Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Japanese Wikipedia, and Kaii Yokai Densho Database

When you are walking down a lonely mountain road at night, and you hear footsteps behind you, don’t be alarmed. You have probably attracted the attention of that amiable yokai Betobeto-san. If you aren’t in the mood for yokai company, just step to one side of the road and say “Oh please, Betobeto-san—you first.” With that said, Betobeto-san will walk on by.

What Does Betobeto-San Mean?

The word “beto beto” (べとべと) has a few different meanings in Japanese. Japanese loves homophones, and we usually have the kanji to give us a clue as to the meaning. Not here though—beto beto is written in hiragana so we have to do a little deductive reasoning.

One of the meanings of beto beto—and the most common—is “sticky.” This is what you will find in most dictionaries, and has lead to some mistranslations of Betobeto-san as “Mr. Sticky.”

However, another meaning refers to an onomatopoeia of the sound of footsteps (Beto beto beto … ). This makes more sense given the nature of Betobeto-san, and a more accurate translation would be “Mr. Footsteps.”

(Although even the “Mr.” part is up in the air. The Japanese honorific “–san” (さん) has no gender bias, so Betobeto-san could easily be “Ms. Footsteps” or something gender-neutral like “The Honorable Footsteps.” None of those makes for a good translation though so I stick with Betobeto-san.)

What is Betobeto-san?

For most of its existence, Betobeto-san was a purely aural yokai. It embodied as the sound of someone following you down a dark street at night. The sound beto beto beto … brings to mind wooden clogs on hard streets, although Betobeto-san can be found wandering both city and country roads. Legends of Betobeto-san come mostly from Uda gun in Nara prefecture, and from Shizuoka prefecture, where Betobeto-san only travels mountain roads.

There are similar legends across all of Japan, usually with some slight variation. In Sakai gun, Fukui prefecture the yokai is called the “Bisha ga Tsuku” (びしゃがつく; The Following Bisha). The main difference is that the Bisha ga Tsuku only comes out in winter, where you can hear the sounds “bisha bisha” as someone walks behind you, crunching on the snow.

In any case, and whatever the name, Betobeto-san is not a dangerous yokai, and means no harm to anyone. If you hear the sound behind you, you step to the side of the road and invite it to pass by you. If you are in Nara prefecture, the phrase is “Betobeto-san, Osakini Okoshi” (お先にお越し; “Please Betobeto-san, you go first.”) In Shizuoka prefecture the more casual “Osakini Dozo” (お先にどうぞ; “Go right ahead.”) works just as well. With that formality observed, Betobeto-san will accept the invitation and walk by, looking for someone new to follow behind.

The Refusing Betobeto-San

There is one story of Betobeto-san not accepting the invitation. A man carrying a lantern was walking down a dark street when he heard the unmistakable sounds of Betobeto-san behind him. Knowing his yokai lore, he stepped aside and said “After you, Betobeto-san.” To his surprise, he heard an answer from behind: “I can’t go ahead. It’s too dark.” The man then offered Betobeto-san his lantern, and was even more surprised to hear a “Thank you” in reply, and to watch his lantern go bobbing down the street in front of him, held by invisible hands.

The man made it back to his house in the dark, and found his lantern returned the following morning.

Mizuki Shigeru and Betobeto-san

Betobeto-san is one of the yokai Mizuki Shigeru encountered as a young boy. His caretaker and friend Nonnonba taught him the chant that lets the Betobeto-san walk by.

When he was older, Mizuki Shigeru included Betobeto-san in his comics, and he was the first one to give the yokai a physical appearance. In all prior accounts, Betobeto-san was nothing more than the sound of footsteps. Mizuki imagined with the footsteps might be attached to, and the round yokai with the large friendly smile is what he came up with.

Before Mizuki Shigeru’s comics, Betobeto-san was an obscure, unknown yokai not included in any of the major yokai encyclopedias or collections. Now, the Honorable Footsteps is one of Japan’s most popular yokai and ranked in 5th place in a “What’s Your Favorite Yokai?” survey held across Japan. In Sakaiminato city (Mizuki Shigeru’s birthplace) there is a train station named “Betobeto-san,” and Betobeto-san was one of the few yokai to show up in the popular TV drama Gegege no Nyobo that told the story of Mizuki Shigeru’s wife.

Much of Betobeto-san’s fame and popularity is attributed to Mizuki’s design. The large, friendly smiling mouth made the yokai an instant favorite of children. Tourists to Sakaiminato like to pose next to the Betobeto-san statue and try and imitate its mouth, and leave coins in its mouth for good luck. It just goes to show that, even in the case of yokai, a good character design can be more memorable than a good story.

Translator’s Note:

Betobeto-san is another yokai that makes an appearance in my translation of Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan, as well as in another Mizuki Shigeru comic published in English, NonNonBa.

Further Reading:

For more yokai from Showa: A History of Japan, check out:

Nezumi Otoko – Rat Man

Kitsune no Yomeiri – The Fox Wedding

Sazae Oni – The Sazae Demon

Hidarugami – The Hunger Gods

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Japanese Wikipedia, and Kaii Yokai Densho Database.

Some yokai are scary, some are funny, and some are just … weird. The tenjoname—that bizarre, late-night licker of ceilings—is one of the few yokai that fits all three categories at once.

