Translated from Nihon no Yurei

The gruesome death of Tanaka Kawachinosuke was told by author Tokugawa Musei, in story “Traveling Companions,” from his book “The Days of Tokyo.” According to Musui, the story originated in a game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai played in the Mukoujima Hyaken garden.

My father, however, never missed a chance to dispute this.  And to be honest, I don’t really know which one was telling the truth, Musui or my father.  The very nature of these kinds of stories compels the storyteller to bend the facts, to make the story seem like they are speaking from personal experience.  And to fiercely defend their version of the story to be true. 

Of course, a stranger’s version would be entirely different. 

Now my father claimed that the story of Tanaka Kawachinosuke did not come from a game at the Mukoujima Hyaken garden, but from his own storytelling circle at the Shogakan Gahakudo building, which stood opposite the bridge in Kyobashi.   Shogakan Gahakudo was a legendary gathering place for Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai.   At the entrance there was a permanently burning lantern hanging, of the sort normally only used for the Obon festival of the dead. You didn’t even need to plan the event, for such was the passion for the game that on any given night you could be assured a spontaneous round of storytelling would begin, with members alternating turns, exchanging their favorite kaidan. 

My father would boldly say:

“The author Musei certainly never showed his face at the Shogakan Gahakudo!  But this story I heard directly with my own ears, and the storyteller I saw with my own eyes, until he died. This detail alone casts doubt on Musei’s claim of the Mukoujima gatherings!

The opening years of the Taisho era were an easy-going time.  Japan had yet to be ravaged by the Spanish flu, and the Great Kanto Earthquake was still years away. Things were booming.   The storytellers gathered as usual on the third floor of the Gahakudo to entertain each other with kaidan.  On that day, an unfamiliar face appeared amongst the group.  As was the custom at the Gahakudo, any stranger was compelled to tell a story. And what story did he tell, you may ask?  Why, the story of Tanaka Kawachinosuke. We all listened intently to the tale.

The stranger began by saying that this was the true story of Tanaka Kawachinosuke, and what happened to him following the notorious “Event at the Terata Inn.”  The tale, he said, was one of ill omen, and carried a curse that would fall on anyone who told it.  As a result, the true story of those events has never been told.

“Those who know the true story grow less and less every year, and none remain but I who can tell the tale.  Because I am the last, I will finally speak of those events.”

Of course, as everyone knows this is the same Tanaka Kawachinosuke written about in the Yamamoto Yuzo play “Kindred Spirits.”   The events took place during the time of the Tenshu army, when Fujiwara Yoshiko, daughter of the Chief Counselor of State Nakayama Tadayasu and little sister of Captain Nakayama Tadamitsu, gave birth to Emperor Meiji.   Tanaka Kawachinosuke read stories of filial piety to the baby emperor, although he was far too young to understand them.  But when he came to power, the Emperor remember Kawachinosuke fondly, and asked those of his inner circle what had become of him. An enquiry was made, and Kuroda Kyotoka intimated to Okubo Toshimichi: “Okubo, you know something of this don’t you?” Okubo answered this question with great reluctance. For there was a rumor going around that Tanaka Kawachinosuke had come to a violent end on the orders of Okubo.

Because this man was talking about the death of Tanaka Kawachinosuke we all sat perched on our knees and with ears at attention.

 “This is a story that should not be told, even though I am telling it now, I have never told it before.  Thus it has become that only I remain who knows the tale. Now, this was a time when Japan’s Westernization movement had taken over society…”

 Listening to this man speak, with the nuance of his elegant language, we instantly felt his age and were transported back in time to the Meiji era.  Say what you will about Japan’s modernization, when this old-fashioned man spoke he made an immediate impact on those who remember him. And we all remember him. Although we disagreed that there was any story that couldn’t be told,

“Now for the first time I will tell this tale, so everyone listen closely…”  

 He said again, finishing his preface.

The stranger broke into a vigorous ramble, stating that all those listening should take care because of the curse of the tale, and anyone apprehensive should leave now, but that those who chose to stay would find the story most interesting.   He stated his introduction again, and then wandered from subject to subject almost as in a daze, returning again to the beginning:

 “Of those who know the true story I alone remain, and at this time in the middle of Japan’s Westernization movement there are those who would say that there are no more forbidden subjects. So I am resigning myself to speak…” 

From there he would begin again, going a little bit forward but always returning to “Of the people who know Kawachinosuke’s fate…”  It was like he had no true subject.

In the middle of this ramble, one person sitting and one person standing became two people standing.   I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were trying to escape the stranger’s pointless story, but they found themselves called away bit by bit.  For example, my father suddenly had a phone call from home.

My father went downstairs for the phone call, and then had a cigarette at the counter.  While smoking, when another person followed him down saying “He is on the Westernization of Japan again” and they both broke out in laughter.

While the two men were sharing a laugh at the bizarre turn of events, another man came walking down the staircase.  When he reached the main room, suddenly, and with no one immediately near him, the man fell face-down onto a small desk in the middle of the room. And he died.  Of course, it was that same man who had moments ago been upstairs relating the story of the last days of Kawachinosuke.

Author Kimura Shun wrote in detail about the early life of Tanaka Kawachinosuke in his book “Emperor Meiji” (Japanese History New Book, Published in the 31^st year of Showa).  When Keiko was pregnant, it was said Kawachinosuke would go daily to the Osaka Ikasuri Shrine to write compositions praying to the gods for a male child.  However, because Kawachinosuke is not the focus of the book, his final fate is not touched upon.

Hello,

This isn’t kaidan related, but a plea for help. Both my wife and I have deep connections to Japan. She is Japanese, born and raised, and I lived in Japan for several years. Japan is where we met. Japan is were we fell in love. Japan is as much our home as the US.

Japan is suffering now. So… I am asking you, personally, to please help.

The biggest help we all can give is cash donations. Donations of goods, like blankets and food, just cause logistical problems of shipping and distribution. Prayers and good vibes are wonderful, but they aren’t as tangible to someone like our friend who just gave birth to twins but doesn’t have enough water to feed them, or the seven people sharing a single blanket in a shelter.

Money is the most direct and beneficial way to help the hundreds of thousands of people who are in danger now.

It doesn’t have to be a lot. $20, $50, $100…whatever you can afford. We made our donation through the Red Cross, but there are many other organizations available.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/japan-earthquake-donating-relief-funds/story?id=13122660

Thank you for reading this, and for helping.

Zack and Miyuki Davisson

I recently got a request from a reader to help her identify what she called an “old Japanese button.”  She had suspected that the image was an onryo, a Japanese vengeance ghost.

The Image

The image on the button—not really a button but I will call it that for the time being—was easy to identify. That is not an onryo, but the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma, known more popularly as Daruma.

Daruma is one of the most popular figures in Japanese folklore art and in contemporary Japan. From whisky bottles to women’s underwear, you can find Daruma’s scowling face on almost every product-type in Japan. Daruma is a super-figure in Japanese folklore, credited with inventing everything from tea to Shaolin martial arts. He is most commonly found as the wish-granting, roly-poly Daruma dolls. Sold eyeless, you paint in one eye while making a wish, then paint in the other eye in thanks when the wish comes true.

The historic Daruma comes from 5th or 6th century AD. Most of his life is so completely wrapped in legend it would be impossible to sort fact from fancy, but he is often considered to have come from South India, or “from Persia.” Whatever his origin, he is the divine transmitter of Ch’an Buddhism, known in Japanese—and English—as Zen Buddhism. In art, he is depicted as being grumpy, ill-tempered, scowling, with a beard and deep-set eyes.

The image on this button, with the emaciated, skeletal form, is very different from the portly and robust figure found in most depictions of Daruma.  The scene is most likely taken from Daruma’s “nine years of wall gazing.”In this legend, Daruma was denied entrance into a Shaolin Monostary, so he went to a nearby cave and stared at a wall for nine years.  There are several variations on the legend, including one where he fell asleep after seven years and—disgusted with himself—tore off his own eyelids so they couldn’t betray him.  Casting his eyelids on the ground, they sprouted up into the first tea bushes which Daruma brewed and drank to keep himself awake for the final two years.

The Artist

 The rest of the request—who made this button and what is it?—went out of my area of expertise.  Even reading the kanji on the button was difficult, as it is in archaic form and written in a calligraphic style.  Neither I nor my wife, who is Japanese, could read the signature. So I called on my friend Aaron Rio, with his big brains and phd in Japanese Art to help in the identification.  And help he did!

First off, what is the object exactly?  All we know for sure is that it is not a button.  Without seeing the reverse side and depth it is difficult to make a determination—Is it a medallion or a container? A lid? And why are there cords attached?  The best guess is that it is a netsuke 根付, possibly of the kagamibuta 鑑蓋 variety missing it’s ivory surround. Or it is possibly the lid of a small netsuke container.

As to the writing, the three characters at left are 民乗, the artist/carver’s name, and then his cipher (花押, kaō), i.e., a handwritten (carved) signature. 民乗,whose actual name was 海野珉乗 (Unno Minjō, 1873-1910; note the different character used for ‘min’) is a known netsuke carver. He was a professor at 東京芸大 when he died, as was his far more famous father Unno Shomin (海野勝珉), who was also a metalworker. The Museum of Fine Art (MFA) in Boston has at least one netsuke, a kagamibuta, by this artist, and they date it to the late 19th century.

Just because it is signed doesn’t mean it is real, of course. There are lots of netsuke fakes. However, Minjō wasn’t exactly a celebrity carver, and he did die rather young, so I’m not sure why anyone would fake his signature. And the signature resembles (though isn’t identical) to the signature on the MFA piece, The MFA has an extensive online catalogue, and you may very well find this other Minjō netsuke there as well.

During the Edo period, the area known as Honjo (modern day Sumida ward in Tokyo) was a meloncholy and shadow-haunted place that drew legends about it like a cloak. Vast fields spread about Honjo, with only a few houses scattered here and there, and many a night-traveler would walk far to avoid a trip though those fields at night.

Several of the ghost legends of Honjo were collected together and called the Honjo Nanafushigi (本所七不思議), the Seven Wonders of Honjo. The number seven is purely nominal; as in many places in the world, the number seven carries mystical significance and when you are telling ghost stories the “seven wonders” sounds scarier than the “nine wonders” or “eight wonders.”

Many local places had their own collection of “seven wonders.” They form a typical model of urban legend, passed down through word of mouth, told and retold over kitchen fireplaces, then transitioning from local legend to stage performance.

The Seven Wonders of Honjo moved from the streets of Edo into the halls of Rakugo performers, who took the seven wonders on tour. In the late 1880s Utagawa Kuniteru (歌川国輝) made a series of prints called the “Honjo Nanafushigi.” In 1937, Shinko Kimura filmed “Honjo Nanafushigi” (本所七不思議), which was remade in 1957, as “Ghost Stories of Wanderer at Honjo” (怪談本所七不思議; Kaidan Honjo Nanafushigi) by Katano Goro. The films featured yokai stories and did not really focus on the authentic Seven Wonders.

Today of course, the Seven Wonders of Honjo are largely remembered as tourist attractions.  You can buy special sweets in the shape of the seven wonders, and take walking tours of Sumida where you read all about the seven wonders on helpful tourist maps and plaques.

The Seven Wonders are:

• The “Leave it Behind” Straggler-  置行堀（Oite Kebori)
• The Sending-Off Lantern 送り提灯（Okuri Chochin)
• The “Following Wooden Clappers” 送り拍子木（Okuri Hyoshigi)
• The Unlit Soba Shop  燈無蕎麦 (Akarinashi Soba)
• The Foot Washing Mansion 足洗邸 (Ashiarai Yashiki)
•The One-sided Reed 片葉の葦 (Kataba no Ashi)
• The Chinkapin of Unfallen Leaves 落葉なき椎 (Ochiba Naki Shii)
• The Procession of the Tanuki 狸囃子（Tanuki Bayashi)
• The Taiko of Tsugaru 津軽の太鼓 (Tsugaru no Taiko)

Translated and sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara, Yokai Jiten, Japanese Wikipedia, and other sources

Beware of keeping your sweet and patient house cat for too long. According to Japanese folklore, once that venerable pussy reaches an ancient enough age, its tail will split into two and it will begin to walk on its hind legs. Only then will your cat begins its second life as a nekomata, a cat-like yokai with a split-tail.

What does Nekomata Mean?

Nekomata is not an easy word to translate. Most translations for names of yokai depend on the kanji, and nekomata can be written in three different ways. Note that all three are pronounced the exact same way. The most ancient form was 猫また, which uses the kanji for cat 猫(neko), with the remainder written in hiragana. Words written in hiragana have no inherent meaning and often the definition can only be guessed at.

A later variation wrote nekomata as 猫股 which again uses the kanjI 猫(neko) for cat, but then uses 股 (mata) meaning “forked.” The meaning of this is straight forward, and translates as the descriptive “forked cat.”

