is a Japanese urban legend about a fictitious railway station.[1] [2] [3] The station first came into the news in 2004, when the story was posted on the internet forum 2channel.[4]
A woman, who later revealed her name was "Hasumi" made a post inside a train car with other passengers asleep. It was her routine commute to work, but the train was unusually making no stops for a long time. The woman was unable to communicate with the conductor and the driver, and with no answers to the strange nature of the train, she makes a post on the internet forum asking for what to do. After communicating with the users responding to the post, she posted that the train made a stop after an hour of riding the train from Shin-Hamamatsu Station. The station's sign read "Kisaragi Station", a vacant station which seems to be unstaffed.
After the unusual activity inside the train, Hasumi exited the train and stayed in the station, discussing what to do next. The users on the forum warned Hasumi that there is no such station on the internet and she should exit the area immediately. She wandered around the outside of station building, desperately trying to catch a taxi for a way home, with no success. However, she found a telephone booth and called her parents to pick her up, but her parents weren't able to find the location of Hasumi, as Kisaragi Station does not exist on the map.
The situation around the area became more creepy as time went by. Bells were ringing from the station, and were making slowly intensifying festival-like drumbeat. Creeped out, Hasumi decided to walk on the railway tracks back to home, but was interrupted by a single-legged man who yelled "Hey! Don't walk on the track! It's dangerous!", who immediately vanished without a trace. With her fear being stronger due to the event, she fled to a tunnel recklessly, injuring herself.
After reaching the end of the tunnel, a friendly man welcomed her and offered a ride back. Despite the unusual situation of a man being in this place, in the middle of a night, she took the offer. While the man was chatty at first, he slowly became silent, and even started muttering gibberish. Terrified, she made her final post, saying "My battery’s almost run out. Things are getting strange, so I think I’m going to make a run for it. He’s been talking to himself about bizarre things for a while now. To prepare for just the right time, I’m going to make this my last post for now". After this post, Hasumi completely disappeared.
Due to the post saying that the author was riding a train from Private railway in Shizuoka Prefecture, Shin-Hamamatsu Station the station was suspected to be in an otherworldly position connected by the Enshū Railway Line.[5] However, people have also claimed to have seen the station in Fukuoka Prefecture. Many people have pointed out that Saginomiya Station might be the model for the Kisaragi Station.[6]
Later, many posts about escaping the station, along with adjacent stations, "Yami Station" and "Katasu Station" were made, with image of a station said to be the station building of Kisaragi Station.[7] [8] However, these photos were later discovered to be images of Misedani Station and Nishi-Aioi Station.[9] Most stories claimed the distortion of time, and malfunctioning GPS in the area. An anonymous user on Google Maps created a spot called "Kisaragi Station" on a pond in the area of University of Tsukuba, allowing people to look for routes to the spot.[10]
At first, the stories of Kisaragi Station led to fears that nobody will be able to return to their homes if they enter it because the original poster, "Hasumi" disappeared after the posts. However, some people that claimed to have escaped the area, stated that they did a certain thing, such as calling for help by setting up a fireplace to escape. Additionally, from a post made in 2018,[11] a person claimed to have escaped the station thanks to the friendly conductor and local residents, and the focus of the urban legend's emphasis is placed on the romance of traveling in another world, rather than the fear it had initially. The Kanji name for Kisaragi Station was not stated in the original post, so Hiragana is used instead for the writing of the station name. In Chinese, the station is often written as "如月車站", and some posts in Japanese also use the name "如月駅".[12] Some other names, such as "鬼駅",[13] are also seen in several posts,[14] but are not widely recognized.
After the topic went viral on Twitter, the urban legend became widely known with internet users, and many phone calls and mails have been sent to Enshū Railways. In 2022, Kisaragi Station, a movie about this legend was released, becoming popular especially in areas close to Hamamatsu.[15] [16] The Enshū Railways also briefly changed the name of Saginomiya Station to Kisaragi Station following the release.[17] On the same year, Enshū Railways sold a replica of train tickets with Kisaragi Station as a destination, selling out after an hour.[18]
Many people have visited Saginomiya Station as it is believed to be the motif of the urban legend.[19] Enshū Railways have advertised the station as the birthplace of the urban legend, holding events related to it at the station. The area around the station in 2019 has large traffic and settlements surrounding it, and doesn't match with the theme of the legend.[20] However, according to an Enshū Railways worker, there was no convenience store or bicycle parking in 2004, when the urban legend was posted, and it was darker than it is nowadays.