What Does Tenjoname Mean?

You can’t get much more straightforward than tenjoname. Its name combines 天井 (tenjo; ceiling) + 嘗 (name; lick) to make天井嘗—tenjoname, the ceiling licker.

What Does a Tenjoname Do?

Again, you can’t get much more straightforward than tenjoname—the ceiling licker licks ceilings. That’s pretty much it. It comes out of the darkness on cold, winter nights, and laps away at any accumulated frost or dirt or spider webs clinging to the rafters. You know the next day if you have had a visit from the tenjoname by the dark streaks it leaves behind, evidence of its long, red tongue being drug along the ceiling.

Oh, and there is the small consequence that if you catch sight of a tenjoname while it is doing its business, you die.

Of course, that minor detail doesn’t appear in every legend. But if you are tucked away in bed at night and hear something crawling along the ceiling—or maybe the sound of a long, slurping tongue—it’s probably for the best not to sneak a peek and risk death. Keep your eyes shut tight.

The Origin of the Tenjoname

Like many yokai, the tenjoname is the invention of artist and yokai-maker Toriyama Sekien. Tenjoname first appeared in Toriyama’s yokai encyclopedia Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro (画図百器徒然袋; The Illustrated Bag of One Hundred Random Demons).

Toriyama wrote on his illustration:

“The heights of the ceiling devour the lamplight when the winter in cold. This is not by design. You will shiver in fear if you catch a glimpse of the this strange apparition, and know that it is no dream.”

The Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro is famous for its literary allusions, and connection to things in everyday life. For the tenjoname, Toriyama was inspired by a poem from the book Tsurezuregusa (徒然草; Essays in Idleness). The poem comes from the 55th verse of the book, and says:

“In the cold of winter, tall ceilings swallow the lantern light.”

Like many Japanese poems, these lines are meant to evoke an image and emotional response from readers at the time. It deals with a subject most Japanese people would be familiar with. Japanese houses from the period were built with tall, towering ceilings. This was useful in the summer, and helped open up the house to dissipate the fierce tropical heat and humidity of the Japanese summer.

What was a blessing in summer was a curse in winter. The charcoal hibachi and fish oil lanterns were not powerful enough to reach the high ceilings, and so in the winter they became a mysterious domain of frost and shadows.

Yokai in the Boundaries

Ceilings are also boundaries, and in Japanese folklore yokai are known to haunt boundaries. Like fairylore of many countries, yokai exist in the in-between places—in the twilight between light and darkness, on the surface of the ocean that breaks the water world and the dry, or even in the ceiling that separates the inside from the outside.

From ancient times the ceiling was a gathering place for magical creatures, and many kaidan tell of a menagerie of yurei and yokai dangling from the rafters and hiding in the high corners of houses. Toriyama read the poem in Tsurezuregusa, thought of old stories of monsters on the ceilings, and imagined a yokai that scuttled around in the darkness of cold, winter nights.

The Design of the Tenjoname

For his visual interpretation of the tenjoname, Toriyama looked to the famous Muromachi period picture scroll the Hyakki Yagyo Emaki (百鬼夜行絵巻; Night Parade of 100 Demons Picture Scroll). At the time the scroll—and others like it—were designed, the yokai depicted had no name or story. Most of them were just interesting visual designs on the part of the artists, who thought no more of their individual traits than Hieronymus Bosch thought of his demons in his hell portraits. They were just weird designs.

Toriyama took a particular yokai running around with its tongue out staring and the ceiling and decided that was his tenjoname. Strangely enough that particular yokai inspired other yokai as well. A different version of the Hyakki Yagyo Emaki has the word “Isogashi” (meaning “busy” or “frantic” in Japanese) written next to it, and so the Isogashi became another yokai that was constantly running around knocking things over. An almost identical yokai to the tenjoname, called the tenjosagari or “ceiling descender,” comes down from the ceiling and licks the sleepers below instead of the ceiling.

Tenjoname in Showa and Beyond

Just as Toriyama built off of the Tsurezuregusa, many other writers added to the legend of the tenjoname over the years. Fujisawa Morihiko’s 1929 book Yokai Gadan Zenshu
(妖怪画談全集; Complete Discussions of Yokai) added the detail of stains being left behind on the ceiling as evidence of the tenjoname’s visit.

Yamamura Shizuka and Yamada Norio’s 1974 book Yokai Majin Shorei no Sekai (妖怪魔神精霊の世界; The Worlds of Ghosts, Evil Monsters, and Yokai) tells the story of a tenjoname haunting a castle in Tatebayashi Castle, part of the Tatebayashi Domain (Modern day Gunma prefecture) The cobwebs of the castle would be mysteriously licked clean, with the tell-tale slime trail of the tenjoname’s tongue being left behind. The source of this story is unknown, however, and first appears in Yamamura and Yamada’s book.

During the Showa period, the story of the tenjoname leveled-up, adding the terrifying component that seeing the face of the tenjoname would kill you. That has been come an important part of the modern mythos, and has scared many a young Japanese child into into not looking up at their ceilings at night for fear of seeing its frightful face.

Translator’s Note:

This is another yokai that appears in my translation of Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan. As a young boy, Nonnonba shows Mizuki Shigeru the frost that has accumulated on the ceiling and warns him of the tenjoname that will come at night to lick it off.

