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This isn't an Internet meme, just a Japanese urban legend that I found interesting.

Hanokosan is supposedly the ghost of a little girl who occupies the third bathroom stall on the 3rd floor of many Japanese schools.

There's more on the Pink Tentacle

HMM, its sorta like a toilet grudge?

I just browsed a French forum about Japan and found an interesting story dealing with Hanako-san, a notorious school restroom ghost. Hanako-san is the spirit of a young girl [obake] dwelling in dark and smelly restrooms. She appears if her name is called, and a lot of mysterious and frightening things happen in her presence, in particular at night. One version of the story says Hanako-san died of bullying [ijime].

The story seems to be told all over Japan and has caused tremendous fear among elementary school students (a lot of them refused to enter the restrooms). Hehe, my wife has just confirmed that.

Apparently there's an anim・character by the same name (based on the story) as well as a horror movie ("Toilet no Hanako" by Mizuno Saeko, 1995).

So watch out next time you enter a restroom. Boo!

http://www.jref.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-497.html

It worths what it's worthing but it's a really intriguing Japanese urban legend.

ooh, intriguing.

Luckily many schools here don't have a third floor. ;)

Also, moe:

not so scary any more, is she?

I wonder what would happen if she appeared in america.

OH wait schools in America are in trailers(see Tampa Florida Charlotte high school)

Edit

So you think I am being an ass?

I went to that school, so hush.

Well to be fair: most of our schools are in portables or "trailers"
because of our explosion in Spanish immigrants.

Hanako-san is one of derivatives of Yōkai.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y%C5%8Dkai

She is basically a scarely monster. But she is very familiar to Japanese people. So she is sometimes described as a cute friend of children in school.

There are so many fictive creatures like her in Japan because this country is imaginative enough to have 8 million gods.

Hanako-san appears in only elementary school because almost all kindergarten don't have third floor or dark toilet and young folks in junior high school are already too adult to believe an urban legend :)

I'm jumping on this subject to ask you a question mona_jpn:

I've realized that, in many Japanese recent fictions like "The ring", "Dark Water", "The grudge" or even "The host", a common link with Hanako-san is present. There seem to be a common picture of ghosts represented by a girl, most of the time a seemingly "drowning"-like girl, with dark wet hair hiding her face, and often wet dirty clothes.
Or, at least, there seem to be an extreme fear of water with water-like creatures.

In your opinion, why is there that fear of "drowning girl" in Japan ?
Is there a peculiar lasting myth about it in the japanese mind, aside from hanako-san ?

@Tomberry
Because this is a very famous situation in Japanese ghost story.
The most popular episode of a drowning lady is this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yotsuya_Kaidan

It is said that this story happened in real life about 300 years ago.

On the other hand, Edo city which is the stage of many period stories was a waterfront city and had many rivers and canals. So it was natural for murderers to throw corpse away to that instead of burying. Many Japanese period dramas begin at a riverside with finding corpse.

Therefore it's natural for us Japanese that a ghost with hatred is wet.