Kaidan

In its broadest sense, kaidan refers to any ghost or horror story, but it has an old-fashioned ring to it that carries the connotation of Edo period Japanese folktales.

The term is no longer as widely used in Japanese as it once was: Japanese horror books and films such as Ju-on and Ring would more likely be labeled by the katakana horā (ホラー^?, "horror") or the standard Japanese kowai hanashi (怖い話^?, "scary story").

Kaidan is only used if the author/director wishes to specifically bring an old-fashioned air into the story.^{[citation needed]}

Kaidan entered the vernacular during the Edo period, when a game called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai became popular. This game led to a demand for ghost stories and folktales to be gathered from all parts of Japan and China.

The popularity of the game, as well as the acquisition of a printing press, led to the creation of a literary genre called Kaidanshu.
Kaidanshu were originally based on older Buddhist stories of a didactic nature, although the moral lessons soon gave way to the demand for strange and gruesome stories.