Additional Reading:

For more yokai from Showa: A History of Japan, check out:

Nezumi Otoko – Rat Man

Hidarugami – The Hungry Gods

Sazae Oni – The Turban Shell Demon

Kitsune on Yomeiri – The Fox Wedding

Betobeto San – The Footsteps Yokai

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara and Other Sources

This story takes place during the Kyoho era (1716-1736). A samurai named Hotsumi Kanji,a minor prefect in Kitakuni province, was making his prescribed annual trip to the capital at Edo one year when he stopped at an inn along the way.

From his room, he heard the most beautiful singing voice he had ever heard in his life. It was coming from one of the rooms of the inn, and belonged to a goze, one of the blind women who traveled the country making their living performing on the shamisen.

Thinking that a voice so beautiful must be attached to an equally beautiful body, Hotsumi resolved to have the woman. Discovering which room was hers, he hid in the dark, waiting for her to return. When the goze returned, Hotsumi sprang from his hiding place and ravished her, an act which the woman was not opposed to in the least.

The next morning, Hotsumi was shocked to discover that the woman with the beautiful voice was unspeakably ugly. Her hideous faced beamed at him with a look of pure joy, thinking that she had at last found love. But nothing could be further from the truth—Hotsumi quickly concocted a plan, and took the woman with him on his way to Edo. On a convenient mountain road, he pushed the ugly blind woman into a ravine, killing her. Thinking he had solved the problem quite nicely, Hotsumi continued on his business.

The following year, Hotsumi had completely forgotten about the incident. Again, the time came for his trip to Edo, and this time he stopped at a small mountain temple to spend the night. That night, the yurei of the goze appeared before him. She said to him:

“Have you already forgotten last Autumn? You played with me, and then tossed me away when you were finished. I have no eyes, but I see you now!”

She grabbed Hotsumi by his ankles and tore him from his bed. He struggled to break away from her, but his strength was nothing compared to her rage-fueled power. Hotsumi saw himself being dragged to the temple’s graveyard. The goze stopped before a certain grave, smiled slightly, then embraced Hotsumi and drove him into the earth with one strong pull.

The monks of the temple heard the commotion and ran to see what the matter was. They followed the trail to the graveyard, and after retrieving shovels they dug quickly into the earth. They soon found Hotsumi’s body, with the skeleton of a woman wrapped around it. By fate or bad luck Hotsumi had chosen the temple where the goze’s body was buried after it had been discovered down in the ravine. And she had come to claim him.

Translator’s Note:

At last, a blood-thirsty tale of ghostly revenge for Halloween! This is one of those stories that pops up in several Edo-period kaidan collections, in a few variations. I created a kind of mix of the different versions, taking the pieces I like and assembling them together into a single story. For example, Mizuki Shigeru’s version in the Mujyara doesn’t have Hotsumi being drug into the grave, but just disappearing from the hotel. But I really like the grave bits so I left that in.

The title of the story is 瞽女の幽霊 (Goze no Yurei). “瞽女” (Goze)  is one of those weirdly specific Edo period words that refers to a blind woman who played the shamisen and worked as an itinerant entertainer. If you were a blind woman in the Edo period, there were only a few jobs available to you, and goze was one of them. Either that or masseuse/assassin, or so the movies tell me.

Mizuki Shigeru’s art uses Utagawa Hideyoshi’s 瞽女の幽霊 (Goze no Yurei) as an inspiration. I don’t know if Hideyoshi was painting exactly this story, or just a painting of the “stock character” of a goze’s ghost. Mizuki Shigeru certainly elaborated on the scenery when creating his version—Hideyoshi’s is on a simple background, with the yurei walking in water.

In Japanese folklore, water has always been a pathway to the world of the dead. During the Obon Festival of the Dead yurei zoom across Japan’s rivers like a super expressway, coming home to meet their families then being sent back with lanterns floating out to sea. So Hideyoshi’s picture is more metaphysical than representational. The water is the world of the dead, not an actual river being crossed by the yurei.

Further Reading:

For more Japanese ghost stories, check out:

The Ghost of Oyuki

The Yurei Child

The Speaking Futon

The Yurei of the Melancholy Boy

The Two Measuring Boxes

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara and Other Sources

Late at night, when you have to get up to go to the bathroom, a mysterious hand beckons you from a wall. That’s strange enough, but when you go into the room the hand was inviting you to, no one is there. Most likely, you have encountered the yurei of someone who died in that room long ago—they want something, but have only the strength to manifest a single hand to plead with you.

These kinds of stories are typical in Japan, especially in yurei in houses. Generally, they want nothing more than for someone to acknowledge their presence, and read a sutra in their honor at the local temple. Manekute no Yurei tend to gather around houses near temples, or the particularly pious, those who they feel will be able to perform the desired ceremony.They are spooky, but amongst the least dangerous of the types of yurei.

Here is a typical story from the Edo period:

An abbot was making a trip to Akiyama village, when he heard the sounds of footsteps behind him. The abbot was particularly sensitive to ghostly matters, and knew at once what it was. “Ah, that is a poor, lost soul who died in the terrible drought in this village awhile back. So sad to think it is still hanging on long past its time.”

