Chapter 1: The Strange House
Chapter 2: The Strange Floor Plan
Chapter 3: The Structure of the House in Memory
Chapter 4: The House in Bondage

A space without doors, double doors, a child's room without windows… …
SNS? The hottest ghost story sweeping online communities: "Japan's Strange House."

In 2020, there was a post that swept various online communities and social media.
The real estate horror story that started with the introduction that there was a strange space in the floor plan of the house I was about to buy was 'Japan's Strange House'.
At first glance, it looks like an ordinary house floor plan, but upon closer inspection, the more you feel a sense of incongruity, leading to a surprising inference that has astonished countless netizens.

This ghost story was originally a YouTube video by Japanese occult content creator 'Uketsu', and became a sensation in Japan, surpassing 10 million views.
Korean netizens who saw this voluntarily translated the content and shared it on online communities.
The translated video by architecture YouTuber 'Anhyeopso' also surpassed 1.8 million views, and many YouTubers, including Diva Jessica and architect Yoo Hyun-jun, uploaded content related to this ghost story, creating a huge buzz.

Uketsu, a Japanese occult YouTuber with 650,000 followers whose identity is unknown to anyone.
How a viral video with 10 million views became a novel

Uketsu, an unidentified YouTuber who wears black tights all over his body and a white mask reminiscent of 'Kaonashi' from 'Spirited Away'.
He is a content creator who uploads horror and occult content to the Japanese online media 'Omokoro' and his personal YouTube channel 'Umi-na'.
Although he is a famous YouTuber with 650,000 subscribers and 70 million cumulative views, his age, gender, and even his address are unknown, making him a truly mysterious figure.
His representative work, which mainly uploads content with a creepy and bizarre concept, is 'Real Estate Mystery Japan's Strange House (【不動産ミステリ?】?な家)' which became a hot topic in Korea as well.


As soon as he saw this video, the editor of Asukashinsha, a mid-sized Japanese publisher, had a feeling it would be a huge hit.
He said he was thrilled by the novel idea of ​​creating a puzzle from a house plan and thought, 'I'll regret it if I don't contact you now.'
So, within 10 minutes of watching the video, I sent a direct message to Uketsu's Twitter account and offered to publish it.
The novel "The Strange House", which came into the world like that, became a sensation immediately after its publication, selling over 300,000 copies and rising to the top of the Japanese horror mystery bestseller list in 2021.

“I can’t believe that just a floor plan of an architecture can be this creepy!”
A unique horror created from everyday materials!

This book is written in the form of a conversation between the author, an architectural designer, and a third person who does not appear on YouTube while looking at floor plans.
The simple and concise dialogue and the businesslike impression of the floor plan seem at first glance to be completely out of place in the "unusual" world of occult horror.
However, as the conversation progresses, the strangeness hidden in the floor plan is revealed one by one, and the seemingly ordinary house becomes the subject of an eerie experience of the 'unordinary'.


This combination of the extraordinary and the everyday creates the illusion for the reader that this house is real.
In fact, many of the Amazon Japan reviews for "The Strange House" express the feeling that "I thought it was a true story," and on the Japanese portal site Yahoo Japan, "The Strange House True Story" is registered as a related search term for "The Strange House."
The reader is drawn into this book without even realizing it because of the realism that makes it seem like there could be such a strange house right near their house.
This is the beginning of a new genre that is so commonplace it sends shivers down your spine: the 'real estate mystery.'

Reader reviews

★★★★★ “I read it all in one sitting because I liked the rhythm of the writing.
“The layout of the puzzles and the number of foreshadowings were excellent, and the composition that drove the story so deeply with just a drawing gave me a unique sense of fear and excitement I had never felt before.”

★★★★★ “I couldn’t stop reading because I was curious about what would happen next.
“I had never read a novel from beginning to end before, but this was the first time I finished it.”

★★★★★ “I was so focused that I read with my mouth open, so my mouth was completely dry (laughs).”

★★★★★ “I kept reading because I was curious about the secrets of the house’s structure and why it was that way.
When everything was finally revealed, I exclaimed in a loud voice, “Wow~!”

★★★★★ “It’s easy to understand and it’s good to read while imagining the images in your head.
“I thought the author’s writing skills were amazing.”

★★★★★ “I’ve already seen the YouTube video, but I didn’t know that the story would continue like this.
amazing.
“It was a lot of fun.”

“While walking down the street, I often noticed a house on the side of the road and wondered, ‘Why is this part of this house shaped like this?’
In particular, there is a house near my house with a two-story building that sticks out, and every time I pass by it, I think, 'What a strange shape.'
Of course, there must be some reason, but outsiders who don't live there can only imagine it on their own.
“I thought there might be a horror element here, which is what led me to create this work.” _ Uketsu