "shi", the word for four, is also the word for death[24]), with Hajime finishing the process by ringing the bell that announces the end of the radio transmission.

Satsuki and Keiichirō are targeted by a muscular ghost, Lord Ohma (逢魔 Ouma?), a very powerful evil deity capable of controlling other ghosts even if they are sealed away and holds a grudge against their mother, Kayako Miyanoshita. Satsuki and others learn that the only way to seal him away is to imprison him in a huge bell, once the exorcist has enough spiritual power. Satsuki and the gang decide to use the old school's bell, but since Satuski has not developed her spiritual powers at that time, Amanojaku leaves Kaya's body to fight with Lord Ohma while Satsuki gathers power. In the end, Satsuki sealed both Lord Ohma and accidentally Amanojaku as well; the latter sacrificed himself in order for Satsuki to gather enough power to destroy Lord Ohma forever.