Hasshaku-sama: The Eight-Foot-Tall Woman Born on a Forum

In February 2021, the gaming site PCGamesN reported that one of Resident Evil Village’s most talked-about villains, Lady Dimitrescu, had three very different sources of inspiration. Two were familiar to Western audiences: Morticia Addams and Elizabeth Báthory. The third was Hasshaku-sama, a very tall woman in a white dress and wide-brimmed hat who first appeared in a post on a Japanese internet forum, not in an old scroll.

Quick facts

• Verdict: Hasshaku-sama is not a documented real being. It is an invented ghost story first posted online in 2008, though one researcher suggests it may reuse motifs from much older Japanese folklore.
• Name: Hasshaku-sama (八尺様), roughly “the honourable Eight-Shaku”. The shaku is an old Japanese unit of length, and eight shaku comes to about 240 centimetres, or roughly eight feet.
• Type: An internet urban legend, described as a female spirit.
• Earliest confirmed record: A post dated 26 August 2008 in a scary-story thread on the occult board of 2channel (2ch), the large Japanese anonymous forum.
• Where it spread: From the forum into wider media and pop culture, including the character design of a major video game.

What the story says

At the centre of the story is a female figure about 240 centimetres tall, which is where her name comes from. Japanese Wikipedia’s summary says she wears a one-piece dress, white or black, with a white hat. English-language descriptions mention a white dress and a wide-brimmed hat. She laughs in a strange woman’s voice that sounds like “po po po.” She can also change her voice at will, copying human voices to lure people in and knocking on doors and windows. Her victims are usually children in isolated rural areas, and once she has chosen someone, the story says that person will die within a few days.

The story also explains why she is not everywhere. Jizo statues once sealed her inside a particular area, but someone has since broken them. People in the story try to protect the targeted person in several ways. They carry protective charms, shut the person in a room with salt piled in its four corners until seven in the morning, and pray to the gods and Buddhas. The person is warned not to speak to the entity or point at it. The story also includes a scene where people escape together in several cars.

Earliest confirmed record

The story is traced to a long-running thread on 2channel’s occult board. The thread’s title roughly means “Why don’t we collect scary stories that are deadly serious? 196”. It was one of a numbered series in which users posted ghost stories. Both Japanese Wikipedia and the researcher Asato Itsuki, writing for the web edition of the Japanese occult magazine Mu, give 26 August 2008 as the date of the first posting.

The thread still exists in 5channel’s archive of old logs, the successor to 2channel’s archive. It can be read there and contains several long ghost-story posts, so the original posting clearly existed. There is one caveat. Research for this article did not directly check the timestamp on the post that holds the Hasshaku-sama story. The 2008 date rests on secondary sources that agree with each other, not on a first-hand reading of that post’s date. It also cannot be ruled out that an earlier record exists somewhere.

What is documented

Several things are well supported by the sources:

• An online origin. Japanese Wikipedia calls Hasshaku-sama an urban legend of completely internet origin, which later spread into media and pop culture. Asato Itsuki also places its first appearance on the 2channel occult board.
• A consistent set of features. Japanese Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and PCGamesN broadly agree on the main traits: a woman about 2.4 metres tall, the “po po po” sound, a white dress and hat, and a focus on children in isolated country areas.
• An influence on a major game. PCGamesN reported that Tomonori Takano, art director of Resident Evil Village, told IGN in an interview that Lady Dimitrescu grew out of an “alluring vampire” concept. He named Morticia Addams, Elizabeth Báthory and Hasshaku-sama as inspirations. English Wikipedia also notes that Capcom has acknowledged Hasshaku-sama as one of the character’s influences.

It also matters what the story is not. No real victims or real people are known to be involved. Hasshaku-sama should be read as an invented ghost story that began online, not as an account of real events.

What is contested

The real question is how “new” Hasshaku-sama actually is. Japanese Wikipedia’s framing is simple: the legend was born entirely on the internet. Asato Itsuki, who researches strange phenomena and yokai (Japanese supernatural creatures), offers a more layered view in his 2024 article for web Mu. He points to older material with similar elements:

• The mountain woman (yamauba) described as eight shaku tall in Yama no Jinsei, a work by the folklorist Yanagita Kunio.
• Rōō Chawa, a collection of strange tales from the early modern period.
• The “Sword” chapter (Tsurugi no Maki) connected to The Tale of the Heike (Heike Monogatari).

Asato suggests the author may have built Hasshaku-sama by combining elements from traditions like these. On that reading, it is not a completely independent invention. It is a story that appeared online but may rearrange older folk motifs.

This is analysis, not proof. Asato’s links are possible influences, and nothing shows the author was actually drawing on those texts. So Hasshaku-sama should not be described as a yokai proven by folklore research to be old. The safest summary is that the character first appeared in a 2008 forum post, and its roots in earlier folklore remain an open and interesting question.

Adaptations

The best-known ripple is the one in this article’s opening. In Resident Evil Village (2021), Lady Dimitrescu’s design drew partly on Hasshaku-sama. PCGamesN’s analysis links the legend’s height of about 2.4 metres, white dress and wide-brimmed hat to the character’s look. Takano’s own list of inspirations put a figure from a Japanese forum next to Morticia Addams and Elizabeth Báthory. Twelve or thirteen years after its first appearance, a story posted anonymously in a scary-story thread had helped shape one of the most recognisable horror characters in a global game franchise.

How it is discussed in Japan today

Ocsoku, a Japanese occult blog, has covered Hasshaku-sama in 5 posts between 2012 and 2019.