But the most common variation is the most confusing. Nekomata is most commonly written as 猫又, which combines 猫(neko) with又(mata) meaning “again. This version directly translates as “the again cat,” but the reason for this is disputed. Some say it stands for the split of the tails, with “mata” being a numerical counter for tails, while some say it refers to the second life of a cat as a nekomata, thus the term “again cat.”

However, both of these kanji are most likely later additions trying to add explanations to a pre-existing word, what in English would be called a folk etymology. In its original form, with “mata” written in hiragana, is thought to relate somehow to the image of the nekomata living in the forest like a monkey, leaping from tree to tree. All of these explanations are, however, pure speculation. Nobody really knows what nekomata means.

The Kamakura Period – The Nekomata of the Mountains

Most Japanese yokai were born during the Edo period, but the nekomata has more ancient roots. Mention of the nekomata first appeared during the Kamakura period (1185-1333), where it was mentioned in the literary jottings of Yoshida Kenko in his scroll Tsurezure-gusa (徒然草; The Harvest of Leisure, also known as Essays in Idleness). Yoshida wrote “Deep in the mountains there is a creature called the nekomata. It is said that it feeds on humans.” At around the same period, Fujiwara Sadaie recorded in the scroll Meigetsuki (明月記; The Record of the Clear Moon, sometimes called Diary of the Clear Moon) that on August 8th in the first year of Tenpuku (1233) in Nanto (modern day Nara prefecture) a nekomata from the mountains killed and ate several people.

These are typical of Kamakura period accounts of nekomata. Far from the bizarre split-tailed cat of modern accounts, the ancient nekomata was a feared beast of the mountains rumored to attack, kill, and eat humans who wandered too deep into the mountain recesses. A physical description is given in the Meigestu-gi saying a nekomata has “eyes like a cat and a body the size of a great dog.”

There was nothing supernatural about these accounts of the nekomata during the Kamakura period, and it was treated like any other mountain predator. It is unknown if these accounts were based on an actual creature; there is fossil evidence of a small prehistoric Japanese tiger, and tigers were often imported from China and one could have gotten lose and made its way into the forest. Suggestions have even been made that ancient nekomata legends are based on a rabies-infected animal explaining its tendency to stalk and attack humans. But again, this is pure speculation.

The Early Edo Period – The Supernatural Nekomata

Like any good folk legend, the stories of nekomata began to change in the telling, and with each passing year nekomata increased in size. In 1685, in the book Shincho Monjyu (新著聞集; A Literary Collection of New Hearings) described the nekomata as being as larger than a wild boar. In 1775 the book Waku-shiori (倭訓栞; A Bookmark of Chinese Characters) described the nekomata to be as large as a lion or a panther, with a cry that resounded through the mountains. By 1809, in the book  寓意草 the nekomata was described as being over six feet long and large enough to carry a dog in its mouth.

The Middle Edo Period – The Nekomata Comes Indoors

The real transformation in the legends of the nekomata came during the mid-Edo period. While the mountains were still considered the abode of the great beasts, a belief arose that nekomata evolved from regular house cats that had lived a very long time. When cats grew old enough they changed into a new form and left they households to begin their new existence as nekomata in the mountains.Because of this, it was considered dangerous to keep a cat for too long in your house.

The belief was expounded on by Yusoku Kojitsu and Ise Fudatake, who wrote in their respective books Ansei Zuihitsu (安斎随筆; The Literary Jottings of Ansei) and Kazusai no Neko (数歳; Cats of Various Ages) that the tail of these old cats would split into two tails at the time of transformation. The scholar Arai Hakuseki further popularized this new belief in his essays on the mysteries of cats that were printed in widely-circulated newspapers.

One of the most famous accounts of nekomata is the 1708 Yamato Kaiiki (大和怪異記; Mysterious Stories from Japan) story The Nekomata Fire (猫股の火) which tells the tale of a samurai whose house is taken over by a poltergeist-like haunting that is only ended when the family cat is killed and revealed to have two tails. This story was later adapted by Mizuki Shigeru for his comic Nekomata.

This version of the nekomata has completely taken over the Kamakura period beliefs, and it is almost impossible to find a modern depiction of nekomata that does not show the split-tailed monster.

Nekomata Art

During the Edo period, illustrated reference books called zukan were published, including the popular kaidan emaki—illustrated kaidan manuals. Nekomata regularly appeared in these manuals.

Possibly the most famous picture of a nekomata comes from the book Hyakki Zukan (百怪図巻; An Illustrated Manual of One Hundred Weird Tales) by Sawagi Sushi. Sawagi drew an unconventional and ironic picture of a nekomata looking like a young woman playing the shamisen. At the time, shamisen were made from the stretched skin of female cats, and the cat looks to be singing a melancholy song while playing an instrument possibly made from a relative. Because the nekomata is dressed in the garb of a geisha, it is also a possible reference to a geisha whose nickname was “Cat.”

Toriyama sekien’s picture of a nekomata from his Gazu Hyakki Yako (画図百鬼夜行; The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons) is also tinged with humor. His illustrations shows three cats, one a nekomata with a split-tale and two regular cats. The nekomata appears to be showing off walking on its hind legs, while the younger cat tries to imitate it can’t, because it isn’t old enough to transform yet.

Like many Japanese folklore creatures, in modern times the nekomata is depicted as cute and is far removed from the ferocious, man-eating beast of the Kamakura period. Probably the most famous modern nekomata is the character Kirara from the comic book InuYasha.

Nekomata and Other Supernatural Cats

Japan is full of supernatural cats and cat-lore, of which the nekomata is only one. Because of the glint in a cat’s eyes and their mysterious nature, cats have been thought to be supernatural from ancient times, and able to deliver curses. It was said that to kill a cat would result in seven lifetimes of inauspicious rebirth.

Other cat yokai include the kasha (火車), a type of demon that arouse from a cat owned by someone who died. If people weren’t careful, the cat would transform into a kasha and steal the body away before a funeral could be held. Nekomata are often mistaken for bakeneko(化け猫), another transformed cat, although they are two different creatures.

You can still see the lingering evidence of nekomata beliefs in place names around Japan. In Echu province (modern day Toyama prefecture) there was a mountain that was said to be the site of several nekomata slayings named Nekomata Mountain, and in Aizu provice (modern day Fukushima prefecture) a mountain named Nekomata Peak is has several nekomata legends associated with it.

Translator’s Note:

This was posted by request for reader Aub Driver, who was looking for references for a nekomata tattoo.  I found a whole lot of history, but not a whole lot of images.  Sorry Aub!  Hope the article sparks some inspiration though!

Further Reading:

Read more yokai magical animal tales on hyakumonogatari.com:

Bakeneko – The Changing Cat

Kasha-The Corpse-Eating Cat Demon

The Cat’s Grave

The Tanuki and the White Snake

The Appearance of the Spirit Turtle

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara

On July 28th, Showa 30th (1955), in a heartbreaking incident 36 junior high school girls drowned on a beach in Mie prefecture. Of the nine girls who survived the incident, five had the same story to tell.

The girls were all playing and swimming in the calm waters, enjoying the gentle lapping of the waves. Without warning, the water seemed to gather together, and a dark mass rose from the surface of the ocean. The mass took the shape of people in WWII air-raid hoods, dark in color, soaking wet and pouring water from every surface. As the mass rose, the figures become more defined, dressed in old-fashioned women’s work pants. There were hundreds of them.

The girls tried to get away, but the water seemed to be sucked up towards the dark figures, dragging the girls towards them. One of the girls who survived said she felt a hand grab her leg and try and pull her under the water. She was able to break the hands grasp and make her way to the shore, but her friends were not so lucky.

Afterwards, students who were on the beach and not in the water confirmed the story and all of its details. They saw the ghosts rising and dragging the girls under the water.

After investigating the incident, it was discovered that exactly ten years before the incident, U.S. aircraft had firebombed that area, killing around 250 people. The bodies were not cremated, but were piled without ceremony into a mass grave on that beach. In this way one tragedy became two tragedies, as the ghosts of the war dead rose up again.

Translator Note:

The kanji for this is集団 (shudan, meaning “group” or “gathering”) and亡霊 (borei, which is a somewhat Gothic term for “ghost”).

This story is based on a actual event, called the Kyohaku Junior High School Drowning Incident (橋北中学校水難事件) in Japanese. The school had gone to the beach as their annual excursion, and as swimming practice for the girls. At the time, swimming had been added to the official school curriculum, but as the school had no pool swimming practice was held in the nearby, usually calm ocean.

The school principle and teachers were arrested and charged with negligence—the school was short-handed and had not brought along the required number of adult observers, and parents claimed their children were not yet strong enough swimmers to be unsupervised in the ocean. Ultimately, they were found not-guilty and cleared of charges. The girls’ deaths were ruled a mysterious, unfortunate accident. A pool was quickly built for the school, and the students no longer practice swimming in the ocean.

Observers reported a sudden swelling of the waves and a rise in the water level that drowned the girls. Of the nine surviving girls, five reported a sensation of pulling on their legs, as if the sand was sucking down on their feet, holding them down while the water rose. Several also reported seeing the dark shape of women in air-raid hoods rising from the water.

In 1956, the Ise Newspaper reported on the story of the war dead buried on the beach, noting that most of the dead had been refugees and were thus buried without name or ceremony. In 1963, one of the girls published an article in a Joshi Jishin magazine (Women’s Own Stories) called “How I survived an Encounter with a Ghost” that further spread the supernatural origin of the drowning.

Several scientific explanations have been offered for the sudden swelling of the water based on the geographical features of the beach, along the supernatural one. It is clear Mizuki Shigeru prefers the supernatural explanation.

The beach remains off-limits for swimmers. A year after the incident, a shrine was raised on the location, and a statue called the Goddess of Protecting Swimmers in the Ocean was placed on the beach as a memorial.

Further Reading:

For more tales of haunted oceans, read:

Umi Bozu – The Sea Monk

Funa Yurei – The Boat Ghosts

Nure Onnago – The Soaked Woman

Translated and Sourced from Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

In the 100 candles game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, when the last story is told and the last light extinguished, something is said to appear from the darkness. For some in the Edo Period, that “something” had a name—Aoandon, the Blue Lantern Ghost.

Who is the Aoandon?

Toriyama Seiken originated the legend of the Aoandon in his kaidan-shu Konjaku Hyakki Shui (今昔百鬼拾遺; Supplement to The Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past). According to Toriyama, the Aoandon is a female spirit with long black hair, two horns poking out of her head, black, sharp teeth, and dressed in a white kimono. She is a sort of merger of the Aoi Nyobo (Blue Wife) and Hannya (Devil Woman) of traditional Japanese folklore.

The name Aoandon (青行燈) means very simply “Blue Lantern,” and is a reference to the blue-tinged lanterns that became popular as the Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai game evolved.

Toriyaam Seiken’s Aoandon

Written on Toriyama Seiken’s Aoandon picture:

“When the final lantern is doused, and the shadows hang heavy, the Aoandon appears. In modern games of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, the lanterns are covered in blue paper giving an eerie light. People gather on dark nights to trade stories of evil things. But to talk about evil things is to summon them.”

Blue Lanterns and Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

The game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai started out very simple; a hundred lit candles were placed in a room, and as ghost stories and weird tales were told in order, a single candle would be extinguished. With each story the room got progressively darker. When the final candle was expunged, some supernatural creature was said to be summoned.

Exactly what was summoned was never made clear. In one of the earliest recordings of a Hyakumonogatari Game, in the kaidan-shu Tonoigusa (宿直草), the game was played in a cave by a group of samurai. When the last candle was being put out, a giant hand appeared to come down from the ceiling. A quick slash of a the sword showed that the hand was nothing more than a spider, whose enormous shadow cast by the last candle had appeared as a giant hand.

As the game left the warrior caste and moved into the realm of the townsfolk, it evolved. In order to create a spookier atmosphere, candles were replaced by specially prepared blue lanterns to give the gathering a more mysterious feel—an early form of mood lighting. These lanterns, called andon, consisted of paper panels in bamboo frames set over candles or oil lanterns. Normally the paper was white, but for Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai gatherings the white paper was replaced with blue. (Andon can still be seen all over the world nowadays, although most of them are electric instead of burning actual candles or oil.)

The game got even more sophisticated over the centuries, and even a little bit more lazy. Instead of lighting a hundred lanterns, sometimes oil lamps were prepared with specially made wicks that counted down from one hundred. Which each story, part of the wicks was cut, bringing the light down until the final cut. Some games would place the lantern in a room away from the main gathering place, next to a mirror. After each story, the storyteller would have to walk alone into the room, cut their wick and then stare into the mirror.

Many gatherings actually cut their event short after the 99th tale, with no one being brave enough to walk into the room for the final story.

Speak of the Devil, and the Devil Appears

It has long been a tradition in Japan that talking about ghosts and monsters attracts ghosts and monsters. They need the right atmosphere to appear, and the 100 candles Hyakumonogatari Game was all about setting the right atmosphere. If you talk about it, it will come.

