Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity. Ê

Bookworm Akira has read about the conniving ways of Yokai, but when he trips over one along a forest path, he decides to help the creature back to its murky water home. A challenge ensues involving Akira’s beloved grandmother, a pizza-producing hammer, and a crunchy cucumber. Haunting illustrations of the Yokai accompany 17 original stories.

Vivid in Japanese art and imagination are creatures that are at once ghastly and humorous. The Japanese word yokai generally refers to a range of supernatural beings such as ghosts, demons, monsters, shapeshifters, tricksters, and other strange kinds of creatures. While their status is commonly described as supernatural, they exist or appear in the natural, human world. Today, yokai are wildly popular in Japan. They are prevalent across contemporary entertainment genres such as manga ("comics") and anime ("animation") series, horror movies, and video games, and they also manifest as the subject of related material culture objects like game cards, character t-shirts, cuddly plushies, and collectable gashapon capsule toys. This diverse array of yokai imagery and materiality is deeply rooted in the past. Yokai images and their stories are enduring, and there is no question that what we see in hot commodities today is closely aligned with traditional Japanese folklore. Yokai: Ghosts & Demons of Japan explores yokai and their popularity in Japan through multiple perspectives of yokai: what they are, their associated tales, how people engaged with or interpreted yokai in different contexts, and why they remain so popular in Japan. The contributors to this book are among eminent scholars, creators, and promoters of various aspects of yokai culture. The interdisciplinary nature of this book's presentation vibrantly illustrates yokai from different angles, allowing for a broad view of their cultural scope in Japan. In addition, the contributors delve into popular culture themes, connecting traditional folklore, folk art, and imagery to trends in Japan as well as in the United States.

Monsters known as yōkai have long haunted the Japanese cultural landscape. This history of the strange and mysterious in Japan seeks out these creatures in folklore, encyclopedias, literature, art, science, games, manga, magazines and movies, exploring their meanings in the Japanese imagination over three centuries.

Who wouldn't be afraid of the Tengu?This mystical creature from Japan, with a hard look and a long nose, frightens people with his presence and his red face.Behind the famous No theater mask, a multi-faceted Yokai is hidden. Sometimes bloodthirsty monster, prankster, player or protector, the Tengu is as much a supreme deity to be feared as a benevolent creature.With this book dedicated to this legendary Yokai, discover new stories from Japanese folklore. Learn more about its place in Japanese society, in the forests or with children. Let yourself be amazed by the Tengu, this being that imposes respect as well as fear.

"Since ancient times, the Japanese have lived with superstitions of strange presences and phenomena known as "yōkai," creating a culture by turns infused with unease, fear, and divinity. Tsukimono spirit possessions. Fearsome kappa, oni, and tengu. Yamauba crones. Ghostly yūrei. Otherworldly ijin ... Where did they come from? Why do they remain so popular? Written by Japan's premier scholar of yōkai and strange tales, this book is both an introduction to the rich imagination and spirituality of Japan's yōkai culture and a history of the authors and writings that have shaped yōkai studies as a field"--Back cover.

From the mists of prehistory to the present day, Japan has always had stories of fantastic monsters. There are women with extra mouths in the backs of their heads, water goblins whose favorite food is inside the human anus, elephant-dragons which feed solely on bad dreams, baby zombies, talking foxes, fire-breathing chickens, animated blobs of rotten flesh that run about the streets at night, and the dreaded "hyakki yagyo" "the night parade of one hundred demons"-when all of the yokai leave their homes and parade through the streets of Japan in one massive spectacle of utter pandemonium. What are yokai? Put simply, they are supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore. The word in Japanese is a combination of "yo," meaning "bewitching," and "kai," meaning "strange." The term encompasses monsters, demons, gods ("kami"), ghosts ("bakemono"), magical animals, transformed humans, urban legends, and other strange phenomena. It is a broad and vague term. Nothing exists in the English language that quite does the trick of capturing the essence of yokai. This field guide contains over 100 illustrated entries covering a wide variety of Japanese yokai. Each yokai is described in detail-including its habitat, diet, origin, and legends-based on translations from centuries-old Japanese texts. This book was first funded on Kickstarter in 2011 and then revised in 2015.