When he arrived at the village, the abbot prepared a copy of a Buddhist sutra. This done, he returned to where he had heard the footsteps and waited for dark. Sure enough, a milk-white hand thrust out to him from the darkness. The abbot laid the sutra in the disembodied hand and began to chant the memorial service for the dead. The unknown yurei disappeared and was never heard from again.

Translator’s Note:

Another yurei story for Halloween, this one short and sweet compared to the last tale of bloody revenge. The Manekunote Yurei (招く手の幽霊; meaning招く手 (manekute; inviting hand) +幽霊 (yurei) is one of those ghosts where there was probably a story or two about it, and Mizuki Shigeru made up a name the phenomenon to include in his yokai encyclopedia. I haven’t found any other reference to the Manekunote Yurei, except for those that specifically site Mizuki as a source. However, like many of his stories the Manekunote Yurei has escaped Mizuki’s pages and into the popular imagination.

Pictures of a Manekute no Yurei on a TV show from this site.

But naming aside, this is another story that illustrates one of the fundamental principles of yurei, Japanese ghosts—they want something. Western ghosts can linger in a place like psychic residue, or play over and over again like a strip of looped film. But not Japanese ghosts. They are bound to this world by a specific desire, and when that desire is satisfied they move on. One of the most basic desires—and the most common—is the desire for more ritual. Yurei need to be properly feted before they can peacefully move on to the afterlife.

The unusual element of this story is the disembodied hand. It is atypical for yurei to manifest only a hand, and the will of the dead person must be weak indeed if that is the best that they can do.

Further Reading:

For more tales of random body parts, check out:

Tanuki no Kintama – Tanuki’s Giant Balls

Kyōkotsu – The Crazy Bones Yōkai

The Speaking Skull

The One-Armed Kappa

The Severed Heads Hanging in the Fowling Net

Japan is one of the most haunted places on Earth. In Japanese folk belief, Japan as an island is infused with supernatural powers–The very soil of the land is charged with potential, magical energy. Human beings share in this energy. Inside each human being is a reikon, a being of profound power that is unleashed on death. The Japanese fear ghosts–called yurei in Japanese–but they also honor them. And for as far back as the written word goes in Japan, they tell stories about them.

The Golden Age of yurei was the Edo period (1603-1868), an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity. People swapped ghost stories in a story-telling game called Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai that was the passion of the nation. Players sat in a circle and told stories in succession as one hundred candles were extinguished one by one. The light slowly dimmed to the rhythm of the game. In search of more stories, the Japanese people peered into every dark corner, dug up every suspicious stone half-buried in an abandoned temple, and pestered every grandparent for some snatch of an old tale half-remembered.

And the stories are good. Dead lovers returned from the grave. Parades of dead souls on the trail to hell. Ghostly hands with no purpose at all.  Below are ten of my favorite Japanese ghost stories.

Click the title of each to be taken to the full story.

10. The Ghost of Oyuki

In 1750, Edo-period Japan, Maruyama Ōkyo opened his eyes from a fitful sleep and beheld a dead woman.  She was young. Beautiful.  And pale. This is the true story of Japan’s most famous ghost painting, of the brilliant artist who painted it, and answers the question “Why do Japanese ghosts look the way they do?”

9. The Yurei of Aizuwakamatsu

A married couple is disturbed by a ghostly woman at night. Both the husband and wife claim they have no idea who the ghostly woman is, but is one of them lying? Is the woman the husband’s dead lover–or the wife’s?

8. The Black Hair

One of Japan’s most famous ghost stories, famed in the film Kwaidan and in the books of Lafcadio Hearn. But the story is older than each of these. Much older. Here is the original.

7. The Strong Japanese Ghost

One of the most offbeat stories in this list. A village woman is known for her unnatural strength, and … other attributes. After she dies, a yurei with the same unnatural strength appears to terrorize the village in which she lived.

6. The Speaking Skull

A story with Buddhist leanings, a man finds a skull on the side of the road. And the skull is feeling quite chatty, and not above asking a few favors.

5. The Rattling Bridge

It’s hard to sleep when your house is on the path of the road to hell. A man and his family see a nightly parade of ghosts making their final journey.

4. The Hunger Gods

Hunger is a terrible way to die, and all these ghosts want to do is share their pain. Is that too much to ask?

3. The Inviting Ghost Hand

A mysterious hand beckons from a dark wall. This entry explores some of the differences between Western and Japanese ghosts.

2. The Yurei of the Blind Female Musician

A ghostly tale of bloody revenge. One of the few true horror stories on the list.

1. The Vengeful Ghosts of the Heike Clan

Another of Japan’s most famous ghost stories, famed in Noh and Kabuki theater and performed over and over every year. At the end of Japan’s greatest civil war, the Heike clan lies scattered and defeated. But the ghosts of Japan never take defeat lying down.

Translator’s Note:

Apologies to my regular readers, as this is clearly existing material repacked in a list form. It’s a bit of an experiment, to try and make a posting that is a little more “search engine friendly.” And its a list, which are always popular!

I was told that picking the name “Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai” for my site wasn’t the best idea, as it is hard to say and hard to remember for non-Japanese speakers. I still think it is a cool name, but it does make it hard for people to find the site unless you already know what you are looking for.  So here’s hoping this brings in some readers who might want to read some cool Japanese ghost stories, but don’t know the language.

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Taihei Hyakumonogatari, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

This is a tale of the Edo period, from Tajima province (modern day Hyogo prefecture).

