In every neighborhood, there is a house that stands out from the others—one with an eerie, rundown ambiance. Ayashikotogatari follows high school student Yachiho Takahara as she moves into one of these houses: an enormous, allegedly haunted house renowned for its tales of a frightening recluse who studied the supernatural within it. Yachiho hopes that such a house will hold clues regarding her mother's disappearance, and perhaps the Book of the Dead, said to be hidden somewhere inside the house, can help her find the answers she is searching for.

However, Yachiho gets more than she bargained for when a hidden passage leads her to a plethora of spirits and creatures that inhabit the floor below her. The most notable of them is Moro, the caretaker spirit, whose job is to guide his kind back to the realm from which they came. In her quest to obtain the Book of the Dead, Yachiho decides to help Moro with his task, but it may prove not to be an easy one!