Mary-san's Phone Call

The protagonist is a Western-style doll named Mary, thrown out during a move or a year-end cleaning. That night the house phone rings and a girl's voice says, 'This is Mary. I'm at the garbage dump now.' It rings again: 'This is Mary. I'm at the shopping street now.' Call by call she closes in, the crossroads, your street, the front door. The last call: 'This is Mary. I'm right behind you.' Whether the listener turns, and what is seen, varies by telling; most versions simply stop there and leave the final frame to the audience.

The story spread among children in the 1970s and 80s and was recorded repeatedly during the school-kaidan collecting boom. Its machinery was all new at the time: household telephones had just become universal, calls arrived without caller ID, and a ring after dark carried no clue who was on the line. The doll, meanwhile, plugged into an old Japanese conviction that human-shaped things acquire souls with use and bear grudges when discarded, the belief behind the doll-memorial rites that temples still hold. An old faith and a new appliance were wired together, and the circuit worked.

The mobile era upgraded Mary on schedule: versions now have the incoming call display the victim's own number, or map the caller's location to inside the house. With Satoru-kun she forms one pole of the Japanese 'telephone spirit' pair, the doll walking back from the dump, the boy walking over from the other side, both ringtones counting down to the same sentence: right behind you.