A down-on-his luck ronin named Kido Gyobu wandered into Tajima one day. He had heard rumors that there was an obakeyashiki—a haunted house—in town that had lay abandoned and unoccupied for years. Kido was very proud of his courage, and vowed to stay at the house as a Test of Courage.

From outside the house was dilapidated and the garden was overgrown, but it was livable. Kido took his small belongings, which were just his traveling clothes, bedding, and the two swords that it was his right to wear, and went into the house where he would live. He wandered through, kicking up dust and disturbing cobwebs. The tatami-mat floors were old and bug-ridden. The paper in the windows torn and yellow. The cooking utensils rusting. But he found nothing to evoke the terror that was the reputation of the house. Kido put it down to rural superstition, and made a bed for himself in the main room. He spent his day without incident—cooked his food. Took his bath. Drank his sake and smoked his pipe. All which lead him to think that there was nothing to fear.

That night, when Kido had put out the candle and climbed into his futon, the house suddenly lurched and began to shake violently. All of Kido’s belongings were scattered about the room, and the entire house shook like it was in the grips of some monster. Kido assumed it must be a massive earthquake, but when he steadied himself enough to look out the window, he saw the rest of the village was as calm as a pool of still water. It was only inside the house that the world was being shaken to pieces.

With the coming of dawn, the house settled down and the shaking ended. Kido was not to be beaten so easily, and resolved to continue his stay in the house. The second night was identical to the first. The day passed without incident, but at night the house came to live and rattled Kido around like dice in a gambling cup.

Kido had enough of the house, and went to ask advice from a distant relation, a monk named Chisen, who lived in a temple in a nearby village. Chisen listened calmly to his story, and thought for a short while, and told Kido he would accompany him back to the house and stay the night with him.

The third night was a repeat of the first and second—a boring day and a lively night. With the house doing its best to dislodge Kido and Chisen or at least to smash them into something, Chisen sat calmly in the center of the main room as if meditating. He stared intently at the floor for hours as if searching for something, oblivious to the chaos around him. Suddenly, in one swift move Chisen drew Kido’s short sword—which he had tucked into his obi sash—and plunged it into a particular spot in the tatami-mat floor.

The instant Chisen plunged the stabbed into the floor, the house stopped shaking. Blood welled up from the spot Chinsen had stabbed, staining the tatami mats. But that was all. The house was silent. Leaving the sword standing upright in the floor, the exhausted Kido and Chisen settled down for some much needed sleep.

The next morning, they pulled out the knife and lifted up the tatami mat to see what Chisen had wounded. The found an odd memorial plague, reading “Eye-stabbing Sword Bear Memorial Tablet” (刃熊青眼霊位 ). Chisen’s had stabbed the sword directly into the kanji for “eye,” and that was where the blood was welling up from.

Leaving the house, the revealed this to the villagers who told them of an odd legend. Years ago, the man who lived in that house had killed a bear who wandered in from the forest one night. Fearing the wrath of the bear’s spirit, he had a memorial tablet created and a proper funeral given for the bear. But it was apparently in vain, for the bear’s spirit possessed the man and killed him, and had haunted the house ever since. Many strange things were seen in the house every night, and none had dared to stay there until Kido and Chisen.

Translator’s Note:

A definite twist to this Halloween yurei story, eh? I bet you didn’t see that ending coming! I certainly didn’t expect that when I started translating it.

This story originally comes from the Taihei Hyakumonogatari (太平百物語; 100 Stories of Peace and Tranquility). The Taihei Hyakumonogatari uses the title Tajimekuni no Yanari no Densho (但馬国の家鳴の伝承; Legend of the Crying House of Tajime), which Mizuki Shigeru changes to Tajime no Sorei (但馬の騒霊; The Poltergeist of Tajime).

Yanari is a term for a particular type of haunted house that shakes and groans without any visible cause. The kanji translates to家(house) + 鳴(cry), and Harry Potter fans would recognize the Shrieking Shack as a classic Yanari. There are Yanari legends from almost everywhere in Japan. They were popular during the Edo period, with newspapers reporting on local Yanari and particularly popular ones becoming flash tourist attractions as the curious tried desperately to glimpse actual supernatural phenomenon.

Most Edo period portrayals of Yanari show small oni and other yokai on the outside shaking the house. However, these yokai are completely invisible and only their effects can be seen.

Mizuki uses the term sorei, which uses the kanji 騒 (disruptive) +霊 (spirit). This is a rarely used term for poltergeist-style ghosts that rattle the doors and shake walls just like Western poltergeists. Thanks to the movie series, the term sorei has almost disappeared and most people just use the term “poltergeist” (ポルターガイスト) in modern Japanese.

And yes, to the unanswered question–the story ends there. It never goes on to say if Kido and Chisen were successful in banishing the spirit, or if stabbing the memorial tablet did the trick.  That part of the story is the most bizarre, as it runs counter to all other Japanese ghost stories.  Most ghosts WANT memorials and funerals and to be worshiped. This is the only one I know of where destroying the tablet ends the haunting.

All I can think of is this–that the bear spirit was not Buddhist, and resented the Buddhist memorial tablet and funeral. This makes sense in a way if you think of animal spirits as being more of the Shinto tradition than the Buddhist.  And after all, the haunting and hubbub didn’t happen until AFTER the funeral, soooo ….