But until Toriyama Seiken wrote about the Aoandon in his Konjaku Hyakki Shu, there was no consensus on what appeared. Toriyama did what he often did when inventing new yokai; he took a common phrase or word and imagined a spirit to go along with it. In the case of the Aoandon, he imagined the extinguishing of a blue lantern, and the ghost woman that might be waiting in the dark, or looking back at you from a mirror.

Like many of Toriyama’s creations, there were attempts to craft a story onto the Aoandon. Artists Kondo Misaki imagined a woman consumed by jealousy who transformed into a yokai and was cursed to haunt these blue lanterns, waiting for her chance to appear. When the mirror aspect of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai was invoked, she served as Japan’s version of Bloody Mary, a test of courage and the tricks your mind can play on you when you are alone with a mirror in a darkened room.

Translator’s Note:

The Aoandon is not exactly the most exciting yokai—pretty much a name and a picture—but since this is officially my 100th post on Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai (and my blog finally lived up to its name) I thought it was time for the Aoandon to appear. I am nothing if not a traditionalist.

However, this particular game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai is far from over. I have lots more yokai to do and many more Japanese ghost and monster stories to translate for you. Thanks for reading!!

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Japanese Wikipedia, Showa: A History of Japan, Tales of Old Japan, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, and Other Sources

On a day when the sun shines bright and the rain falls, wise parents advise their children to play indoors. It isn’t that they are worried about them catching a cold. No, it is something more mysterious. For on such days the kitsune, the magical foxes of Japan, hold their wedding processions.

From Sakurai city in Ibaraki prefecture to Kashihara city in Nara prefecture, tales of Kitsune no Yomeiri appear all over Japan— with the sole exception of the northern island of Hokkaido. Most stories follow similar patterns with only slight variations. There are two phenomena referred to as Kitsune no Yomeiri—the bizarre weather called sunshowers where rain falls in broad daylight; and the procession of foxfire, called kitsune-bi (狐火), winding through the mountains late at night.

What does Kitsune no Yomeiri mean?

Kitsune no Yomeiri combines the kanji狐の (kitsune no; Fox’s) with嫁入り (Yomeiri; Wedding). In a literal translation, yomeiri means to “receive a bride,” as the custom is for the groom’s family to receive the bride on the wedding day as a proper member of their family. Until the middle-Showa period, Kitsune no Yomeiri Gyoretsu (狐の嫁入り行列; The Fox Wedding Bridal Procession) was more commonly used. But most drop Gyoretsu in the modern age. Just getting lazy, I suppose.

While Kitsune no Yomeiri is the most common term, there are regional versions of the same phenomenon. In Saitama and Ishikawa prefectures it is known as Kitsune no Yomitori (狐の嫁取り; The Taking of a Fox Bride). In Shizuoka it is called Kitsune no Shugen (狐の祝言; The Fox Wedding Celebration).

In Tokushima, the Kitsune no Yomeiri is a less happy occasion. It was called the Kitsune no Soshiki (狐の葬儀; Fox Funeral) and seeing one is considered an omen of death.

The Foxfire Lantern Procession

The Kitsune no Yomeiri has long been a part of Japanese folklore, although with the rise of the Inari Fox-cult during the Edo period it gained a greater significance and cultural permeation. A description of Kitsune no Yomeiri comes from the book Echigo Naruse (越後名寄; Encyclopedia of Echigo) published during the Horeki period (1751-1764).

“On dark and quiet nights, in secret places, strings of lanterns or torches can be seen stretching out single file in an unbroken chain more than two miles long. It is a rare site, but an unmistakable one. It can be seen most often in Kanbara county, and it is said that on such night young foxes claim their mates.”

The procession of lights became associated with weddings as it mirrored Japanese wedding ceremonies at the time. Based on traditions established during the Muromachi period (1392–1573), weddings were held at night and the bride was escorted over to her new home by a lamplight parade. This type of ceremony—called the Konrei Gyoretsu (婚礼行列; Wedding Procession) —lasted until the mid-Showa period when Western wedding ceremonies replaced traditional Japanese ceremonies.

Legends of the Kitsune no Yomeiri merged with existing stories of kitsune magic and bewitchment. People who tried to follow these foxfire lantern processions would find that they disappeared as soon as they got close—although on rare occasions traces of the ceremony were found. Shunjitsu Shrine in Saitama prefecture was said to be a popular place for fox weddings. Whenever a Kitsune no Yomeiri lit up the night, the mountain road leading to the shrine was covered with fox poop the following day.

Stories of Kitsune no Yomeiri continued well into the Edo period. In Toshima village (modern day Kita-ku, Tokyo) Kitsune no Yomeiri was seen on several consecutive nights, eventually becoming one of the Seven Mysteries of Toshima. Mt. Kirin in Niigata prefecture is full of foxes, and Kitsune no Yomeiri was said to be a common occurrence. In both Niigata and Nara prefectures, Kitsune no Yomeiri was thought to be a good omen for the harvest, with the more lanterns being seen the more fruitful the harvest. A year with no fox weddings made people dread the upcoming famine.

The foxes of Gifu prefecture didn’t just content themselves with lanterns. The foxfire procession was accompanied by the sound of cracking and blazing bamboo, although when examined the following day the forests appeared untouched.

Scientific Explanation for Kitsune-bi

The procession of lamplights is not only a widespread phenomenon in Japan; it is worldwide. Japanese kitsune-bi is different from foxfire in Western legends, which comes from a phosphorescent fungus. It is more akin to the Will-o’-the-wisp, also known as ignis fatuus or “Fool’s Fire.”

The most common explanation is that these fires are the oxidation of the chemical phosphine caused by decaying organic matter, such as can be found in forests. Other suggestions are that they are a mere optical illusion caused by the setting sun. But there is no scientific evidence for either of these theories.

The foxfire procession kind of Kitsune no Yomeiri are rarely seen today. This is most likely due to the 1950s deforestation of Japan’s native forests and replanting with fast-growing industrial cedar. Whatever magic of the forests that produced the foxfire lights, it is now gone, sacrificed to industry.

Sunshowers and Fox Weddings

The Meiji period Tanka poet Masaoka Shiki wrote:

“When rain falls from a blue sky, in the Hour of the Horse, the Great Fox King takes his bride.”

Another strange natural phenomenon goes by the name of Kitsune no Yomeiri, and in the modern era is much better known. On days when the sun shines and it still rains—a weather condition called tenkiame (天気雨) in Japanese or sunshowers in English—foxes are once again thought to hold their wedding ceremonies.

How sunshowers became associated with fox weddings is vague. Some say that it has to do with mountains where foxes are mostly found. There are times when mountains are covered in rain, while the town below is clear. People said that the foxes summoned the rain with their magic to hide their wedding ceremony. Others just think that because sunshowers are a mysterious occurrence, going against the natural pattern of clouds and rain, that people assumed a supernatural origin and associated it with foxes.

Although most pre-Meiji period accounts are of the foxfire processions, Katsushika Hokusai captured the sunshower-type in his painting Kitsune no Yomeiri-zu (狐の嫁入図; Picture of a Fox Wedding). The sunshower fox wedding was also mentioned in a 1732 Bunkraku puppet play Dan no Ura Kabuto Chronicles (壇浦兜軍記; The Chronicles of a Helmet of Dan no Ura).

As always, there are regional variations. In agricultural regions the sunshower version of Kitsune no Yomeiri was a good omen, promising rain for the crops and many children for the any new brides lucky enough to be married on such a day. In Tokushima, sunshowers are known as Kitsuneame (狐雨; fox rain) and not associated with weddings. In Kumamoto prefecture fox weddings are associated with rainbows, and in Aichi prefecture they are associated with hail.

How to See a Kitsune no Yomeiri

While most people go out of their way to avoid seeing strange phenomena (getting wrapped up in kitsune magic is rarely healthy in Japanese folklore) there are a few rituals for the brave and the curious.

In the Fukushima Prefecture, a bizarre ritual exists of wearing a suribachi mortar on your head and sticking the wooden pestle in your belt, then standing under a date tree. Of course, this only works on the 10th day of the 10th month of the Lunar calendar.

Aichi prefecture has a much easier method—just spit in a well and weave your fingers together. You are said to be able to view the Kitsune no Yomeiri though the gaps in your fingers.

But most stories advise against seeing a fox wedding—foxes are powerful in Japanese folklore, but dangerous. A wise person keeps well away.

Kitsune no Yomeiri in Literature

During the Edo period, numerous writers and kaidan-shu collections included first-hand accounts of Kitsune no Yomeiri, including those of people wandering into the middle of them and participating. The Kanei period (1624-1645) Konjyaku Kaidanshu (今昔妖談集; Kaidan Collection of Times Past), the Kansei period (1789-1801) Kaidanro no Tsue (怪談老の杖; A Cane for Old Kaidan Folk), and the Bunsei period (1818-1830) Edo Chirihiroi (江戸塵拾; Picked up Dust from the Edo Period) all contained first-hand accounts of encounters with Kitsune no Yomeiri.

Some of the stories can be grim. A tale set in the Warring States period (1467-1568) tells of a young bride who suddenly fell sick and died. The night of her burial, a foxfire procession passed over her gravesite. Some are more uplifting, like the tale of an old couple who cared for a wounded fox pup, and many years later were honored guests at the fox’s wedding procession. Most stories, however, are of the voyeur nature—just a glimpse caught by a frightened soul hiding behind a tree when the wedding train passes by.

Mizuki Shigeru remembers being warned as a young boy against going outside during sunshowers. He writes about his memories of Kitsune no Yomeiri in his comics NonNonBa and Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan. Kurosawa Akira featured the sunshower-type Kitsune no Yomeiri in his film Dreams

From Algernon Freeman-Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan, 1910

Algernon Freeman-Mitford describes the sunshower type of Kitsune no Yomeiri from the foxes’ point of view in his 1910 book Tales of Old Japan: Folklore, Fairy Tales, Ghost Stories and Legends of the Samurai:

“Once upon a time there was a young white fox, whose name was Fukuyemon. When he had reached the fitting age, he shaved off his forelock and began to think of taking to himself a beautiful bride. The old fox, his father, resolved to give up his inheritance to his son, and retired into private life; so the young fox, in gratitude for this, laboured hard and earnestly to increase his patrimony.

Now it happened that in a famous old family of foxes there was a beautiful young lady-fox, with such lovely fur that the fame of her jewel-like charms was spread far and wide. The young white fox, who had heard of this, was bent on making her his wife, and a meeting was arranged between them. There was not a fault to be found on either side; so the preliminaries were settled, and the wedding presents sent from the bridegroom to the bride’s house, with congratulatory speeches from the messenger, which were duly acknowledged by the person deputed to receive the gifts; the bearers, of course, received the customary fee in copper cash.

When the ceremonies had been concluded, an auspicious day was chosen for the bride to go to her husband’s house, and she was carried off in solemn procession during a shower of rain, the sun shining all the while. After the ceremonies of drinking wine had been gone through, the bride changed her dress, and the wedding was concluded, without let or hindrance, amid singing and dancing and merry-making.

The bride and bridegroom lived lovingly together, and a litter of little foxes were born to them, to the great joy of the old grandsire, who treated the little cubs as tenderly as if they had been butterflies or flowers. “They’re the very image of their old grandfather,” said he, as proud as possible. “As for medicine, bless them, they’re so healthy that they’ll never need a copper coin’s worth!”

As soon as they were old enough, they were carried off to the temple of Inari Sama, the patron saint of foxes, and the old grand-parents prayed that they might be delivered from dogs and all the other ills to which fox flesh is heir.

In this way the white fox by degrees waxed old and prosperous, and his children, year by year, became more and more numerous around him; so that, happy in his family and his business, every recurring spring brought him fresh cause for joy. “

Kitsune no Yomeiri Matsuri – Fox Wedding Festivals

Kitsune no Yomeiri remains a popular aspect of Japanese culture and folklore. Many towns hold Kitsune no Yomeiri festivals re-creating the famous processions. Most of these festivals are modern—coming from the 1950s to as recently as the 1990s—and were started as tourist attractions to draw people into town. Local politicians and businesses participate in the festival, and sometimes the fox bride and groom are selected as a sort of “beauty pageant.”

Not all are modern tourist traps, however. The Yokaichi city, Mie prefecture Kitsune no Yomeiri procession to Suzakiha Mamiyashimei Shrine dates back to the Edo period, and is a ritual to drive out evil spirits and ask for blessings for the harvest. The festival in Kudamatsu city, Yamaguchi prefecture, has also been held since ancient times, although it bears little relationship to popular images of the Kitsune no Yomeiri. It involves asking the blessing of a pair of white fox deities whose wedding ceremony is re-enacted every year.

Translator’s Note:

The latest entry in my series on yokai who appear in Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan. In the story, a young Mizuki Shigeru is told about foxes and Kitsune no Yomeiri by his friend and mentor, the local wise woman NonNonBa. Mizuki does not believe her until, later that night, he hears foxes barking from the mountain that NonNonBa talked about. It is at that moment he realizes all of NonNonBa’s stories—and the yokai themselves—are real.

