You guys go to the mountains and feel liberated, don’t you? 
That’s because you’re about to cross a kind of borderline. The borderline of “Agaribito” between the human side and beyond…

Today, we will dive into the mysterious creepypasta (urban legend) of “Agaribito” that was posted on 2chan.

Agaribito (アガリビト) is a Japanese character/term to describe some group of people in deep mountains. Their first appearance was in a creepypasta story on the Japanese message board 2channel (often shorten as 2chan).

A boy (who wrote this story on 2chan) went to his grandma’s house in the countryside where he encountered people called “Agaribito”.
After escaping from the horrific experience, the grandma also shared her own strange experiences with Agaribito in the past…

Agaribito is a group of people transitioning from human to something beyond. This transition is said to be triggered when they are exposed to nature like deep mountains that has not been untouched by humans.

When they appear in mountains, they are unclothed and completely naked in most cases. That is because they are becoming less human to be Agaribito.

They use a singing voice that sounds like ”Nnngh, nnngh, nnngh” in nasal sound. (You can hear the sound in my podcast episode above, so check it out!)

Agaribito can’t speak in human language, so this is their only form of vocal communication.

They sometimes seem to smile but it is just superficial expression. When you look at the face of Agaribito carefully, their eyes have no feeling as if they are glazed over.

In the story on 2chan, Agaribito is seen describing children who have wandered into the mountains, undressing and performing a kind of ritual to become one of them.

The storyteller man was able to escape them by luck, but if he had been caught he may have been similarly unclothed…

The origin and background of Agaribito were not revealed in the story posted on 2chan. However, several discussions have been found on the internet that appear to be of Agaribito origin.

Until around the 1960s, there used to be a mountain people in Japan known as Sanka (山窩/サンカ). They lived from stream to stream, living in tent-like temporary huts, so they had no certificate of residence. And, of course, no nationality.

They were basically self-sufficient, but sometimes earned cash by selling bamboo crafts to people in villages. In the Showa period (1926-1989), many of Sanka went down to the villages and became Japanese citizens with nationality.

However, although only at the level of urban legend, some people say Sanka still exists today. They are said to be very strict about maintaining secrecy and traitors are violently dealt with. Sanka may have undergone a modern makeover and are now known as Agaribito.

Many Japanese villages used to do “Kuchiberashi (口減らし)” in the past. When they were so poor that they couldn’t raise their kids or take care of the old, they went to the mountains and abandoned them there.

Of course, the family was not happy to do that, so they tried to justify their action by believing that the kids and the old got the blessing from the mountain god and that they were also divine.

Abandoned ones, on the other hand, have a grudge against people and try to attack them. But the villagers didn’t fight back because the abandoned were blessed by the mountain god.

Those abandoned people had been gradually called as “Tataribito (祟り人)” meaning the group of people who curse, which might have changed the sound to Agaribito at the end.

It might be a little-known fact (possibly because of the image of Tokyo as a modern city), but 2/3 of Japan’s land is surrounded by forests and mountains. Within them, there may exist deep nature that few people have yet set foot in.

What if you see a naked person in Japanese mountains? You already know what you should do. Run away immediately!

And for yourself, do not to refresh yourself too much in the mountains. You don’t want to become one of Agaribito, do you?

↓Check out this related article as well to find out more about Japanese creepypastas/urban legends!