Further Reading:

For more Japanese ghost and spirit animal stories, check out:

Onikuma – Demon Bear

Kimodameshi – The Test of Courage

The Cursed Mansion of Yoshioka Gondayu

The Long-tongued Old Woman

Yokai of the House

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Legends of Tenri, and Other Sources

This peculiar story comes from Tenri city, in Nara prefecture. In the span separating Kabata ward from Inaba ward, there is a stone bridge nicknamed the Konnyaku Bridge. This is why.

Long ago, a rice dealer named Magobei was making his way across the city at night when he went to cross the stone bridge. Before he could cross, a female yurei appeared on the center of the bridge, with a large piece of konnyaku hanging from her mouth. Terrified, Magobei dropped to his knees and began chanting the name of the Amida Buddha over and over again. When he reached the 99th repetition of the Buddha’s name, the bizarre konnyaku yurei disappeared. With the way cleared, Magobei ran home as fast as his legs could carry him.

He later heard that there had been a married couple in town who had quarreled over a piece of konnyaku, and that somehow lead to the wife’s death. The details were unclear, nor did anyone know exactly what the woman wanted. It is said that she appeared from time to time on that bridge, always with the same chunk of konnyaku dangling from her mouth. And that stone bridge has been known as the Konnyaku Bridge ever since.

Translator’s Note:

Another short and sweet yurei tale for Halloween! This one is a local legend that Mizuki Shigeru collected, from the town of Tenri in Nara prefecture. I lived in Nara for several years, but unfortunately didn’t know this story at the time. I would have gone in search of the Konnyaku Bridge!

There are actually several Konnyaku Bridges across Japan. Some have legends attached to them, like the Konnyaku Ghost of Tenri, but most likely these legends came long after the name. Traditionally, Konnyaku Bridges were low water wooden crossing bridges that tended to wobble and shake like the eponymous konnyaku. The sturdy stone bridge in Tenri being called a “Konnyaku Bridge” is odd enough for someone to create a ghost story about.

They are fairly unsafe, and most of these have been replaced by modern bridges although they retain their names. Like many vanished parts of Japan, those wobbly Konnyaku Bridges are nostalgic enough for a sappy pop song to be written about them.

Here’s a picture of a Konnyaku Bridge in Hyogo, from this blog

If you aren’t familiar with it, konnyaku is a unique Japanese food that is almost impossible to describe. The dictionary calls it “solidified jelly made from the rhizome of Devil’s Tongue.” It usually comes in a squishy block of …. yeah, OK. “Solidified jelly” is about the best term there is. So a block of “solidified jelly” that is sliced and added to salads, or boiled and added to soups like nabe and oden, or put on a stick and grilled. I made konnyaku once, and it is a process as bizarre as the food sounds. It makes you wonder who on Earth saw the nasty, starchy root called Devil’s Tongue and figured that it you pounded it and boiled it enough you could render it into something edible.

Needless to say, konnyaku is an acquired taste. I like it myself, mainly grilled and slathered with hot karashi mustard, but I know far more people that loathe it than love it. At least amongst the non-Japanese. In Japan it is just standard fare.

Oh …. And although it doesn’t relate to this story, konnyaku is known to be a killer. Because of its solidified jelly status it can literally be hard to swallow. Konnyaku has been known to get stuck in the throats and suffocate those whose throat muscles aren’t strong enough to move it down—mainly small children and the elderly. With the konnyaku hanging out of this yurei’s mouth, it makes you wonder if her husband didn’t kill her by shoving a piece down her throat. Not a pleasant way to die.

There is another story from Wakayama prefecture called the Konnyaku Yurei, but instead of the ghost of a woman it is about an old piece of konnyaku that somehow became a yokai. A story for another time.

Further Reading:

Bridges are a popular haunting spot for Japanese ghosts and monsters. Check out:

Gatagata Bashi – The Rattling Bridge

Hashihime – The Bridge Princess

The Tale of the Hashihime of Uji

The Kappa of Mikawa-cho

Translated from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Ochiguri Monogatari, and Other Sources

Long ago, there was a dilapidated folding screen with the portrait of a woman holding her child. The screen was the property of the Kanju-ji temple in Kyoto, where it was kept buried away in a storehouse. One day, a request came from a retainer of the samurai Honamiden to borrow the screen. Thinking it was nothing more than a worthless nuisance, the temple was only too happy to comply with the request. The priests sent Honamiden the screen with all due haste.

Even though the screen was old and neglected, the painting was beautiful and Honamiden proudly put it on display in his house. That very night, reports started coming in of a mysterious woman who appeared in the vicinity of Honamiden’s manor. She was beautiful, and was reported to be carrying a small child. The unknown woman appeared every single night and wandered the grounds of the manor. Finally, one of Honamiden’s servants followed the woman. He watched her as she entered the house, and gasped as she suddenly disappeared while standing in front of the ancient painting.

Upon hearing this, Honamiden returned the screen to Kanju-ji as quickly as possible, mentioning nothing of the mysterious woman or the incident. A beautiful picture was one thing, but he did not need to attract strange spirits.

Now, that same mysterious woman began to appear around the Kanju-ji temple. Suspecting the painting was the origin of this apparition, a clever servant placed a piece of paper over the head of the woman in the painting. Sure enough, that evening when the ghostly woman was seen her head was covered by a piece of paper.