Further Reading:

For more yokai from Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa: A History of Japan check out:

Hidarugami – The Hunger Gods
Sazae Oni – The Turban Shell Demon
Nezumi Otoko – Rat Man

For more kitsune stories, check out:

Tsukimono – The Possessing Thing

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara and Japanese Wikipedia

The big cities in the Edo period were full of shops that specialized in the soft shell turtle dishes called suppon. If the truth be told, this was because people at the time believed that suppon was an effective remedy for hemorrhoids. But this isn’t that kind of story.

There were three guys in Nagoya city who loved suppon. Every chance they got, they would go out drinking and wind up at a suppon restaurant. It wasn’t that they had hemorrhoids or anything—they just loved the taste— true gourmets for all things turtle. Or more than that. These guys just couldn’t get enough; they had a kind of suppon mania.

One day they decided to try a new suppon restaurant, but when they went in they felt like something was wrong. They couldn’t help but notice that the proprietor of the restaurant’s face looked very much like the turtles he was serving. The rest of his body had a greenish tint, and his flesh was scaly. But it wasn’t until he rose up on his impossibly long legs that they realized they were dealing with a suppon yurei, a turtle ghost.

The three men ran from the shop as fast as their legs could carry them. When they got back to their house, they hid under their blankets and shivered with fright for two, then three days until they were brave enough to show their faces to the world. None of the men ever ate suppon again.

Translator’ s Note:

Another yokai tale of overeating for Thanksgiving. The original to this story comes from the Edo period kaidan-shu Kaidan Tabi-no-Akebono (怪談旅之曙; Weird Tales of Voyages by Daybreak), where it was titled Suppon no Bakemono. Mizuki Shigeru changed the title to Suppon no Yurei, which is an interesting choice seeing as yurei is a word generally reserved for the spirits of humans. But it is not always so, as you can see.

Suppon no Yurei s is one of the rare tales of yokai turtles. Turtles play an odd place in Japanese folklore. On the one hand they were treated as serene gods and spiritual animals, on the other hand they were considered quite capable of bloody revenge. Their ability to bite and hang on indefinitely gives them their reputation. Tales of yokai turtles always call out the turtle’s nature as ”shunenbukai” (執念深い) , meaning tenacious , spiteful, or vindictive.

The particular tale is considered to be a variation of Takenyudo (Tall Priest) legends. These legends are similar to the Nopperabo legends (see Shirime – Eyeball Butt) where an ordinary encounter suddenly turns extraordinary when someone you thought to be human exhibits supernatural characteristics. In the case of the Nopperabo, this is a lack of face. In the case of Takenyudo—and the Suppon no Yurei—it is suddenly stretching to an inhuman size.

Suppon no Yurei is ambiguous on how the turtles managed to manifest a semi-human appearance for their yokai. Are these the ghosts of the dead turtles? Or is this a classic henge shape-shifting turtle out to protect his brethren from winding up in the pot? No one really knows, and the guys in the story don’t stick around to find out. Mizuki tries to clear up this ambiguity by re-naming the story “Suppon no Yurei,” implying a spirit of a dead turtle. Based on my knowledge of Japanese folklore, I would vote for a long-lived turtle who transformed into a yokai and gained supernatural powers. But then, turtles are already long-lived so this one would have had to have been around for a long, long time.

Mizuki Shigeru does make a note that it is perfectly OK to enjoy a meal of suppon—he personally loves suppon—just don’t eat too much of it. Moderation is key if you want to enjoy your food without invoking the wrathful spirits of animals.

Further Reading:

For more Thanksgiving yokai of overeating and other turtle tales, check out:

Oseichu – The Mimicking Roundworm

The Sprit Turtle

Shio no Choji – Salty Choji

Translated from Konjaku Hyakki Shui, Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara, and Japanese Wikipedia

A young girl covered entirely in a tattered robe creeps up to you on a darkly lit street. A poor beggar girl, she thrusts out a hand for alms, hoping that you will take sympathy on her plight. But just as you go to reach for your wallet to drop a few coins in her hand, the lamplight flickers exactly so and you see a site that will terrify you for as long as you live. For on that outstretched arm glitter hundreds of eyeballs, blinking in the reflected lamplight.

What Does Todomeki Mean?

A tricky question! Looking straight at the kanji, todomeki means “hundreds-of-eyes demon.” That is 百々 (todo; hundreds) + 目 (me; eye) + 鬼 (ki; demon). But if you listen to the word instead of reading the kanji, then you hear some of those homophones Japanese is famous for and you realize that the name “todomeki” is a pun—at least a pun understood by those in the Edo period.

There is another reading for todome, which is鳥目, meaning “bird’s eye” (鳥 todo; bird) + (目 me; eye). This doesn’t refer to an actual bird’s eye, but more to its shape. In old Japan, coins had a round whole hole stamped through them so they could be strung together and carried on a string. Some modern Japanese coins still retain this feature, mainly 5 and 50 yen pieces. This round hole reminded people of the perfectly round shape of a bird’s eye, so “todome” became a slang term for money. Furthermore, when a person has a “bird’s eye,” it mean that they were night blind—they couldn’t see at all in the dark.

As you will see by the story, the yōkai todomeki plays off of both of these puns.

The Story of Todomeki

Todomeki appears only in Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hakki (今昔画図続百鬼; The Illustrated One Hundred Demons from Past and Present). He tells her story thusly:

“The unofficial history of Hakkoseki tells of a young girl was born with unusually long arms. She took advantage of her natural attributes to become a thief, constantly stealing money. But the spirit of money took its own revenge, and marked her body with hundreds of bird’s eyes, one for every coin she stole. She transformed into the todomeki, a hundreds-of-eyes demon. Tales of the todomeki are told in the unofficial histories of several places. She possibly originates from Toto.”

That’s it! That’s the sum total of the legend of the todomeki!

Like Kyokotsu, Todomeki is one of Toriyama’s “pun yōkai.” Toriyama had several volumes of his popular “Illustrated One Hundred Demons” series to fill, and not nearly enough yōkai to fill them. He often invented his own yōkai, based off of half-heard legends or mélanges of Chinese folktales or just completely made up. And sometimes he just took odd turns of phrases and made puns out of them.

It’s the equivalent of creating a monster book filled with creatures like “Bird Brain” and “Slow Poke” with the creatures treated literally—in other words, like names of Pokémon characters.

This means that Todomeki has no true history or backstory. Toriyama just thought of a visual pun and then wrote a quick story to go with it.

But there is another story of a yōkai with a similar name. A much more interesting story …

The Domeki – The Hundred-Eyed Oni

While Toriyama upped the ante by giving his todomeki “hundreds of eyes” instead of a standard-issue hundred, there are other yōkai in Japanese folklore known by the name domeki, or hundred-eye demon (or oni). These stories generally follow a set pattern of a monster doing battle with a warrior, and that monster then seeking refuge in a temple where it mends its ways and finds Buddhism. That peculiar little twist marks the stories as coming from around the Heian period, when stories of the supernatural were almost always accompanied by some tacked-on Buddhist moral that allowed them to slip by the official censors.

One of these legends comes from Tochigi prefecture. Many researchers believe that Toriyama had at least casually heard of this legend, and that accounts for the line “She possibly originates from Toto” in Toriyama’s book.

This story comes from the middle Heian period, and is set in in Hitachi province (modern day Ibaraki prefecture) and Shimosa province (modern day Chiba prefecture). Here, there was a feudal lord named Taira no Masakado who tried to set himself up as an independent emperor in what came to be known as the Masakado Rebellion. Needless to say, the current emperor and his imperial court weren’t pleased with Masakado’s behaviou, and dispatched the law enforcement officer Fujiwara no Hidesato to administer a death warrant.

Hidesato tracked Masakado across the provinces; crossing swords with him many times. However, he was unable to succeed in his mission.

At a loss, Hidesato returned to his home in Shimosa province and pleaded with the kami spirits, holding a prayer for his victory. Hidesato was granted the use of a sacred sword from the shrine, and headed off hunting again. At last he took Masakado prisoner and brought him before the imperial court for justice. For this service Hidesato was then appointed Chinjufu-shogun (Defender of the North) and awarded the governorship of Shimotsuke Province.

Now elevated in status, Fujiwara no Hidesato built a great mansion at Utsunomiya, Tochigi. One day he was hunting along the Tagen Kaido road when he passed a small village called Ouso. An old man hailed him and so Hidesato road over to hear what his subject had to say.

The old man told Hidesato that to the northwest of the village, in a town called Umasuteba, near Uta, there is an oni with a hundred eyes ravaging the land. The people of that village lived in fear, and the old man begged Hidesato to rid them of the monster.

Accepting the challenge, Hidesato road to Umasuteba (another pun of sorts; “umesuteba” translates into English as the “Horse Throwing-away Place”) where he hid and laid in wait for the oni. Around midnight, the clear sky became covered with clouds and a great monster appeared. Standing 10 shaku tall, it’s hair was sharp like knives and it had a hundred blazing eyes. The monster saw Hidesato’s horse and leapt on it instantly, killing it and feasting on its flesh. Hidesato took about his bow and took aim at the distracted monster, targeting the single eye that was shining the brightest. He let loose an arrow. The arrow pierced the oni’s eye and entered into his vital organs.

Such was the power of Hidesato’s arrow that the oni was knocked backwards and flipped in a somersault, raging in pain. The demon ran away all the way to Myojin mountain where he collapsed and died. He waited till the following day to view the oni’s body, but found nothing but scorched earth and ash. Hidesato figured that molten fire must have poured from the monster’s wounds burning the corpse and surrounding area.

But the story does not end …

About 400 years passed. The Ashikaga clan took power and started the Muromachi shogunate. On the north side of Myojin mountain, in the village of Hanawada, a temple had been built called Hongan-ji. The chief abbot of that temple was the holy man Chitoku.

At that time, there was a young woman who lived at Hongan-ji. She was said to be truly virtuous and close to a living saint—she did everything right and lived the true path of Buddhism. She fooled almost everyone; except for Chitoku.

In truth, this virtuous woman was the domeki, that self-same hundred eyed oni who was thought to have died on that spot 400 years ago. The domeki hid its shape in disguise while recuperating from its wounds. And it drank blood—oceans of human blood—over those 400 years, biding its time until it was fully healed and could return to its malicious behavior.

Chitoku saw through the domeki’s illusion and revealed its true shape. Its plot uncovered, the domeki attacked the abbot and they were locked in a fierce battle. The oni’s flaming blood spurt everywhere, reducing the temple to ash. And while Chitoku engaged the oni, thrashing at it with his holy staff, he preached the truth of the Dharma. The domeki, finally hearing the words of Chitoku, dropped to its knees and begged that sutras be read for its soul. The domeki changed its ways and never caused trouble again.

The fame of this story spread, and the area became known for its carved hundred-eyed domeki masks and wooden toys.The path to Myojin mountain is stilled called the Domeki-dori(百目鬼通り).

Picture from this blog

Translator’s Note:

Another article for reader Dominique Lamssiesk. I expected to do a quick translation of todomeki as requested—easy because there is really so little to tell—and then I stumbled into the very cool tale of the Domeki. That should probably get its own entry, but I couldn’t find any pictures to go along with it, so it is getting lumped in with Todomeki. But it is still a cool story!

There is another hundred-eye yōkai, the Hyakume. That is an original creation of Shigeru Mizuki, and I might do an entry on it someday.

Translated and Adapted from Fukushu Kidan Asaka no Nema and Japanese Wikipedia

To learn more about Japanese Ghosts, check out my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost

What happens when a man who is a master of playing a yūrei in kabuki dies and becomes a yūrei himself? That is the question answered in the strange story of Kohada Koheiji, the kabuki actor who finally assumed the role he was born to play.

The Strange Story of Revenge in Asaka Swamp

Kohada Koheiji was a third-rate kabuki actor struggling to make a living on the Edo kabuki stage during the time of Ichikawa Danjūrō II (1688-1758). Kohada lacked both natural talent and experience, and could not be cast in a role. Feeling sorry for him, Kohada’s drama instructor bribed a director to cast Kohada in some role—any role. Just so that Kohada would finally be able to take to the stage.

The director took one look at Kohada and saw that he bore a natural resemblance to the yūrei characters of kabuki. His skin was white, his eyes dark and sunken, and his hair long and unruly. The director thought he could save some money on make-up and costume and cast Kohada in the yūrei role of the play.

While it wasn’t exactly his dream role, Kohada saw this as his big break and threw himself into studying. He went to the morgue to observe dead faces, and learned how to slack his face muscles and hold his body like a dead man. His diligence and hard work paid off, and Kohada was an overnight success. His fame spread, however his skill was limited. He could only be cast in yūrei roles, which led his fellow actors to nickname him Yūrei Kohada.

Kohada had a wife named Otsuka whom he was deeply in love with. Otsuka, however did not return the affection and thought Kohada was an embarrassing fool. Behind his back she was having an affair with a fellow actor named Adachi Sakuro. Together they hatched a plot to get rid of Kohada.

