Who Is Isora?
Betrayed wife turned vengeful ghost
Isora is Shōtarō's wife in "The Cauldron of Kibitsu" from Ugetsu Monogatari, the daughter of Kasada no Miki, chief priest of Kibitsu Shrine. Betrayed by her husband, she becomes an onryō, a vengeful spirit, and takes her revenge.
In Episode 9, the family uses the shrine's cauldron to divine the marriage's fortune before the wedding. The cauldron stays silent, a bad omen. Isora marries anyway, works devotedly morning and night, and serves her husband's parents faithfully. Then her husband tricks her out of money and runs off with a courtesan. Sick with grief, Isora falls ill, and in time she appears before him as a vengeful ghost, waiting outside his sealed door for forty-two nights.
Kibitsu Shrine in Okayama City still performs the Narukama Shinji, a ritual that reads fortunes from the sound of a cauldron.