Kanju-ji assembled some artists to investigate the painting, and they all agreed it was the work of the artist Tosa Mitsuoki—and an important work at that. Because Tosa was dead, there was no way of knowing the story behind the woman in the painting, but they all agreed that it was a shame that such a valuable painting was allowed to degenerate to such poor condition. Hearing that, Kanju-ji paid to have the screen restored to its former condition and properly displayed.

From that time onward, the mysterious woman never appeared again.

Translator’s Note:

Winding down on my Halloween yurei posts! Although the last two haven’t exactly been yurei, but spirits of a different sort …

This story comes from Fujiwara Ietaka’s Ochiguri Monogatari (落栗物語; Tales of Fallen Chestnuts), thought to be written sometime in the 1820s. Ietaka’s book is a loose collection of random bits and pieces, observations of daily life of the time and stories overheard. Obviously, the Garei falls into the latter category.

The connection between art and ghosts is an old one, going back at least to The Ghost of Oyuki and probably even further. The story of the Garei builds on the idea that certain works of art and craftsmanship are able to be infused with some of the soul of the artist and take on a life of their own. The story serves as a cautionary tale with a definite moral—treat works of art with respect, or they will come out and haunt you.

(Speaking of which, this can almost be seen as an inspiration to films like Ringu, with the ghost emerging from the painting instead of Sadako emerging from the TV. Of course, the Garei from this story wasn’t quite so vengeful as Sadako; she just wanted her picture to be appreciated and treated nicely. )

Yokai researcher Oda Kokki identifies the Garei as a type of Tsukumogami , a belief in Japan that household objects can gain life after 100 years. I’m not personally sure I agree with that, as the painting in this story is not yet 100 years old. And Tusumogami tend to be everyday objects that are handled and used daily, slowly gaining life as human’s infuse them will small pieces of their motive energy over the century. Garei-type stories tend to be more about the power of the artist, how certain artists attain such skill that they are able to infuse their works with souls. A similar story has an artist painting such realistic portraits of Hell that they become actual portals to the netherworlds. Sounds like an episode of Twilight Zone, doesn’t it?

Oh, and by the way: Mizuki Shigeru ends his retelling of the Garei with a further warning—you better be nice to his comic books or he will make sure that all of the monsters he puts in there will come out to get you!

Further Reading:

For more stories of yurei and art, check out:

The Ghost of Oyuki

Hokusai’s Manga Yurei

More Hokusai Manga Yurei

Yurei-zu: A Portrait of a Yurei

A Portrait of an Ubume

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, A Diplomat in Japan, Part II: The Diaries of Ernest Satow, 1870-1883, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

At the beginning of the Heian era, during the reign of the Emperor Saga, lived the Empress-Consort Tachibana no Kachiko (橘嘉智子; 786-850CE). A devout Buddhist and holy woman, Tachibana founded the great Buddhist temple complex and learning center of Danrin-ji, and because of this was known as the Empress Danrin.

All of her life the Empress wanted to use her position and education to forward and spread the teachings of Buddha. But she had one major problem—Tachibana no Kachiko was cursed with a beautiful face. So much so that whenever she tried to teach people of the Buddha and warn them of the impermanent nature of life, she found herself constantly assailed by love letters and obscene offers instead of interested students . Even when she went to the mountain retreats to practice ascetic disciplines amongst the holy brothers—those who should have been spiritually armored against the temptations of flesh—the unwanted attentions were never ceasing.

This troubled Tachibana deeply. She knew that the beauty of her face and body were nothing; mere illusion that would fade and disappear. Yet with everyone so distracted by her transient beauty, how could they learn about the deeper truths of eternity? It was a question that would cloud her entire existence.

When the Empress died at the age of 64—still beautiful—her last will and testament was opened, and shocked the entire royal family. Instead of a state funeral and proper internment, the Empress requested that her body be garbed in the simplest cloth, then flung onto the streets. When people saw her delicate flesh rot away, the meat of her body picked at by crows and wild dogs, and her beautiful body reduced to unlovely bones, at last they would understand the impermanence of things and perhaps learn the lesson she had been trying to teach them.

And that is exactly what happened. The body of the Empress Tachibana no Kachiko was flung onto a dirty street in Kyoto, where it slowly rotted away and was picked at by crows and wild dogs. The body was dressed only in a simple katabira—the white kimono worn by Japanese corpses—and so the street where her body lay became known as the Katabira no Tsuji – The Crossroad of Corpses. Although many have forgotten the reason, the name remains and you can still go to Katabira no Tsuji today (Stop B1/A9 on the Arashiyama and Kitano lines in Kyoto).

Translator’s Note:

Another grim tale for Halloween, but one that involves no actual ghost. In fact, according to Japanese tradition it would be impossible for Katabira no Tsuji to be haunted because the Empress got exactly what she wanted—she would have no lingering attachments or resentments keeping her tied to the living world. But you have to love the gruesome image, and the story that goes with it.

Katabira no Tsuji was included in Takehara Shunsen’s Yokai Catalog, the Ehon Hyaku Monogatari (絵本百物語; Picture Book of a Hundred Stories).

