SHOH-roh-kah-zeh
Their soul is listening — speak, and they will answer.
SHOH-roh-kah-zeh
Shōrōkaze, the “spirit-wind,” is a baleful breeze said to blow on the morning of the sixteenth day of Obon. It has no visible form, yet those struck by it were feared to suffer sudden fever, chills, or dizziness. Here “shōrō” means the spirits of the dead in Buddhist usage, and the wind is understood as the current that carries the departing souls at Obon. In the Goto Islands, people traditionally avoid graves and grave paths on this day to ward off spiritual harm.
In Goto, it is said that being caught by the morning wind on the sixteenth of Obon brings illness, so visiting graves or walking grave roads is avoided. On nearby Iki in Nagasaki, reports distinguish between “dead-spirit wind” and “living-spirit wind,” the latter causing chest tightness. Across Japan, beliefs in “evil winds” appear under various names; local winds like the Kiyokawa-dashi, Yamaji, or the wind of Hitotsume-no-Megumi (Ichimokuren) were interpreted as sources of calamity.
Shōrōkaze (Spirit-Wind) across multiple art-style decks
This yokai is included in the following collections:
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
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