Kowabana Encyclopedia: Higyo-sama

Found in: Kowabana 15: Life-changing childhood experiences

Raising chickens is no easy job, but it seems that this particular farm in Shimane Prefecture has it harder than others!

According to the narrator, his grandparents on his mother’s side ran a chicken farm in Oochi, Shimane, and every year he’d go there with his mother, older sister, and younger brother during the summer holidays. This farm, naturally, was in the middle of nowhere.

His grandparents woke up at 4 a.m. every day and then got to work. This mostly consisted of cleaning the chicken droppings, collecting their eggs, checking the incubator and doing any necessary repairs. This would continue until 5, they would have dinner, then Grandpa would fall asleep around 7. Everyone else would go to be around an hour later.

Yet the narrator found it hard to go to bed this early, and one night he found himself staring at the roof when he heard his grandfather’s door open. This was followed by footsteps going outside. Thinking it was his grandparents perhaps checking on the chickens, he then fell asleep.

This continued for several nights, with someone going out around 11:30 and then returning at 12:05. On the fifth day, he deliberately stayed awake and then followed the footsteps outside. It was his grandfather, and he entered the incubator room about 50 metres from the house.

Inside, under the red light, he saw his grandfather staring at the incubators. He removed three eggs, then smashed them into a nearby bin. This caused the boy to speak up, startling his grandfather who revealed he was “taking out the bad eggs.” Turns out, if they don’t do this, something bad will happen.

When the boy tries to look at the discarded eggs, his grandfather panics and stops him, warning him he’ll go blind. Clearly these are no normal eggs. But the boy is sure he saw a chick in there. And on top of the bin is a note, but his grandfather rushes him out before he can read it.

The next day, his grandfather oddly has lunch with the family, something he never does. Seems he returned home from town drunk, and then he passes out after eating. While outside playing, the narrator remembers the incubator from the night before and goes to check it out while Grandpa sleeps.

Inside he finds a hand mirror, but the mirror has been painted over with vermilion paint. There’s also a clay statue of a cow, and some cheap plastic flowers. What an odd collection of items for an incubator.

He looks at the note he couldn’t read the night before, but the characters are too old fashioned for him to read. But then his younger brother, who is also with him, screams that one of the eggs is hatching. A chick hatches, but it seems different to the others. It’s not shaking, nor chirping… and it’s eyes… it’s eyes are human!

The chick then casually jumps out of the incubator and rushes off. The boys can only watch it go in horror. But when the narrator looks at his younger brother, he notices that he’s drooling and his eyes are unfocused.

After screaming for help, his grandparents rush over and ask if he “looked at it?!” The narrator denies this, but they ask where the chick went. He points west and his grandfather grabs the cow statue and flowers before running off. “He locked eyes with Higyo-sama, didn’t he?” their grandmother says sadly.

She asks the narrator to grab the mirror and then tells him to leave. Eventually his grandmother and brother come outside and he seems back to normal, but now, there’s something different about him too. When their mother realises what has happened, she pulls her son into her arms and cries.

Grandpa returns, but he was unable to catch the creature. He warns them something will happen in the next two to three days, but they don’t know who it will happen to. Either way, they need to get their mourning clothes ready.

According to Grandpa, chicks born at exactly midday and midnight “have a certain role,” and therefore must be killed. These chicks become Higyo-sama, right? Grandpa is surprised he has heard this name, but denies that’s what happens. “No, those that hatch at night become something even more terrifying.”

For the narrator, that’s the end of the story, at least with regards to his family. Later in high school, he makes a friend whose family also runs a chicken farm and he asks said friend if he’s ever heard of “Higyo-sama.” At first, his friend is confused, but then he says, “Ah, you mean Iwashi Chicken?”

Neither Higyo-sama nor Iwashi Chicken is explained further, but the narrator mentions that technology has now improved to the point where machines can automatically dispose of eggs that are about to hatch at midday or midnight, and his brother is perfectly fine and working as a teacher, although he doesn’t really remember much of what happened before that day.

So, what is Higyo-sama? At its most simple, this is a name given to chicks that hatch at midday or midnight (with midnight being the most fearsome). These chicks have human eyes and if they’re allowed to hatch, someone in the area will die two or three days later. The only way to stop this from happening is to destroy the eggs right before they actually hatch. Which means constant monitoring at 12 a.m. and 12 p.m.

As we can see from the narrator’s brother, if you happen to lock eyes with a chick that has hatched at midday or midnight, then it causes you to lose your sanity as well. It seems the grandmother saved him by doing something with the vermilion hand mirror, but we’re not told what. It’s also unknown what the grandfather needs the clay statue of a cow and plastic flowers for.

As for Iwashi Chicken, this seems to be another name for the same thing (perhaps Higyo-sama is just the term used in Shimane), but where this term comes from is also unknown. Some have theorised it comes from an alternate meaning of “iwashi” that means to harm or damage something, but either way, it’s only briefly mentioned at the end of the story and never again. If you look up the term in Japanese, Higyo-sama is the only thing that comes up, so it’s a term that was likely created just for this story.

So, if you see a chicken hatch at exactly midday or midnight and a human eye looks back at you… It’s probably the last thing you’ll ever remember. RIP.

If you’d like to watch an illustrated version of the story (in Japanese) you can do so here: