The Ghost In My Machine

Stories of the Strange and Unusual

The Most Dangerous Games: Tomino’s Hell

by

Previously: The Man in the Fields. 

The instructions for Tomino’s Hell are pretty simple — deceptively so. In fact, they’re so simple that it’s possible to play this game accidentally, although I, er… wouldn’t recommend putting yourself or anyone else in a position where that might happen if you can help it. The game was apparently once quite popular on 2ch, and although some who tried it reported that nothing happened, others who mentioned that they were going to give it a shot never reported back.

Why they were never heard from again remains to be seen.

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I’m honestly not totally clear on the origins of Tomino’s Hell; most versions of the story online include some background on it, but I’ve found verifying it to be a little iffy. It’s said that the poem became known to modern audiences after Japanese writer and film critic Inuhiko Yomata (also known as Goki Yomata) included it in a book published in 1998 called The Heart Is Like A Rolling Stone; however, it’s also noted that the poem itself is much older than that, having originally been written by Saijo Yaso in a poetry collection published called Sakin, or Gold Dust, in 1919 — Sakin being Yaso’s 27th collection of poetry.

Both Yomota and Yaso are real people. Yomata was born in Nishinomiya on February 20, 1953 (making him 63 now), while Yaso lived between 1892 and 1970. Both also appear to have published the works in question, although honestly I have a little trouble with the timeline of Yaso’s work. If Yaso was born in 1892, and Sakin was published as his 27th poetry collection in 1919, that means that by the time Yaso was 27 years old, he had published a truly staggering amount of poetry. It’s not impossible… but it’s unusual.

Then again, I don’t have a background in Japanese literature, and I don’t speak Japanese, so it’s also possible that there just isn’t a whole lot of information available about these two writers in the English language.

In any event, I would actually argue that Tomino’s Hell is less like a game and more like a curse; the object is really not to play it. If you’d like to read the poem, do it in your head, rather than aloud. But if you absolutely must read it aloud…

…Play at your own risk.

Players:

  • One principal.

Requirements:

  • The poem “Tomino’s Hell.”

Instructions:

  1. Recite the poem aloud, in Japanese if possible. The commonly used English translation follows, although an updated version can be found here.

His older sister vomited blood, his younger sister vomited fire,

And the cute Tomino vomited glass beads.

Tomino fell into Hell alone;

Hell is wrapped in darkness and even the flowers don’t bloom.

Is the person with the whip Tomino’s older sister?

I wonder whose blood is on it?

Hit, hit, without hitting,

Infinite Hell’s one road.

Would you lead him to the dark Hell,

To the sheep of gold, to the bush warbler?

Fit as much as you can into the leather sack

For the preparation of the journey in the familiar Hell.

Spring is coming even in the forest and the stream,

Even in the seven valley streams of the dark Hell.

The bush warbler in the birdcage, the sheep in the wagon,

Tears in the eyes of cute Tomino.

Cry, bush warbler, toward the raining forest.

He shouts that he misses his little sister.

The crying echo reverberates throughout Hell;

The fox peony blooms.

Circling around Hell’s seven mountains and seven streams,

The lonely journey of cute Tomino.

If they’re in Hell bring them to me,

The needle of the graves.

I won’t pierce with the red needle,

In the milestones of little Tomino.

Additional Notes:

It is not recommended that this poem be recited aloud. Terrible tragedies tend to dog the steps of anyone foolish enough to do so — until there are no more steps left to dog.

***

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[Photo via Skley/Flickr]

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Am I the only one that immediately scrolls down to the end of the poem without reading a thing?

    The OP clearly says,don’t read it loudly. I didn’t read it at all.

    Reply

  2. So If reading the poem causes, great misfortunes to occur.. What would happen if I read it in reverse. Will I become fortunate???
    I am a huge fan of your Most Dangerous Series!!! I found only a few days ago, and I read all of them in one day!! They plagued me

    Reply

  3. I recited the first few lines of the poem out loud once and I know something bad happened to me but I forgot what it was.

    Reply

  4. En France, il y avait eu un live sur YouTube entre personnes d’internet. Aux alentours de minuit, ils se racontaient des histoires d’horreur ou juste de peur. L’une des personnes, un illustrateur se nommant Boulet, avait lu ce poème à tout le monde, nous donnant aussi le lien pour qu’on le lise avec lui chez nous. On peut dire qu’il a maudit au moins 3 000 personnes ! Et moi-même l’ayant fait, rien ne s’est produit. Je ne suis pas sûre que cette histoire fonctionne réellement, mais comme toujours : “Play at your own risk…”

    Reply

    • You don’t die you just get cursed . When I read the whole poem out loud I got a major headache after .

      Reply

      • I never read the part before the instructions, where it explains where it’s from and origins, so I read the poem in my head accidentally. Once I got to the bottom it said it was more of a curse and something about how you shouldn’t read it. My heart literally dropped and I scrolled up to the top. I read it accidentally. But, it only said aloud, I thought I was fine but couldn’t stop thinking about it. Later on in the day at cheer I was weak, I couldn’t kick my leg up high or lift my flyer up. After cheer whenever I walked it felt like I was falling to the side and was disoriented. I also got a headache. I thought I was coming down with something until at night I thought about how strange my headache was, and I thought back to this comment. I forgot about the poem it just came back to me. This could just be a coincidence, but there is no telling. I mean you have to read it aloud, right?

        Reply

      • Strangely , I had a headache before reading this but it perished after I read it aloud in English and Japanese… am i evil 😂😂

        Reply

    • Nothing will happen to you if you read the poem in your head. You can hear someone else reading it, or you can read the poem in your head. Just don’t read it aloud, that’s when the bad luck happens. The worst that can happen while reading it in your head is a headache or a feeling of nausea.

