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Known formally as Yashima Sui-dō, this Kagawa Prefecture tunnel was built in 1938 for military artillery training — and according to local legend, that training is what gave the tunnel its ghost.
The Legend
The story holds that a soldier died during artillery training inside the tunnel, and his spirit has remained ever since. Witnesses since the 1940s describe a figure in military uniform walking the length of the tunnel, his presence often preceded by the sound of metal clanging somewhere in the distance. Those who've encountered the figure reportedly describe overwhelming fear and anxiety rather than simple unease — a stronger reaction than most tunnel-ghost sightings on this site claim to produce.
A separate element of the legend describes a kitsune, a fox spirit, said to inhabit the same tunnel alongside the soldier's ghost. Visitors describe sensing the kitsune's presence distinctly from the soldier's, though accounts are vaguer here — less a specific sighting and more a generalized feeling attributed to the fox spirit's presence.
What's Actually Verifiable
We could not verify the soldier's death against a documented military record, though the tunnel's construction date and original purpose as an artillery training site is a more specific, historically grounded detail than most legends on this site offer — 1938 places it in the lead-up to Japan's broader wartime mobilization, a period when this kind of military infrastructure was genuinely being built across the country.
Pairing a Soldier's Ghost With a Fox Spirit
Combining a specifically wartime human ghost with a kitsune — a figure drawn from much older Japanese folk religious tradition — is a notable pairing. It suggests the tunnel's haunted reputation drew on two separate cultural traditions simultaneously: the relatively modern genre of wartime ghost stories, and the older, pre-existing folk belief in fox spirits inhabiting liminal, isolated places like tunnels and forests.
A Closed Tunnel That Still Draws Visitors
Yashima Sui-dō's continued pull as a “tourist attraction for those seeking a good scare,” despite being formally closed to public use, mirrors a pattern seen elsewhere on this site: closure tends to intensify curiosity about a haunted site rather than eliminate it, since inaccessibility itself becomes part of the site's mystique, adding a layer of forbidden appeal on top of whatever ghost story already existed, and giving visitors an extra reason to seek the tunnel out specifically because entry is no longer straightforward.
Can You Visit?
Yashima Sui-dō Tunnel is now closed and no longer used by the public, though it remains a known local attraction for those interested in its story. Given its closed status, visitors should treat this as a legend to appreciate from a distance rather than a site to actively seek entry into.
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