In an attempt to tap into the growing interest in the supernatural during summer, a number of companies are offering services that allow participants to experience a taste of what lives in the shadows.

Hato Bus tourist agency, for example, offers two types of ghost tours every year: a Koshakushi to Iku Yoru no Kaidan cruise tour (a night cruise featuring a ghost storyteller) and an Otera de Kiku Kaidan no Yube tour (an event held at a temple on Mount Myoken Hosshou in Yanagishima at sunset featuring a ghost storyteller).

Meanwhile, Yokohama-based taxi company Sanwa Koutsu launched an Anatano Shiranai Taxi no Sekai tour this year, which takes passengers on a tour of haunted locations in Kanagawa Prefecture.

“It’s the first time for us to hold such a tour,” says Motoharu Takiguchi, who is in charge of public relations for the company. “Our president thought that a scary tour would be perfect for summer.”

Dozens of people have shown an interest in the tour already, Takiguchi says, with the service becoming fully booked after just three days.

Fifty more groups are currently sitting on waiting list.
Those looking for something a littl eless organized might wish to check out ghoulish Thriller Night Roppongi in Tokyo

The bar otiginated in Sapporo, Hokkaido, in 2011 as the country's first host story bar. The bar;s manager, Hiroki Yamada wanted to create something that had teh feeling of theme park while also including touch of humor. The Roppongi branch has been open since May 2014, offering guests decor tahn looks more like something you'd find in a carnival fair ground's haunted house tahn abar in Tokyo.

Severed heads rest on shelves, spiderwebs hang from the ceiling and macabre dummies resemble corpses sit amongs customers. The bar offers an all-you-can-drink menu for ¥3,500 for the first hour, with one-hour extensions available for another ¥2,500. While this sounds a little pricey, a storyteller recounts an assortment of ghost stories for 15 minutes every hour.

Thriller Night Roppongi features three main storytellers: Wataru Shirotani, Ayako Yamaguchi and Takahiko Murakami, who goes by his stage name, “Murakami Rock.”

Looking ahead, Yamada plans to turn Thriller Night Roppongi into a form of management company that will allow young storytellers to hone their skills.