According to Japanese belief, Noderabō are forlorn, grotesque ghosts of fallen priests dressed in tattered rags. They appear late at night in abandoned, overgrown, ruined temples, forlornly haunting the temple grounds and occasionally ringing the large temple bells.

Noderabō were once priests who committed some kind of sin and died in dishonor. Most often they are those who fell to vices forbidden to priests, such as attachment to women or money. No longer welcome in towns and cities, they flee to abandoned temple ruins located out in depressed rural areas and transform into yokai.

In Saitama there is a place called Nodera. Long ago, a prankster decided to steal the large bronze bell from the town’s temple. However, he was spotted in the act by one of the local townspeople and fled, dropping the bell into a pond, where it got stuck. The pond became known as Kanegaike ("Bell Pond"). Some time later a lazy monk-boy was given a job by the high priest of the temple, but instead of doing what he was bid he spent the day playing with other neighborhood children. When it came time for him to face the high priest, he was so ashamed that he became depressed and threw himself into Kanegaike and drowned. After that, every night the villagers could hear the sound of crying echoing off of the great bronze bell, coming from deep within Kanegaike pond. The monk-boy became known as the ghost of Nodera, or the noderabō.