When they were away together on a tour, Adachi invited Kohada to go fishing. Suspecting nothing, Kohada went out with Adachi on a boat into the Asaka Swamp. Once they were far out from shore, Adachi surprised Kohada, pushing him off the boat and holding him under the water until he drowned.

Adachi was thrilled with his deed, and hurried back to let Otsuka know that he had cleared the path to their love. But he was not the only one. Kohada was not content to lie dead at the bottom of the swamp. He rose again a yūrei, and went to meet Adachi and Otsuka in Edo.

As might be expected, Kohada was a fabulous yūrei. More than any man alive, he had practiced enough to perfect the role. His new dead self looked exactly has he had on the stage, and he knew every trick to elicit terror in the cheating, murderous couple. He haunted them relentlessly, driving them had and eventually to their own unnatural deaths.

The Historical Kohada Koheiji

Kohada Kojeiji was a popular figure in Edo period romance fiction and kabuki theater. His story and image appear in numerous plays and art, including Hokusai’s famous portrait of his skeletal form peering over the mosquito net.

It was always assumed that the story was true. It was passed around town as an urban legend, with bits and pieces being gathered and attached here and there. The story was finally written and published in the 3rd year of Kyowa (1803), written by Santō Kyōden with illustrations by Kitao Shigemasa, under the title Fukushu Kidan Asaka no Nema (復讐奇談安積沼; The Strange Story of Revenge in Asaka Swamp). It was adapted for the kabuki stage in the 5th year of Bunka (1808), written and directed by the playwright Tsuruya Namboku VI under the title Iroe Iri Otogi Zoku. (彩入御伽艸; Colored Nursery Tales).

We know the details of Kohada Koheiji’s story thanks to Yamazaki Yoshishige, a historical investigator who wrote the journal Umiroku (海録; Record of the Sea) from 1820 to 1837. Yamazaki investigated the story of Kohada Koheiji, and found that glimmers of the story began around the 1700s. Piecing everything together, he discovered the model for the story, a traveling entertainer whose name was actually Kohada Koheiji. Kohada had apparently been a terrible actor who killed himself out of despair for his lack of talent. His wife was not saddened by the loss, and asked a friend to help cover up the embarrassing death, hoping to report Kohada as missing or run off. They did not do a good job, and the deed was uncovered.

The real wife was rumored to have an affair with the real Adachi Sakuro, and Kohada’s body was discovered in Chiba prefecture in Inba Swamp. When that story became news, it was only a small leap from the true story for townspeople to speculate that Kohada’s wife and Adachi had actually killed Kohada. From there, the story gained traction as the details were filled in and the supernatural elements added.

Kohada’s Haunting

Like another kabuki ghost, Oiwa, Kohada is said to still be haunting the kabuki theater. He is said to especially haunt those who take on his role in kabuki adaptations. The only way to get out of this curse is to make an offering at his grave before taking on the role. Ever since the Edo period, actors taking on the yūrei roles were thought to take their lives into their own hands.

During the Edo period, children were less afraid than the adults. They had a saying of “Yūrei aren’t scary! Look, I’m eating Kohada!” referring to the small shad fish called kohada.

Translator’s Note:

I did a translation of the story of Kohada Koheiji for Yurei: The Japanese Ghost and figured I would post it here as a little preview! (Which, if you haven’t preordered yet, please do! Cue the quick sales pitch—it is getting down to the time when books stores will place their initial orders, and having strong preorder sales will make all the difference!!! If you enjoy my translations and articles on hyakumonogatari.com, the best way to support the site and show appreciation is to preorder a copy of my book! Thank you!!!)

Kohada Koheiji is an interesting figure in that he is one of the few male yūrei from the Edo period to show up consistently in art. Oiwa, Otsuyu, and Okiku were regular attractions in ukiyo-e, but only Kohada joins their ranks for the men’s team. Artists almost universally chose the scene of Kohada peeking over the mosquito netting for their work. Because it is so darn spooky!

Translated and Adapted from Toen Shōsetsu, Hyōryū kishū, Ume no Chiri, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

Legend or fact? In the early 1800s, a strange iron ship with crystal windows drifted ashore off the coasts of the Hitachi province, modern day Ibaraki prefecture, where it was found by locals. By most accounts, inside was a mysterious woman with pale, pink skin and white-frosted red hair. She spoke an unknown language and clutched a square box made of some pale material, which she would not release. Unsure of what to do, the locals packed her back in her ship and pushed her back to sea.

It would seem to be a fairy tale, but the same woman and the same mysterious ship has been recorded drifting to shore in different locations, and the various accounts match each other almost exactly. Ufologists have co-opted the story claiming it is evidence of an early UFO siting, although this is extremely dubious. After all, the “F” in UFO stands for “Flying,” and that is something the Utsuro Bune definitely did not do. It is strictly a boat. Other’s claim it is some form of early submarine, or an attempt at a new technology for ocean-going vessels. Whatever the Utsuro Bune was, it remains a unique entry in Japan’s weird history.

What Does Utsuro Bune Mean?

In defining Utsuro Bune, the “bune” part is easy. 舟 (bune) means “boat,” plain and simple. “Utsuro” presents more of a challenge. When written, the hiraganaうつろ (utsuro) is used almost exclusively, giving no clue as to the exact definition. There are a few different meanings that could be attached. The most common translation is “empty” or “hollow.” Another reading is “quiver” like a quiver for arrows.

Another, obscure usage of utsuro describes the hollowed-out tree trunk of a sacred tree. There is some speculation that “utsuro bune” originally described a hollowed-out tree trunk into which a sacrificial victim was stuffed and then put out to sea; although there is very little evidence for this other than the name.

The Legend of the Utsuro Bune

The oldest account of the Utsuro Bune comes from a book thought to have been published in 1815, called Oushuku Zakki (鶯宿雑記; Miscellaneous Notes from the Nightingale Inn). The one-sheet text and illustration gives a short description of the event, and lays down the basic facts.

The most well-known account—and the most detailed—comes from Kyokutei Bakin and his book Toen Shōsetsu (兎園小説; Stories from the Rabbit Garden). Kyokutei lived in the late Edo period. He was what was called a bunkajin, meaning an intellectual, a cultured man of letters. Kyokutei was brimming with curiosity, and like many in the Edo period had a passion for the supernatural and the weird. He hosted a monthly gather of knowledge-seekers such as himself, called the Toenkai, Meeting of the Rabbit Garden. Kyokutei and his fellow bunkajin would gather to swap tales and share interesting or weird stories they had heard—something like what we would call a Writer’s Circle in the modern parlance.

The Rabbit Gardern knew all of the best weird tales of the day. They swapped first-hand accounts of yōkai and yūrei and urban legends, anything with the ting of the occult. The Utsuro Bune was a type of tale was called a michi tono sogu (未知との遭遇, eye-witness account). They chose the best of these stories and Kyokutei edited them and compiled them into the Toen Shōsetsu collection. Several of Japan’s famous weird tales come from that edition.

Kyokutei’s account of the Urotsu Bune is unusual for being so specific, even though it was written 22 years after the incident occurred. It is highly possible—and even probably—that one of Kyokutei’s “rabbits” read the account of the Miscellaneous Notes from the Nightingale Inn and decided to fill in the details.

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Urotsu Bune no Banjo – The Foreign Woman in the Hollow Boat

Translated from Toen Shōsetsu

On the 22nd of February, in the 3rd year of Kyowa (1803), in the Year of the Ox, a strange object that looked like a small boat was spotted off the shore of Tsuruhama. The fisherfolk who lived in that area observed the strange vessel and took to their boats and rowed out to meet it. With great effort, they towed the mysterious objects into the shallows and drug it onto the beach. It was unlike any boat they had ever seen.

The vessel measured about 3.30 meters tall and 5.45 meters wide. It was round as a ball, and resembled a covered incense burner. The top half was made of what looked like red-lacquered rosewood, with windows patterned like folding screens—only with glass panels instead of paper. The whole thing was sealed watertight; with the seams plugged with something like pine pitch. The bottom of the vessel was bound with ribs of metal—possibly bronze or iron. It is speculated that the metal plating protected the boat from impact with sea rocks. Everyone was much amazed when the top swung open, as if hinged by some hidden latch or mechanism. Then the woman appeared.

Her face was a pale pink color, and her hair and eyebrows were vivid red. Here hair hung down her back, and had been lengthened with strips of something white, either animal fur or a kind of fabric. The extensions had been covered in white powder, almost like flour. What it was exactly, we have no way of knowing. Her dress was elegant and of strange material, tight at the top and loose at the bottom. The village women were very interested in seeing how she had achieved the effect of her hair and dress, but it remained a mystery.

When the villagers attempted communication with the woman, she responded in an unknown language. She was about 1.5 meters tall, and carried a square box. This box appeared very important to her, and she would not release her grip on it for an instant. She would not let anyone even get close to it.

The villagers checked the interior of the mysterious ship, and found two sheets, and two small containers of water (the water supply was insufficient for survival, so the ship must have had some means of generating fresh water). There was some form of baked goods and some kind of meat twisted together like a rope that served as provisions.

The villagers had a discussion about what to do with the strange woman and her boat. An elder of the village proposed the idea that perhaps she was a princess of some distant country. Perhaps the princess had been married, but took a commoner as a lover. As punishment, her father the King had her lover’s head chopped off and put into a box, then the princess was placed in this odd vessel and abandoned at sea. After all, he reasoned, you couldn’t directly execute a beloved royal princess. This way her life was in the hands of the gods.

The elder said that would explain her devout attachment to the box, and her resistance to relinquishing it or letting anyone look inside. The elder said he had heard of things happing like that before, and he remembered some story of a woman washing ashore in similar circumstances long ago.

It was decided that the best thing to do would be to put the girl back into her hollow boat and return her to the sea. It seemed cruel, but the villagers did not want to interfere with the intentions of some foreign state. So they put the girl back in and rowed her back out into the deep sea and set her adrift again, leaving her to her fate.

It was also noted that the inside of the hollow boat was covered in strange writing. Some suggested that perhaps it was the writing of Great Britain, or perhaps the girl was some lost princess from the distant country of America. But there was no way to know for sure.
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Other accounts of the Usturo Bune soon surfaced, each with a slight variation. If you believe all the accounts, the poor girl kept drifting ashore to various spots in Japan, each time only to mercilessly returned to the ocean. It seems no one was willing offer her a helping hand.
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Translated from Hyōryū kishū (1835: 漂流紀集: Diary and Stories of the Castaways)

Hitachi province, Shakehama. An odd boat looking the same as this illustration drifted ashore. Inside was a woman between the ages of 18-20, with a pale complexion, red eyebrows, and hair that matched the red color of her eyebrows. Here teeth were white, and her lips a deep crimson. Here arms were slender, and she could be considered beautiful. She was well-mannered and calm. As you see in the picture, she was carrying a wooden box that seemed to be very important to her. We do not know the contents as she would allow no one to handle the box. She spoke, but not in a language that could be understood by any of those present. We assume she is a foreigner, not only by her strange speech but because her features and coloring are not those of a Japanese or other Asian person. Inside her strange vessel she has some provisions, what looks like baked goods and some meat that has been treated in some manner. But the exact contents are unknown to us. She has a large tea cup. The construction of her ship was also unknown, made of equal parts metal, wood, and some form of ceramics. Inside we could clearly see the writing that is reproduced on this picture.

Description of the Boat: It was about 3.3 meters tall, and 5.4 meters wide. The body appeared to be lacquered rosewood bound with iron or bronze. There were windows made of crystal or glass. The woman appeared to be about 18-20 years old. She had a pale complexion, with red hair. There was writing on the left side of the ship, reproduced faithfully.

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Urotsu Bune no Banjo – The Foreign Woman in the Hollow Boat

Translated from Ume no Chiri – (1844; 梅の塵 : The Dust of Plums)

This happened in the spring of the 3rd year of Kyowa (1803), in the vicinity of Haratonohama. A strange vessel drifted ashore.

This vessel was shaped like a hollow sphere, looking something like an iron cooking pot. Around the circumference it was edged like the lip of a pot. The top half of the sphere had the appearance of black lacquer, and was covered in windows. The windows looked like shoji paper screens, and were covered in some sort of pitch. The bottom half of the sphere was bound with iron ribs, as protection from rocks. It looked like the high-quality iron that comes from the Western countries. It was 3.60 meters tall and 5.40 meters wide.

Inside the strange vessel was a lone woman, who appeared to be about 20 years old. She stood roughly 1.50 meters tall. Here skin was as white as snow, and her long black hair hung down her back like a plume. The beauty of her face was enough to render us all speechless. Her clothes were like nothing we had ever seen before, made of some remarkable and mysterious fabric.

She spoke no language that we could understand.

She carried a small box, the contents of which are unknown. Under no circumstances would she allow others to hold the box or even get near it.

