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Paranormal

Tokyo's Record Rain Revives Talk of 'Masakado's Curse' After a Streamer Climbed the Samurai's Head-Tomb

Central Tokyo has had rain every day since Aug. 27, the longest streak on record. Online, some are tying it, a quake and a lake-embankment breach to a streamer who climbed the monument at Taira no Masakado's tomb in August.

TOKYO By Dead of Night Dispatch

Location Masakado-zuka (the "Kubizuka" head-tomb), Otemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan

Illustration: a small shrine with lanterns in heavy rain among glass office towers at night

TOKYO (Sept. 30, 2026, Japan time) — It was raining in central Tokyo again on the morning of Sept. 30. According to the Japanese outlet ZAKⅡ, that made 35 days in a row, the longest streak since record-keeping began in 1886.

Online, many people have stopped blaming only the weather. They’re pointing at a small plot of land in the financial district, where the head of a 10th-century rebel is said to be buried, and at the streamer who climbed on his monument in August.

What we know

On the record: documents, statements, dates and places. Sources below.

  • The streak. Central Tokyo has had precipitation every day since Aug. 27, ZAKⅡ reported on Sept. 30. At 35 days, the run passed the previous record of 33 days, set in 2019. September sunshine was less than 40% of normal, and prices of leafy vegetables have climbed, the outlet reported.
  • The official cause. According to the Japan Meteorological Agency, as cited by ZAKⅡ, the rain comes from a stalled autumn rain front combined with approaching typhoons.
  • The streamer. In mid-August, a streamer active on the overseas platform Kick climbed the stone monument at the head-tomb of Taira no Masakado in Otemachi and let out strange shouts, ZAKⅡ reported in August. The video spread, and the outlet said it drew a flood of angry comments. By Sept. 30 the streamer had posted an apology on social media, according to ZAKⅡ.
  • What followed. After the incident, ZAKⅡ reports, there was a heavy downpour in Tokyo on Aug. 22, and late on the night of Aug. 23 an earthquake centered in southern Ibaraki Prefecture. On Sept. 22, typhoon-driven flooding breached an embankment at Inba-numa, a lake in Chiba Prefecture.
  • The Masakado connections. ZAKⅡ notes that the geographic and historical ties are real. The tomb sits in Chiyoda Ward, where the heavy rain fell. Ibaraki is where Masakado is said to have had his seat of government. Inba-numa is surrounded by legends of land Masakado cleared and by sites linked to him.
  • The rite. The tomb’s autumn festival, held each year during the September equinox week by Kanda Myojin shrine and the tomb’s preservation society, took place as usual this year, ZAKⅡ reported. The rain kept falling.
  • The old story, on an official website. Japan’s National Tax Agency keeps a page about the tomb, which stood on the grounds of the old Ministry of Finance. It says the tomb was destroyed in 1924 when a temporary ministry building went up after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. After Finance Minister Hayami Seiji died suddenly in 1926, and the engineer in charge of construction, Yabashi Kenkichi, also died, the run of misfortune led to rumors that the construction had brought a curse, and a memorial stone was reportedly erected in 1927. The agency says there is no way to confirm whether the curse is real, but notes that a lightning-sparked fire in June 1940 burned the ministry’s building, and that after the Pacific War a bulldozer overturned and killed its driver when the U.S. military tried to level the mound.

What’s claimed

Accounts, testimony and theories, as told by the people who tell them.

  • “Lord Masakado’s anger.” As the rain continued, social media users began posting that it might be “将門公の怒りではないか” and “祟りではないか,” ZAKⅡ reported. In English: “Isn’t this Lord Masakado’s anger?” and “Isn’t this a curse?”
  • One rite isn’t enough. Because the streak kept going after the autumn festival, some posters are suggesting that a single ceremony may not be enough to settle things, according to ZAKⅡ.
  • Forty days and forty nights. With the count at 35, some users have begun invoking the 40 days and 40 nights of rain in the story of Noah’s Ark, ZAKⅡ reported, and some are voicing unease.
  • The older curse stories. ZAKⅡ’s August report recounted two stories long told about the site: that officials and workers died one after another after the temporary ministry building went up on the tomb’s grounds, and that a heavy machine overturned and killed its operator when the postwar occupation authorities tried to clear the mound for a parking lot. The outlet called them urban legends.

The tomb in Otemachi

The monument still stands in a gap between office towers near the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau, the tax agency notes. ZAKⅡ describes it as a place that has been handed down along with all kinds of urban legends, and one that its preservation society and the surrounding community have looked after carefully for many years.

The meteorologists have their explanation. The streamer has apologized. As of Sept. 30, Tokyo was still waiting for a dry day, and people online were still counting.

Sources

  1. 都心35日連続雨で「将門の祟り」再び…ゆかりの印旛沼決壊で深まる異変にネット騒然 (Japanese) — ZAKⅡ (via docomo)
  2. 「長銀の悲劇忘れたか」将門塚で奇声の迷惑配信者にSNS震撼…大手町の掟とは (Japanese) — ZAKⅡ
  3. 大手町の首塚 (The head-tomb at Otemachi, Japanese) — National Tax Agency of Japan