Throw Away Temple takes place in Yoshiwara, a famous government sanctioned red-light district in Edo, present-day Tokyo, in the mid-18th century. It’s about a girl who was sold as an indentured prostitute at age seven and later killed and thrown away at the temple called Jokanji, a.k.a. “Throw Away Temple” (as was the
custom in Edo those days) after having been exploited and beaten to death. She comes back from the dead to seek revenge, killing a man night after night, while facing opposition from ghosts of other dead, thrown-away prostitutes and the priest who wants to bury her to end her sufferings. The play ends in tragedy when she transforms into evil and becomes the cause of the death of not only everyone at the temple and the brothel she used to work at, but also of many innocent people who belong to Yoshiwara.

* Although this story is fiction, it’s based on the historical context, in which estimated 25,000 prostitutes’ bodies are said to have been discarded before being interred at the temple’s cemetery.