Inside the boat, there were two sheets laid down as some sort of carpeting. They were softer than anything we had ever felt before. For food, she had some sort of baked goods, and some kind of meat. We saw a single drinking bowl like a large tea cup. Everything was patterned with some sort of design, but we could not determine its meaning.
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Truth Behind the Legend?

Who knows. This is one of those fanciful bits of history where the real story will probably never be known. It is VERY different from other weird tales of the Edo period, by virtue of being so specific in detail and lacking any supernatural element.

The Utsuro Bune is a classic case of “the legend has grown in the telling.” Modern legend trippers have taken up the story, added their own details, and twisted the story like a modern game of telephone. Modern Japan has embraced the legend—and commercialized it like their own Roswell—creating a recreation/play space of the Utsuro Bune at one of the locations where it apparently touched shore.

But at the core is always Kyokutei’s original account of a strange woman in a strange boat. And that mystery is good enough without embellishment!

Translator’s Note:

I discovered the Utsuro Bune completely by accident, and then became hooked on it. A little too much, I think, because I started researching and translating Utsuro Bune legends when I should have been working on other things!

There is SO much written on the Utsuro Bune that I could barely cover it here. Separating out all the different elements can be difficult. If you are interested in reading more, the English Wikipedia article is very extensive and has lots of good links and resources. In fact, the Wikipedia article is so good I almost didn’t bother to do this entry. But I noticed the one thing that was missing was translations of some of the original Utsuro Bune stories! So I tracked down a few of them and translated them!

Translated and Sourced from Koshiki Haidokubara, Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, Yokai Jiten, Ichiban Kuwashi Nihon Yōkai Zukan, Gegege no Kitaro, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Soruces

For more adventures of Nurarihyon, check out the comic book Wayward

The Yōkai Sōdaishō, Supreme Commander of Yokai. The leader of the Hyakki Yagyō, the Night Parade of 100 Demons. The King of the Chiryomoji, the Spirits of Earth and Air. In modern Japan, Nurarihyon is a yokai of many grand titles. All of which obfuscate his origins and a humble sea monster, floating in the Seto Inland Sea.

What Does Nurarihyon Mean?

The confusion over Nurarihyon starts with his name. It is most often written in hiragana only, as ぬらりひょん, which gives no inherent meaning. There is kanji that can be used, 滑瓢, combining 滑 (namera; slippery) + 瓢 (hyo; gourd) giving you something meaning “slippery gourd,” but it is thought that this kanji was added later to match the name. Old accounts of Nurarihyon only ever use the hiragana.

As to the meaning, there are two ideas. The “Nurari” part is almost universally accepted as meaning “slippery or evasive.” “Hyon,” can either mean “floating on the sea,” as it does in Okayama prefecture, or “gourd” as a reference to Nurarihyon’s oddly shaped head. And according to an Edo period Japanese-Portuguese dictionary, “hyon” simply means “mysterious.”

There is a further confusion as to the correct name for this yōkai. Some accounts speak of a creature called Nurarin or Nurihyon instead of Nurarihyon. The best guess is that in the past these were separate yōkai, but merged over time due to the similarities of their names.

Nurarihyon the Sea Monster

The oldest accounts of Nurarihyon—and the ones that owe more to folklore than commerce—come from Okayama prefecture. Nurarihyon is described as a type of Umi Bozu, The “slippery floater” of these legends is described as a bulbous mass that floats on the Seto Inland Sea, eternally bobbing up and down between the surfaces of the water.

This Nurarihyon is thought to be a yōkai version of the jellyfish called the Portuguese Man-o-War. Some consider it to be a “baby umi bōzu” that eventually grows up into the full-sized monster.

Nurarihyon the Nopperabo

The ukiyoe-zoshi Koshiki Haidokubara (好色敗毒散) has a one-sentence mention of Nurarihon.

“Nurarihyon looks like a catfish, without eyes or a mouth. It is a spirit of deception.”

There isn’t much to go on, but this account places Nurarihyon in the realm of the faceless yōkai like nopperabō. The “catfish” portion shows that at this time Nurarihyon was still considered a sea creature.

Nurarihyon the Unwanted Houseguest

The most common version of Nurarihyon in the modern world is that of the unwanted houseguest. He is almost always described in this way:

“One hectic days when the household is running around with barely a second to think, Nurarihyon slips casually into the house and sits down to a cup of tea acting as if he were the Lord of the Manor. People who see him and the casual ease with which he takes authority assume that he must indeed be the Lord. They fall upon themselves serving him, and don’t realize how they have been deceived until he is gone.”

The evolution of this version of Nurarihyon is unknown. It is thought to rise from Toriyama Seiken, who drew Nurarihyon as an old man with an oversized head, draped in a fine kimono and stepping out of a fancy palanquin into a home for his Gazu Hyakki Yagyo (Illustrated Night Parade of 100 Demons). In Murakami Kenji’s Yokai Dictionary, he says that the modern appearance of Nurarihyon is entirely and invention of Toriyama. In fact, Murakami notes that Toriyama didn’t intend for this to be Nurarihyon at all, and titles the character “Nurihyon.” Toriyama didn’t include any story or explanation of his yōkai, just the word “Nurihyon” next to his illustration.

As is common with yōkai, Toriyama’s version of Nurarihyon became the standard image. All artists to follow copied his style. Nurarihyon appeared in a few yōkai collections, such as the different versions of the Bakemono Zukushi (化物づくし) and the Yōkai Zu-maki. These started out as direct copies of Toriyama’s illustration, eventually moving on to heavily stylized images of an old man with a massive head wearing a fine kimono.

Toriyama’s image of a wealthy yōkai showing up in his fancy palanquin, as well as descriptions of Nurarihyon as a spirit of deception, must have inspired writers to bring the two together into the role of the unwanted houseguest.

Nurarihyon the Supreme Commander of Yōkai?

In addition to the description above of the unwanted houseguest, the 1970s yōkai encyclopedia Ichiban Kuwashi Nihon Yōkai Zukan (いちばんくわしい日本妖怪図鑑; Most Detailed Illustrated Encyclopedia of Japan’s Yokai) includes this addition.
“Nurarihyon is the Yōkai Sōdaishō (総大将), the Supreme Commander of Yōkai.”

The idea of Nurarihyon as a leader of yōkai is a modern one, coming from the manga era not the ukiyo-e era. During the Edo period, the Yōkai Sōdaishō was often considered to be the massive Mikoshi Nyudō. In some stories, Mikoshi Nyudō was married to the long-necked courtesan Rokurokubi, and their child was the Tofu Kozō. Nurarihyon was a relatively unimportant yōkai.

The idea of Nurarihyon’s elevated status comes from Mizuki Shigeru’s seminal yōkai comic Gegege no Kitaro. When Nurarihyon and Kitaro first meet, Nurarihyon announces himself as the Yōkai Sōdaishō. Originally, it was meant to be an extension of the air of authority he exuded as an unwanted houseguest. Nurarihyon was the type of monster to make grand, unsupported claims about this own importance. However, as the comic continued the character changed into an actual yōkai leader. This was especially true of the animated series, where they required someone to be the “archvillain” for Kitaro and his friends to battle. Taking off from the comics, Nurarihyon was cast in the role. (In much the same way Bluto became the main antagonist for Popeye, a rivalry that did not exist in E.C. Segar’s original comic strip.)

Mizuki Shigeru’s influence on yōkai lore is no less than Toriyama’s, and so Japan accepted Nurarihyon as the leader of all yōkai, a position he still occupies in the country today.

Nurarihyon the Leader of the Hyakki Yagyō?

One of the most illogical titles given to Nurarihyon is that he is the “Leader of the Hyakki Yagyō.” I say illogical, because all you have to do is look at the old Hyakki Yagyō picture scrolls to see that—not only is Nurarihyon not the leader of the night parade—he doesn’t even appear.

As a concept, the Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of 100 Demons) comes from the Heian period (794-1185), with the illustrated scrolls that first gave yōkai their individual shapes and personalities appearing in the Muromachi period (1337-1573). Toriyama Seiken’s original illustration of Nurarihyon did not appear until 1776, centuries after the mania for Hyakki Yagyō picture scrolls had disappeared.

Even then, there is no leader of the Hyakki Yagyō. The twist ending of the night parade is that the end of the parade is almost always the rising sun. The yōkai flee backwards against the light of the sun, forming a loop.

The only reference to Nurarihyon and the Hyakki Yagyō comes from an Edo period book by Sagae Masumi which states that:

“In twilight times, when the sky is thick with clouds and the cover of light rain, men and women meet for illicit meetings under the cover of darkness. On those days also yōkai like Nurarihyon, Otoroshi, and Nozuchi march in the Night Parade of 100 Demons.”

The origin of this title seems to come from the manga Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clans which depict Nurarihyon as a clan leader who organizes the night parade to march under his banner.

Translator’s Note:

Wow! It has been far too long since I posted a new entry! I have been incredibly busy recently working on all sorts of projects, which hasn’t left me as much time as I would like to post new entries to hyakumonogatari.com. But thanks to everyone for patiently waiting!!!

I got interested in Nurarihyon as he is one of the main characters in the yōkai comic Wayward that I work on. (From Image Comics! You should totally check it out!) It is almost taken for granted that Nurarihyon is a leader amongst the yōkai, but I couldn’t find anything to support this in any of my Edo period books, so I went searching for answers. I was surprised to find that this was almost entirely an invention of Mizuki Shigeru. It shows just how influential his work is in Japanese yōkai culture!

And if you are curious as to what I have been up to (aside from my long-delayed book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost … sigh … thanks everyone for the preorder, and I apologize for the delays … ) check out some of the following!

• Satoshi Kon’s: Opus
• Seraphim: 266613336 Wings
• Showa 1944-1953: A History of Japan (Showa: A History of Japan)
• Wayward Volume 1: String Theory

First off, my deepest gratitude to everyone who preordered my book Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost. It really means everything to me to have your support. And equally my sincerest apologies on the continual delays. The most disappointing part of this whole process is knowing I have let you down, and lost some of your confidence. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be to see books fall from publication date and continually be delayed.

I met with my publisher recently and we created a schedule to get the book back on track, aiming for an early 2015 publication date in either January or February. I feel confident that this is a target we can hit.

Without going into too many background details, the cause for the delays was due to several factors. We were operating under a tight schedule to try and hit an October publication date and hopefully pick up some Halloween boost from booksellers. In order to hit that deadline, everything would have needed to be absolutely perfect with no margin of error. Unfortunately, that means we skipped some steps in our rush that only caused further delays down the road instead of speeding up the process.

On top of that, the book designer we hired delivered a book that was totally out of synch with the style of my writing and what I was trying to accomplish. It was more “Pop culture” and less “Classic” than I was aiming for. With that, we had a hard decision to make which was to trash the current design and got back to the drawing board; look for a book designer that could do something more in line with my sensibilities—a move that would cost both time and money—or just publish the book as-is in order to meet our deadlines and have a book on the market.

Ultimately, I decided it was more important to me to think long term instead of short term, and to delay the book by several months in order to have a book I could be proud of for years to come. My publisher has supported me on this, for which I am very grateful even though we are losing money for every month the book is delayed. Ultimately, we decided the integrity of the book is more important than the money, which is probably not a decision that a larger publisher would have made.

The new book designer is brilliant and exactly in line with what I want to achieve. I feel very confident about the direction the book is heading. Things are moving along, and you can expect to see a really wonderful book at the start of the new year.

Again, thank you for your continued support, and my sincerest apologies for the delays. In the modern publishing world, with a first-time author working with a small press publisher, every single reader is extremely important and appreciated. Yūrei: The Japanese Ghost just needed a little more time in the oven than we imagined, and I am sure you will all appreciate the final efforts even more.

(And if you haven’t yet, PLEASE consider preordering my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost! Every single order is HUGELY important (more than you could possibly know. Trust me on this!) and I promise that the book really is coming out soon! And it will be worth the wait!)

Sourced from Japanese Wikipedia, OnMarkProductions, Hamadayori.com, and Other Sources

To learn much more about Japanese Ghosts, check out my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost

Five temples stand guard at strategic stations around the city of Tokyo, each at different points on a pentagram. Inside these five temples are five statues of the god Fudo; each statue has eyes of a different color, completing a magical circle of protection that guards the city from harm and ensures its prosperity. This mystical circuit is called the Goshiki Fudo—the Five Fudo Temples—and still protects Tokyo to this day.

Or is it all a lie?

What Does Goshiki Fudo Mean?

The kanji for Goshiki Fudo (五色不動) is simple—it translates as Five-Colored Fudo. The number five itself is significant. It comes from Buddhist traditions, where sequences of five are considered sacred, such as the Five Buddhas (五佛; gobutsu) or the Five Wisdoms (五知; gochi). These in turn are based on the idea of the Five Senses (五識; goshiki) and the theory of the Five Elements (五行; gogyō).

(Most of this section is sourced from the brilliant OnMarkProductions. Check out his site for a much more in-depth look at the number five in Buddhism—and everything else.)

