As many are aware, Karakura High School has recently introduced an unusual new club; the Occult Club. It’s an interesting choice, especially to me - though I’ve not met any of its members yet, unfortunately, so I’m unable to say anything else about the modern club, something notable is that this isn’t the first one.
In 1967, Karakura High School became host to a secret society - its first occult club, founded by Tagawa Suki with his best friend, Takeshi Sone. Over the following two decades, the club would exist as a staple of Karakura High School and draw in new members - ultimately gaining a total of ten before, in 1987, tragedy struck.
On February 21st, 1987, all ten of the club’s members vanished without warning, prompting an investigation that concluded the following day with the discovery of several bodies inside the school’s boiler room, surrounded by a hundred candles. At a glance, it seems like an open-and-shut case - ten students lock themselves in a boiler room with all those candles, and their bodies could not be recognised. So at a glance, anyone would assume it’s simple; they locked themselves in, accidentally set themselves on fire, and all burned to death. However, there are holes in this story - in particular regarding the club’s members.
As previously mentioned, the Occult Club had ten members at the time of its disappearance. Their names, as mentioned above, were founders Tagawa Suki and Takeshi Sone, alongside Yanagi Katsu, Asato Michi, Tsukimoto Hikaru, Kase Tatsuya, Ohashi Tomiko, Mizuno Yasuko, Soga Kayo, Rei Nobuko. While the identities of the nine bodies found have been confirmed, Takeshi remains missing to this day. Furthermore, newspaper reports from the investigation into the deaths at the time suggest that faculty present in the school at the time knew more than they let on - as can be seen in the clipping below.
Notably, school faculty - in particular, the man who first discovered the bodies, former school janitor Mitsurugi Sugimori, seemed paranoid - as mentioned in articles investigating the disappearance at the time, scared of his own shadow.
In 1967, Karakura High School became host to a secret society - its first occult club, founded by Tagawa Suki with his best friend, Takeshi Sone. Over the following two decades, the club would exist as a staple of Karakura High School and draw in new members - ultimately gaining a total of ten before, in 1987, tragedy struck.
On February 21st, 1987, all ten of the club’s members vanished without warning, prompting an investigation that concluded the following day with the discovery of several bodies inside the school’s boiler room, surrounded by a hundred candles. At a glance, it seems like an open-and-shut case - ten students lock themselves in a boiler room with all those candles, and their bodies could not be recognised. So at a glance, anyone would assume it’s simple; they locked themselves in, accidentally set themselves on fire, and all burned to death. However, there are holes in this story - in particular regarding the club’s members.
As previously mentioned, the Occult Club had ten members at the time of its disappearance. Their names, as mentioned above, were founders Tagawa Suki and Takeshi Sone, alongside Yanagi Katsu, Asato Michi, Tsukimoto Hikaru, Kase Tatsuya, Ohashi Tomiko, Mizuno Yasuko, Soga Kayo, Rei Nobuko. While the identities of the nine bodies found have been confirmed, Takeshi remains missing to this day. Furthermore, newspaper reports from the investigation into the deaths at the time suggest that faculty present in the school at the time knew more than they let on - as can be seen in the clipping below.
Notably, school faculty - in particular, the man who first discovered the bodies, former school janitor Mitsurugi Sugimori, seemed paranoid - as mentioned in articles investigating the disappearance at the time, scared of his own shadow.
Regretfully, I’m mentioning now that my investigation into this incident will be largely speculative due to the lack of available information. However, given the evidence we have, I can confidently say there are exactly three possible outcomes;
- The club was killed as the result of intentional foul play on Takeshi’s part, who lured them into the boiler room under the guise of practicing a ritual only to then kill each of them, flee the scene, and go into hiding.
- All ten members, including Takeshi, died in a freak accident - due to the location and excessive number of candles, there’s a possibility that all club members died via immolation - one member accidentally setting their clothing on fire, with the rest of the club’s members suffering the same fate in the ensuing panic. This does, however, leave the question of what happened to Takeshi, and where he is now - if he ever left the room at all.
- The club suffered the fate they did due to a successful attempt at a particular ritual - in particular, a ritual known as Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, or One Hundred Candles, is a traditional ritual game in which a group of people gather in a dark room, and light a hundred candles - one for each story they tell. All players tell a story each, putting out a candle each time, until all one hundred candles have been extinguished, at which point a spirit is supposed to be summoned. If this is what happened to the club’s members, then it stands to reason that only nine bodies were found because the club’s tenth member, who remains missing to this day - Takeshi - was taken by whatever malicious spirit they accidentally summoned.
Regardless of what happened within this room that resulted in the deaths of these students, it’s a near-certainty that they were indeed performing the ritual mentioned above due to the number of candles mentioned in the articles reporting on the case at the time - namely, exactly one hundred candles. Rumours around the case have spread, many of which come to the same conclusions seen in the third scenario - though it’s unclear whether there’s any reason to believe in these rumours yet.
Curiously, after the incident, the Occult club was shut down altogether - with interests in the occult from that point forward being blacklisted altogether. Likewise, expressing any interest in occult-based topics was also banned - until recently, with the recent opening of the new club. So, this raises the question - why only lift the ban now? What’s changed?
Alongside this, the KPD haven’t kept any records of the nine confirmed deaths of the original Occult Club’s members, raising some potential suspicions about the case. Considering both this and the paranoia shown by School faculty in the time following the incident, is there more that’s still not known? As I look into this, I’ll be sharing my findings - and hoping to ultimately find answers on what happened to the former club’s members.
CONCLUDING NOTES, PT. 1: I would like to emphasise that this report is in no way intended as defamation or slander towards the new Occult club, who I have immense respect for - both for pursuing their interests in it, and for successfully managing to restore the occult club at all. Alongside followup reports to this in the future, any new discoveries made will be discussed over our radio show, Journalism FM, hosted by yours truly. Tune on in if you're interested - or want to keep up with other developments around the school!
