Aka Manto as a Subject of Pre-War Rumor Studies. The base description outlined its evolution from pre-war to post-war; in this deep dive, we explore how the pre-war Aka Manto was positioned within Japanese sociological rumor studies. Soichi Oya (1900–1970), a prolific social critic from the pre-war to post-war eras, was a pioneer in journalism and rumor research. His essay, *The Sociology of Aka Manto*, published in the April 1939 issue of *Chuo Koron*^[1], stands as a rare early example of academic analysis applied to a contemporary urban rumor. It utilized a single rumor to dissect wartime societal anxiety, the distortions caused by information control, and the collective psychology of urban residents. The pioneering nature of Oya's paper served as the starting point for later socio-psychological studies by scholars like Hiroshi Minami, Hideo Kishimoto, and Takeyoshi Kawashima, who systematized wartime and pre-war rumors. As the first urban legend to be comprehensively analyzed by Japanese sociology, Aka Manto holds immense significance in academic history.

The Symbolic Weight of the Color "Red". The pre-war Aka Manto possessed a striking visual hook: "a running man in a red cape." In pre-war and wartime Japan, "red" carried heavy, complex connotations: (1) it was a symbol of blood, violence, and danger; (2) it was a metaphor for communism and anti-state ideology (within the context of wartime censorship); and (3) it represented the foreign otherness of Russia and the West (the Red Army, the "Red Devil"). The fact that Aka Manto proliferated during the war was no coincidence; it can be read as a socio-psychological event where the militaristic anxieties of urbanites coalesced and erupted around the color "red." Conversely, its post-war evolution into the "Red Paper, Blue Paper" schoolyard ghost story can be interpreted as the stripping away of its heavy pre-war symbolism, gamifying it into a simple "color-choice question" for children.

The Continuity of Wartime Rumors and Children's Folklore. Aka Manto is a profoundly rare case of a pre-war urban rumor transitioning directly into a post-war school ghost story. This unbroken continuity is underpinned by three layers: (1) the generation who experienced their childhood in the 1930s became parents or teachers after the war, passing the story down to the next generation; (2) the chaos of the wartime metropolis and the rapid urban transformations of the post-war economic boom generated analogous psychological anxieties; and (3) the physical space of the school consistently functioned as the transmission apparatus for children's oral traditions across both eras.

The Interrogative Structure of "Red Paper, Blue Paper". The core mechanic of the school ghost story version is the "color choice question." Answering "red" gets you dyed in blood; answering "blue" gets your blood drained. This "unsolvable dilemma"—where any answer results in death—shares structural similarities with classical Trickster myths (where every choice is a trap) and the psychoanalytic concept of the "forced choice." Folklorist Noboru Miyata theorized in *The Folklore of Yokai* (Iwanami Shoten, 1985) that the "unsolvable question structure" in post-war school ghost stories was a ritualized expression of childhood anxiety and powerlessness. Alongside Kokkuri-san's "answer-seeking summons" and Kashima-san's "Where are your legs?" interrogation, it is classified as one of the three major interrogative archetypes in children's oral horror.

Convergence and Divergence with Hanako-san. In children's oral culture post-1980s, a strong trend emerged merging Aka Manto with "Hanako-san of the Toilet." Legends appeared featuring a Hanako wearing a red skirt or cape, narratives explaining that Hanako's true identity *was* Aka Manto, and storylines casting Aka Manto and a new "Ao (Blue) Manto" as a sibling duo or rival pair. This demonstrates that post-war school ghost stories did not exist in isolation; they evolved as a living ecosystem of interconnected myths. In modern urban legend studies, it has become standard practice to treat Aka Manto, Hanako-san, Kashima-san, Teketeke, and the Slit-Mouthed Woman collectively as an overarching "lineage of post-war Japanese horror intricately tied to women, the physical body, and the school space."

The Nexus of Pre-War and Post-War Rumor History. Within Japanese urban legends, Aka Manto is an incredibly rare yokai that boasts explicit academic documentation across two distinct eras: pre-war (1935–1940) and post-war (1950–1990). It was recorded independently by two different academic fields—pre-war sociology/rumor studies (Soichi Oya, Hiroshi Minami) and post-war folklore/school ghost story research (Toru Tsunemitsu, Noboru Miyata). The mere fact that a 1939 academic paper in *Chuo Koron* and a 1990 children's book by Kodansha KK Bunko are discussing the exact same supernatural phenomenon, separated by half a century, serves as the most powerful testament to the enduring continuity of Japanese urban legend studies.