The five colors (五色; goshiki) are associated with the five elements and the five directions. There are different combinations of colors depending on what sect of Buddhism you belong to (and maybe even a secret sixth color if you are a mystical type).

One of the most common sets is:

1. Blue = East, Green (compound color), Spring, Wood, Meditation
2. Red = South, Scarlet (compound color), Summer, Fire, Zeal
3. White = West, Crimson (compound color), Autumn, Wind, Faith
4. Black = North, Purple (compound color), Winter, Water, Wisdom
5. Yellow = Center, Brown (compound color), Earth, Memory

These five colors were used for all sorts of magical items, such as the Five-Colored Cords (五色の糸; goshiki no ito) used for rituals in the Heian period, or the Five-Colored Water (五色水; goshiki sui) ceremony held in some temples to commemorate the historical Buddha’s birthday.

There are more examples, but the gist is this—put those five colors together and you are talking some serious magic.

For the remaining kanji, you have the god Fudo (不動), whose name translates literally as “unmovable.” He is a particularly cool god. Fudo looks like an oni with his fierce visage, proudly upheld sword, and flaming throne. There’s really too much to be said about Fudo to go into it here, but suffice it to say if you were going to pick a god to defend your city in a magical circle of protection, Fudo is a good god to gamble on.

The Legend

According to legend, in the early 17th century the new shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu asked the abbot Tenkai to establish a mystical circle of protection for Edo, the new capital of Japan. To complete his task, Tenkai drew a symbol of the onmyōji—a 5-pointed star—around the city. He consecrated each point of the star with a temple. Inside each temple was a statue the god of Fudo, each with a different eye color. The statues combined to bind the power of the five sacred colors and provide the desired mystical protection.

The Facts

The facts are far less fun.

The Goshiki Fudo does not exist. If you look at a map, the designated the temples don’t make a pentagram, except in the most imaginative sense. There aren’t even five temples. And on top of that all the Goshiki Fudo temples are conveniently located along the central Yamanote train line that circles Tokyo.

Meguro Train Station from this site.

That’s right; the legend is a tourist trap, with little historical basis.

The oldest known mentions of the Goshiki Fudo comes from the Meiji period. Apparently there is some connection to a mystery novel that was popular at the time. The story used the idea of the five-temple circle of protection as a plot device. The details are tenuous and I wasn’t able to track down the actual name of the novel, but most sources agree that this is where the legend began (or perhaps this mysterious book is a legend itself?). The legend grew from the popularity of the book, and people just assumed that the locations were real.

Map of the Goshiki Fudo from this site.

Just as every year tourists flood London seeking 221B Baker Street in a quest for Sherlock Holmes’s apartment, and Platform 2 ¾ to catch the train to Hogwarts, during the Meiji period people heard of these magical five temples and went in search of them. As we will see below, the Black Eye and White Eye temples were easy enough to find, but the other ones were a little bit harder—due to the fact that they didn’t exist. With all those tourist dollars up for grabs, it didn’t take long for entrepreneurs to turn these fictional locations into reality.

Enterprising priests were quick to take advantage of the legend-seekers and started to declare themselves the home of the missing three Fudo. They painted the eyes of their statues to match the legends and try to draw in the crowds.

The end result is that you get multiple locations, all vying for authenticity. Finally, these settled into the six temples known today, with at least two temples claiming to be the authentic “Yellow Eye.” In reality, with the exception of the Black and White Eyes, all of the statues can be traced to around the 1880s.

The Five (I mean Six!) Temples of Fudo

Image of the six Fudo statues from this site.

At least two Goshiki Fudo locations appear to be genuine: Ryosen-ji and Konjyo-in, known also as Meguro (目黒; black eye) and Mejiro (目白; white eye).

The temple Ryosen-ji dates back to the 9th century, and has an ancient black-eyed statue of Fudo known by the name Meguro Fudo (Black-eyed Fudo). This is the only authentic Fudo statue in the set. The Yamanote line train stop for this area of Tokyo is also called Meguro, and is a name most Tokyoites are familiar with.

Another train stop down the line is called Mejiro. While this is read as White Eye (目白), the area is named after a type of bird—the zosterops japonicus AKA Japanese White-Eye—and not a Fudo statue. However there is a nearby temple, Konjyo-in, that dates back to the 16th century. Like many temples, Konjyo-in has a Fudo statue. Over the years, people noticed the Black Eye/White Eye dichotomy and their imagination made a connection.

During the Edo period, there was some vague mention of the “Three Fudos,” of which the Black- and White-Eye Fudos may be connected. The Meaka (Red Eye) is usually considered as the third candidate for the triumvirate, but there are several thousand Fudo statues in temples around Tokyo and nobody really knows for sure. There is also mentions of statues of the Four Deva Kings (known as the Nio in Japanese) positioned to protect Edo. Along with the mystery story, these have probably morphed into the modern Goshiki Fudo legend.

The Red-Eyed Fudo from this site, which has more pictures

The current declared temples are:

• Meguro (目黒；Black Eye) – Ryosen-ji (Spring Waterfall Temple) – Dating from 808 AD
• Mejiro (目白；White Eye) – Konjyo-in (Parliament of the Power of Money) – Dating from 1594
• Meaka (目赤；Red Eye) – Nankoku-ji (South Valley Temple) – Dating from 1616. – Claims to be associated with Red-Eyed Fudo from 1788. Fudo statue and temple burned in WWII. Reconstructed in 1985. Relocated in 2011, with old temple grounds turned into a parking lot.
• Meao (目青；Blue Eye) – Saisho-ji (Great Victory Temple) – Dating from 1882, built over the top of a previously ruined temple. Blue-Eyed Fudo statue installed as part of construction.
• Meki (目黄；Yellow Eye) – Eikyu-ji (Eternity Temple) – Dating from 1880, Constructed with Yellow-Eyed Fudo installed as part of construction. The book Kanto no Fudosan to Shinko identifies this as the true Meki.
• Meki (目黄；Yellow Eye) – Saisho-ji (Great Victory Temple) – Same name as Meao, but unrelated. Dating to 860. Moved to Hirai ward in 1912. Exact date of association with Goshiki Fudo unknown.

There are still others that claim to be authentic. Ryugan-ji, for example, claimed to be the real Meki in 1930, but no one is really buying it and it rarely makes it on the tourist maps. There are others as well, but none of note.

The SkyTree Building

Image from the Tokyo Times site

Real or not, many still believe in the power of the Goshiki Fudo. Like other mythical locations of dubious heritage, the legend has become the fact—enough to where some in Tokyo actually worry about disrupting the magical circle. Most notably in the case of the SkyTree Building.

Built in 2010 and completed in 2012, the building’s official name is Tokyo SkyTree, which was chosen as part of a naming contest. When the 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan, people went looking for answers and some laid the blame (perhaps egged on by the slightly mad governor of Tokyo, Ishihara Shintaro) on SkyTree breaking the power of the Goshiki Fudo.

According to legend, the Goshiki Fudo was established to protect Edo against the north. In geomancy, the northern direction is called the Gimon or Demon Gate and is considered unlucky. Tokyo SkyTree was built in the North, which was rare for sizable Japanese buildings. Some Feng Shui practitioners say its shape resembles a Poison Needle, drawing the unlucky power of the North down into the soil of Tokyo. Some modern spiritualists further say that the Tokyo SkyTree building is constructed over a Ley Line, disrupting its flow of power into Tokyo.

To the contrary, the building’s designers claim the Tokyo SkyTree is a Gorin-to—a 5-Story Pagoda—and thus adds extra protection against the unlucky northern direction.

Neither advocates nor distractors can quite explain how the Goshiki Fudo failed to protect against neither the 1923 Great Kano Earthquake nor the WWII firebombing of Tokyo long before the building of the disruptive SkyTree.

Translator’s Note

This started out as a simple research question for Wayward, but ended up in a deep exploration of the true nature of the Goshiki Fudo. It was a trail that lead to a somewhat disappointing end, mainly because I prefer to believe in the magical and mystical. However, the tourist trap nature of the Goshiki Fudo was inescapable. But then I wondered if that even mattered. After all, it is often the belief that creates the reality, not the reality that creates the belief.

The fact that it was originally devised as a tourist trap doesn’t stop people from believing in its power. The symbolism and story is more important than history. Thousands visit the Temple of the Golden Pavilion in Kyoto every year, even though it was only built in 1955 and finished in 1987. They pay homage to the graves of the 47 Ronin, even though that is a tourist trap as well. The sites serve more as a focus of belief and cultural heritage–a way to reinforce what it means to be “Japanese”—than as some record of history.

It is no different from Christians going on pilgrimages to see holy icons. They aren’t “real.” Any amount of research reveals that they were tourist traps, from the Shroud of Turin to pieces of the True Cross. But that doesn’t affect the honest emotions they summon up for believers.

Or for that matter American pilgrims going to see the Liberty Bell. The fact that it could not possibly have been rung on July 4th, 1776 (as the legend goes) does not mean that the story isn’t good, or prevent it from being a powerful symbol of the country. Every country has similar venerated forgeries. The Wallace Sword on display in Scotland mostly likely did not actually belong to William Wallace.

And when I was in London, I went to 221 Baker Street to see the home of Sherlock Holmes. I knew it was pure fiction, but that didn’t dampen the feeling that I was standing in the home of the Great Detective.

After all, as a wise man once said “When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend.”

To learn much more about Japanese Ghosts, check out my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost

The gentle drops of falling rain. A lonely willow tree standing near a graveyard. And a Japanese ghost, called a yūrei, waiting below. This is our image of a yūrei, and when we imagine this picture of the yūrei, it has no feet. But why?

When yūrei are compared to the ghosts of neighboring countries like China and Korea, it is the ashinonai, or footless, aspect that is considered uniquely Japanese. Chinese ghosts wear a similar burial costume, but they saunter about on ghostly feet rather than float above nothingness like their Japanese cousins.

…and yet, it cannot be said that all yūrei are footless. You can often hear the sounds of ghostly footsteps in older kaidan stories. In the popular kaidan Botan Doro the arrival of the yūrei Otsuyu is announced by the karan, koron of her wooden geta sandles. And in Noh theater, many of the ghostly characters sport magnificent footware. Ashinonai Yūrei did not appear until later.

The origin of the ashinonai yūrei image is usually attributed to The Ghost of Oyuki, however the earliest known depiction appeared sixty years before Maruyama Ōkyo’s birth.

An unknown artist drew a footless yūrei in the picture-book of the puppet play Kasannoin Kisakiarasou (1673; Quarrel Between the Empresses of Retired Emperor Kazan). The picture is just a small sketch in the upper-left corner of the page, but it clearly shows the vengeance-seeking yūrei Fujitsubo as a footless apparition. Another book from the same era, called Shiryō Gedatsu Monogatari (1690; The Story of the Salvation of a Ghost) also features a small image of a footless yūrei. It is not known whether Ōkyo would have seen either of these works.

Speculation on the reason behind footless yūrei falls into a few main camps. One school of thought is that clouds were considered traditional vehicles of transportation for deities and ascended beings in Japan. It was said that these yūrei were being whisked around by clouds, but with the clouds not completely drawn in and only covering the feet. Another, more grim speculation is that the artists were influenced by a Chinese holy text called Juuou-e that says souls judged to be carrying sin in the afterlife will have their legs hacked off by demons and must crawl on stumps through the afterlife.

Other, more romantic ideas have been proposed. In his book Nihon no Yūrei, Keio University professor Ikeda Yasaburo suggested that Maruyama Ōkyo was inspired by the haze of incense smoke rising into the sky, and drew his yūrei as if they were half composed of this smoke. Others say that Ōkyo painted The Ghost of Oyuki from memory, and that the image represents his lover sneaking off to the bathroom at night, her bottom half hidden in the dim candlelight. Yet another unrelated theory says that ashinonai yūrei originate from Bunraku puppet theater, where long robes hide the feet of female puppets and the hands of puppeteers.

It is most likely that a combination of these explanations is true. Whatever the reason, while the white face and wild hair of Edo period yūrei are still very apparent today, this absence of feet has not survived into the modern age. Only a few films, such as the 1995 Picture Bride, are still careful to retain this detail. For the most part the ashinonai yūrei is a creature of the past.

Translator’s Note:

One of the cold hard truths of publishing a book is page count. More pages = more costs, and sometimes you just have to trim! That means that several sidebars that were planned to go into Yurei: The Japanese Ghost had to get cut. But that’s OK! Because I can still share them here!

I am happy to report that Yurei: The Japanese Ghost is officially at the printers. We should be getting a proof copy soon, and if all goes well then the book will be ready to be printed and delivered!

Thanks again to everyone for your support and patience!

Translated from: http://www.nishinippon.co.jp/nnp/photo/show/102187

April 25, 2015 (Updated April 26, 2015)

At about 1 AM on the morning of the 25th, in 2Chome, Tenjin ward, Fukuoka City, four stone fox statues were found broken on the grounds of Kego Shrine. The police station made a check for other property damage. The statues were pushed off their bases and their heads broken off. So far, no tools or implements have been found that may have been used in the crime. There are no suspects.