      Reply

  11. What if there is a teacher that assigns their class to read this poem aloud for a presentation? Would there still be a curse involved?

    Reply

  13. HEY I am a reader from China and I also speak Japanese
    Just to provide some additional background information… I read the Japanese Wikipedia and it says that Sakin is Yaso’s first poetry collection (rather than the 27th, and he had never published that much poetry collection actually)
    So I think there’s a translation mistake in his English profile…

    Reply

  15. I want to share this with you guys since it’s based on my personal experience

    This Damned Poem is WRONG for the sake of Almighty God
    Please do not be foolish and say “well imma go read it and nothin’ will happen” or “i don’t believe in stuff like that”
    This “thing” has a demonic touch into it and I swear I never had such a terrible misfortune in my life as I had when I read the poem (Japanese Version)
    Fortunatly the effects are long gone now but I advise anyone not to be fooled and put his life into danger
    Reading the poem doesn’t lead to death (As I’m still alive) but misfortune, headaches, nausea or fever are likely to happen

    PS: I read the poem 5 or 6 times btw

    Reply

  17. Ech… I read the first few lines in my head and my foot got a tingling sensation and my head started to hurt a bit.. I’m definitely not gonna read it out loud. Lol.

    Reply

  22. What if I don’t read the whole thing? Like, I only read the first few lines out loud? Does that count? Or, what if I read it extremely slowly, like over a few days? Like, I recited one word, went about my life for an hour, recited the next word, and went on in this fashion for a while. Does that count as “reading it”?

    Reply

  27. Woah, I gotta say this is some creepy stuff. I read the replies on this article. I read the first paragraph or something like that and now I feel a little dizzy? I’m hydrated, and I didn’t feel dizzy until now.
    There’s no way in hell I’m reading the whole thing.

    Reply

  29. I read the poem aloud and in the middle I felt a sharp piercing in my chest just around the point I read “sharp needle” and later my elbows were almost unmovable.

    Reply

    • I read this poem in my head while riding shotgun with my work partner on our way to a job site. Don’t know if it’s my bra, but I too have a stabbing pain in my chest. Nothing else right now, but if anything else happens I’ll be sure to update.

      Reply

  30. Read half aloud, and I felt a pressure in my chest inhibiting my breathing, so I stopped. I ain’t fuckin with this shit

    Reply

  32. I read it out loud and nothing happend at first but then my eyes started to burn and my ears were ringing, it was like her spirit was right in front of my face staring at me.

    Reply

  33. I read it aloud …. and nothing happen to me…..
    And fortunes and misfortunes are part of life…. I don’t think it is related to this poem…

    Reply

  34. I found this poem about a year ago and I really wanted to try it out. I asked to of my best friends to read it with me at school. They agreed and during the break at school we stayed in the classroom alone and started reading it loudly together. As we were reading it nothing happened but there still was this interesting feeling I think it was only because we were a bit creeped out but nothing happened. As the bell rang I had French lesson and my best friends had German class. During French I felt really weird I can’t even explain the feeling. I asked if something similar happened to my best friends and they said that one of them almost started to crying without any reason and felt wrong. So I don’t know I guess it didn’t really worked out but then again we didn’t know what should’ve happened.

    Reply

  35. This is legit according to me. A few days ago I recited 5 to 6 lines of the poem in English. My head started hurting immediately, gradually increasing to a point where I couldn’t bare it anymore. Until this day, I have come across 3 to 4 accidents which could’ve killed me, just in a couple of days. Maybe these are warnings to not read the poem.

    Reply

  36. I ws alone When I was reading this poem, the door of my bedroom opened automatically. I closed it but it opened again. Suddenly I heard a terrible scream in the hall and I ran like mad out of my house screaming like anything…. I had it purified with incense and now still my head is aching and my heart is thumping crazily. I was never so scared in my life. I read it yesterday and was almost gonna die from an accident. Please, please do not attempt this Demonic game, may God stop me from doing such stupid things ever again…?

    Reply

  40. Guys just do a simple thing….. put on your headphones and play a loud song, so that you cant hear anything and then read the poem as loud as you want and nothing will happen?

    Reply

    • I read the whole thing out loud and felt fine for a little while. My leg cramped up, but it went away in seconds. Other than that, totally fine. Don’t recommend reading it though, it’s pretty creepy.

      Reply

  45. I.. I was reading this in class, fifth hour science, and just that little section. It was almost like the words were trying to force themselves out of my mouth, so much so, I had to hold my jaw and mouth shut. I actually tried to talk with my mouth shut, making noises for some words before I caught myself and reminded myself of what could happen.
    And from some of the drawings I’ve seen for Tomino’s Hell… I’ve seen them, in different parts of my life. For example, one of the sisters in the music video for “Aishite, Aishite, Aishite”, and similar looking people from the corner of my eye in my dark room. They’re real.

    Reply

  47. I accidentally read the elder sister vomits part and I’m scared that my older sister might actually vomit blood. Please help. When one of my friends asked me what I read I accidentally told it. Does that consider as reading it out aloud? I don’t want my sister to be hurt please.

    Reply

  51. I did read it aloud in Japanese AND English (even tho I know I’m pretty late to this ) idk, I just had this random urge to read it out aloud because I don’t really believe in these things , however I kinda started to feel sad while reading it because of tominos and his sisters fate.. I can strangely approve of the fact that before reading this , I had a strong headache. And now , it’s almost gone, but the sadness still lingers there ?

    Reply

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