According to a patrolman, the four statues were located at the main shrine at the south entrance of the temple grounds. This deity of the shine is the “Goddess Inari of Profits and Gains” The statues were approximately 1.2 – 1.5 meters in height. It is thought the heads were broken off before they were pushed off their bases. They were discovered by a temple volunteer walking the perimeter.

According to the police, temples and shrines in Nara and Kyoto have been desecrated by someone splashing an oil-like substance on the shrines. It is not known if the two attacks are related.

The statues were carved by Kunihiro Seiho (76) and his father. They dedicated the statues in thanks of a long and healthy life of good work. Seiho was enraged, saying “I would visit the statues once a month. They mattered. Why would anyone do something like this? I can’t understand at all.”

Translator’s Note:

I’ve never put up a newspaper article here before, but there seemed to be a lot of interest in this so I thought I would! A terrible act of vandalism.

Translated from Asahi News

93-year old Shigeru Mizuki—famous artist of manga such as Gegege no Kitaro—recently discovered notes he wrote 73 years earlier before he was shipped off to fight in WWII. The notes are written on 38 pages of Japanese paper. In it, the 20-year old Mizuki writes of his fear of death. He attempts to overcome his fear with philosophy and religion, and to make some sense of his impending death.

Mizuki wrote:

“In order to understand who you are, you must be free of egotism, to see yourself as you truly are. You can be of no use to others when you, yourself, are corrupt. That is one of Nietzsche’s great lessons. Whenever I read that I am filled with admiration. I owe him greatly. My purpose is that if I read these words over and over again, eventually I will internalize them and become the type of person they embody.”

And:

“50-100,000 men are dying in this war every day. Of what point are the arts? Of what point is religion? We aren’t even permitted to contemplate these things. To be a painter or a philosopher or a scholar of letters; all that is needed are laborers. This is an age painted with the earth tones of graveyards. An age of buried humanity, where people are just lumps under the earth. I sometimes think being alive at this time is the only thing worse than death. Everything of worth has been discarded. What remains is violence; political authority; that’s what kills us. I have no more capacity for tears. My only relief is to lose myself in music, in painting. I turn pale at the thought of war, but that’s how I win.” (October 6th, 1942)

And

“I learn morality through philosophy, through art, and religion like Buddhism and Christianity. But nothing strengthens me to face my own death. The philosophy is too wide.”

The booklet was found by Mizuki’s eldest daughter Haraguchi Naoko when she was going through some of her father’s old papers in his office in Chofu, Tokyo. She said “Reading it was like reading my father’s mind, as he screamed against his fate. I could understand his feelings perfectly. I was overwhelmed.”

The essays have no titles. The dates are inconsistent and not always labeled. Examining the document, it looks like they were written in 1942, between October-November over the period of a month. At the time Mizuki attended school at night. He was drafted into the army the following spring. Mizuki endured fierce fighting on the island of Rabaul in Papa New Guinea, where he lost his arm in a bombing raid.

Translator’s Note:

The discovery of this note has a beautiful serendipity to it, considering I have just finished putting the final touches on my translation of the final volume in Shigeru Mizuki’s epic autobiography/history Showa: A History of Japan. It reminds me of one of the final pages in the 4th volume, where a desperate Mizuki turns towards the reader and pleads across the years:

“Never forget it was real! This actually happened to us!”

As years pass and people die—like my own grandparents, long since gone—it is easy to see stories like this as just stories. For many, WWII has no more reality than the 300 Spartans and the Battle of Thermopylae. They both make for great movies, but little else. Living links like Mizuki forestall this passage of history into legend, all the more so because he is an artist able to record and transmit his personal testament across the years. Like Will Eisner and his comic Last Days in Vietnam, Mizuki forces people to confront some of the humanity of war they might rather not think about—like having to poop on a faraway island where going outside makes you a target for enemy attack.

This note puts another human face on Mizuki’s trials. Peeking inside his head across 70 years you see a different person than the lazy layabout he portrays in his comic. I can’t imagine the darkness of being 20 years old, a soul full of art, and seeing nothing before you but a grave. Well, maybe I can imagine it a little bit—that’s the power of Mizuki’s creation. He lets us in.

I am again thankful that Showa: A History of Japan was translated into English while Mizuki is still alive. We have a tendency to wait until people are dead to honor them. Not only translated, but every volume of Showa has been nominated for the prestigious Eisner Award. I’m hoping the final volume keeps up the tradition (and maybe even wins).

The West has been the last to discover Mizuki—he wrote this comic 20 years ago and it was long ago translated into Spanish, French, Italian, and Chinese … pretty much every major language but English. I’m not sure what that says about us, if it says anything at all. Tastes are different; times are different. Translating Showa has been a personal project for me, something that truly changed my life. It’s amazing how much has happened since I wrote Drawn and Quarterly that blind email so many years ago. I am actually thankful that no one else took on the task over the past twenty years.

I sometimes feel Mizuki was waiting for me to come along …

And if you’ve never read it, I highly recommend you check out Shigeru Mizuki’s Showa: A History of Japan. It’s a great comic.

Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan

Showa 1939-1944: A History of Japan

Showa 1944-1953: A History of Japan

Showa 1953-1989: A History of Japan

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

If you wake up after a restless night, with reeking breath and gasping for air—beware! You might have had a visit from the breath-stealing Kurobozu; the Black Monk.

What Does Kurobozu Mean?

It doesn’t get less complicated than this! 黒 (Kuro; Black) + 坊主 (Bozu; Monk). As with many yokai, the “monk” part does not have any particular religious meaning. Many yokai have this as part of their name, which could just as easily mean “stranger.” Kurobozu is also used as an alternate name for other yokai like the umibōzu and takabozu.

During the Edo period, classes and traveling were high restricted. Most were not permitted to leave their home town, and posted waypoints on the road rigorously checked passports to make sure everyone stayed put. Itinerant monks were one of the few classes allowed free travel, so they were often the only unfamiliar faces who ever wandered into town.

That and the bald heads. Almost every yokai with “bozu” in its name is inevitably bald.

What Does a Kurobozu Look Like?

Aside from the bald head, the Kurobozu is depicted as vaguely human-like, although shrouded in a pitch black monk’s robe. It is like a living shadow. Its head is featureless, except for the vague appearance of two eyes that sometimes reflect the light. The lack of face leads some to consider the Kurobozu to be a type of Nopperabo.

Based on the two types of Kurobuzo stories, the images are often merged into a bear-like monster wrapped in a monk’s robes.

The Kurobozu of Tokyo

During the Meiji period (1868 – 1912), sensationalist newspapers ran illustrated stories of crime, yokai, and other supernatural happenings. These stories were often very short; a bit of text accompanied by an eye-catching illustration. This is how the Kurobozu entered the yokai pantheon, in the 663rd issue of the Yubinhouchi Shinbun (郵便報知新聞; Postal Intelligence Newspaper).

A family living in the Kimata area of Tokyo reported a strange disturbance. Each night while they were sleeping a strange presence would appear in their bedrooms. The presence hovered over the wife, leaning close to her. It slobbered over her face, and sucked her sleeping breath from her mouth. In the morning, the wife’s breath and face would stink of rotting flesh. She fell ill. Unable to tolerate it any longer, the wife went to stay at a relative’s house. The mysterious Kurobozu did not follow her there, and she was able to recover her health. After some time, she returned home and has reported no further disturbance. The Kurobozu has disappeared.

The Kurobozu of Kumano

There is another legend of a creature called a Kurobozu that comes from the Edo period, and is recorded as a local legend of Kumano in the kidan-shu Sankawa Kidan (三州奇談; Romantic Tales of Three Rivers).

The story tells of a hunter who encounters a large, black monster out in the woods, looking something like a black bear. When the hunter shot it with his rifle, the monster grew in size until it was several meters tall. Terrified the hunter fired again, and the monster fled, moving over the difficult terrain at an incredible pace, almost as if it was flying.

Translator’s Note:

I am writing up some yokai to be used in the Pathfinder roleplaying game bestiary. The Kurobozu is one of these! (Expect more to come!)

The Kurobozu is one of many yokai about which little is known other than these two stories. It is very similar in appearance and actions to the yokai called yamachichi (山地乳), a monkey-like monster that also sneaks in at night to suck up a sleeper’s breath.

There are obvious explanations for both these yokai—either a cat snuggling up on a sleeper’s chest appearing monstrous when seen through the eyes of someone still half in dream, or the well-known phenomenon of sleep paralysis.

But no matter the real-world explanation, the Kurobozu still makes a pretty cool monster. So if you are a fan of pen-and-paper roleplaying games, go dive into the world of Pathfinder and do battle with some yokai.

From ancient to modern times, Japan’s monsters continue to be part of the cultural psyche.

By Komatsu Kazuhiko

Translated from this article

The 1994 Yokai Boom

When Kodansha published my book “New Ideas of Yokaiology” (妖怪学新) in 1994, it was during a renaissance of yokai and kaii—traditional tales of the strange and unexpected.

In March of that year, yokai researcher Tanaka Takako published his groundbreaking “Cities Seen in the Hyakki Yagyo” (百鬼夜行の見える都市). In June, Yumemakura Baku sparked an unprecedented interest in Onmyoji and Abe Seimei with the first book in his Majūgari trilogy. Then in September, novelist Natsuhiko Kyogoku used yokai tales as raw materials for his mystery novel debut “The Summer of Ubume” (姑獲鳥の夏). Meanwhile in July of 1994, director Takahata Isao was inspired by the development of the Tama Hills area of Tokyo to make the film “Pom Poko” (平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ), based on yokai folklore surrounding tanuki.

Since that initial boom, history and art museums across Japan roll out yokai and folklore exhibitions every summer. They offer explorations of yokai culture and history, and displays of supernatural-themed artwork and artifacts. These summer exhibitions are hugely popular, and never fail to draw large crowds year after year.

Looking at all of the books and films that have been published since 1994, it would appear that the public appetite for yokai is unending. Any naysayers who claim the yokai boom is over quickly find themselves laughed out of the room.

Why does this interest in yokai and strange tales persist? Perhaps it is because yokai have become deeply entrenched in subcultures like anime and comics. Since the collapse of the Bubble Economy, most of Japan’s industries have been stagnant except for pop culture. Japanese pop culture has also expanded to the international stage. Many who have never heard words like “yokai” or “Abe Seimei” or “Onmyoji” hear these terms in Japanese entertainment, and the concepts seem fresh and exciting, rejuvenating interest in Japanese culture and folklore.

Why Do People Create Yokai?

I wasn’t aware of being part of a new movement when I was writing “New Ideas of Yokaiology.” I only wanted to precisely arrange and express my thoughts about the study of yokai and the supernatural.

One of my main purposes in the book was to explore a different avenue of thought regarding yokai than from the works of Yanagita Kunio which dominated folklore studies. Specifically, I wanted to turn away from his idea that yokai were basically devolved or unworshipped kami.

Yanagita conjectured that yokai were the leftover deities of old religions that had faded. But I felt that couldn’t explain their relevance in modern society, and how new yokai continued to be created. Why did people create yokai? What purpose did they serve? Can they only be studied from a historical perspective, or are there some special characteristics of Japanese yokai culture? These the questions that welled up in my studies.

In my book, I found that a unique element of yokai study is how many other disciplines it touches. In order to properly discuss yokai many scholars came together into a roundtable, into the combined discipline of yokaiology (妖怪学). These scholars are enthusiastic in their pursuit of yokai, and together have written a “New Yokaiology Declaration” (新しい妖怪学宣言). From this, yokaiology was embraced as a serious form of study.

For my part, I think yokai are an expression of human imagination and creativity. I study them as a cultural phenomenon. Yokai can arise from anything with a human connection; from animals, plants, or minerals. They are born in the world between human observation and human imagination. To me that means that to say I study yokai must mean that I also study humans. You cannot separate the supernatural from their human creators. Yokaiology is a branch of anthropology. Through the study of yokai, we can learn about human nature as well.

Years into the study of yokai, it has been come clear that yokaiology is an important part of the overall study of Japanese culture. It is a rich source of material and information. It is a history that stretches from the time of the Kojiki and the Nihonshiki. Along that time a countless variety of yokai have been born, countless yokai stories told and art created. Not because they are something we fear, but because playing with the mysterious brings us great pleasure. They bring joy to our everyday life.

The tradition of yokai is very much alive in modern Japan. They are almost universally loved. In fact, yokai are at the very foundation of Japanese culture, and we cannot neglect such important research.

Translator’s Note:

I thought this article by yokai scholar Komatsu Kazuhiko was interesting, and I finally found the time to translate it. He makes some wonderful points about yokai, and has a unique perspective on seperating yokai from the traditional interpretations of Yanagita Kunio.

Also a reminder that my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost is finally published! Thanks to everyone for your patience in getting it out, and if you haven’t ordered it yet, well …