There is slightly more to the story. The devout Empress Tachibana no Kachiko’s final act did not go unnoticed, and started an entirely new kind of Buddhist painting known as Kyuaizu (九相図; The Nine Signs). These paintings juxtapose scenes of a person beautiful and alive with the nine stages of their corpse as it decomposes. These pictures were extremely realistic, and obviously drawn from studies of actual corpses decomposing over time.

Kyuaizu were generally painted of famous, beautiful woman to show how their charms and wonders were nothing more than rotting flesh and death—only the soul mattered. The honored courtesan Onono Komachi was a popular subject of Kyuaizu, which lead to some mixing between her story and the story of the Empress Tachinbana.

Ernest Satow, a diplomat stationed in Japan, was being shown around Kyoto in the late 1800s when he related this story in his diary:

“Passed Katabira ga Tsuji where the body of Onono Komachi was flung out to be devoured by kites. Kukakusa no Shosho made love to her and was refused. She promised to be his if he would visit her first during 100 continuous nights. He walked 3 ri there and 3 ri back, but when the 100th night came she was from home.”

This blog shows the Kyuaizu of Komachi in its entirety.

Stage 1 – Still Living (生前相)

Stage 2 – Freshly Dead (新死相)

Stage 3 – Filled with Gas (肪脹相)

Stage 4 – Consanguinity (血塗相)

Stage 5 – Flesh Rot (肪乱相)

Stage 6 – Discoloration (青瘀相)

Stage 7 – Food for Beasts (噉食相)

Stage 8 – Skeletal (骨連相)

Stage 9 – Nothing but Dust (古墳相)

Further Reading:

For other death customs of Japan, check out:

What is the White Kimono Japanese Ghosts Wear?

Nagarekanjyo – A Death Custom

The long wait is almost over! Mizuki Shigeru’s Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan arrives in stores November 11th!!!

I hope everyone is as excited as I am. I guarantee this is one of the most incredible comics you are likely to read this year. I can’t honestly think of anything that it compares to. It’s the kind of comic you could never see in the U.S.—I like to say it is “What if Carl Barks had written Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States but done it as a comic book using Donald Duck as the narrator?” Or maybe if Pixar decided their next feature film should be Buzz and Woody from Toy Story leading a detailed narrative on the US’s involvement in the Middle East, and exactly how 9/11 happened and what the worldwide repercussions were. Then juxtapose that with a quaint story of growing up in the Middle East during that time. It sounds weird, I know. But trust me. It’s awesome.

Showa is both epic and intimate. It tells the story of any entire country—multiple countries, actually—all the while being a deeply personal tale of young Mizuki Shigeru and his unusual life. It is a cautionary tale, showing how countries can slide from fair, democratic nations to warmongering monsters in only a few decades. It’s also nostalgic, funny, and downright bizarre at times. If you have read Mizuki Shigeru’s other comics like NonNonBa and the Eisner-winning Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths you will recognize some of the scenes—these are the accounts that Mizuki Shigeru fictionalized for those two comics, told here in all their often harsh reality.

The book itself is just beautiful. I spent months of my life with Showa—translating it, then working with the fine editors at Drawn and Quarterly to fact-check and tighten the translation down until it was perfect—and I was still blown away when I got the physical volume. It is huge. An absolute brick. Almost twice the size of NonNonBa and Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths. And I love the oversized edition. The original Japanese edition that I translated from is nowhere near as nice—or as huge—as this English-language edition. And engrossing to read. Once through is not going to be enough. You are getting your money’s worth with this comic.

Here’s a preview of Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan from Drawn and Quarterly

http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/imagesPreview/a514204cdae83d.pdf

Preorder!

There is still time to preorder Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan and to guarantee you get a copy. You can preorder it here (Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan) from amazon, or support your local comic shop by picking up a copy there.

Then Preorder Showa: 1939-1944: A History of Japan!!!

There are eight volumes in total to this series as originally released in Japan, being released in English in these massive 2-volume editions. The next volume is available for preorder right now on amazon. If you plan on getting a copy at all, I recommend preordering it. Not only do you get the best price you are likely to get, but the publishing industry cares a lot about preorders and a strong preorder will convince stories to get behind the book

You can preorder Showa 1396-1939: A History of Japan here (Showa 1939-1944: A History of Japan) from amazon.

In Showa period Japan belief in yokai was waning but could still be found, especially in the countryside and rural provinces. Mizuki Shigeru—Japan’s most honored and beloved author of yokai manga and the person directly responsible for yokai still being known in Japan today—has several first-hand encounters with yokai in his life. He detailed several of these encounters in his comic series Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan

Being primarily a history series and not a yokai series like Kitaro, Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan doesn’t come with a Yokai Glossary except as included in the extensive notes section in the back. As the translator of the comic, I also put together this collection of articles on all of the yokai that appear.

Here they are, in no particular order. Click on the links to go to the individual articles and learn more about these amazing yokai!

6. Nezumi Otoko – Rat Man

A Mizuki Shigeru original, Nezumi Otoko is the Donald Duck to Kitaro’s Mickey Mouse. A scoundrel and reprobate who does everything wrong, he is also Mizuki Shigeru’s favorite character. As Mizuki himself says, without Nezumi Otoko he has no story.

Nezumi Otoko is the narrator of Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan, popping in occasionally to share some facts and to get the narrative moving to where it needs to go. He delivers some of the most profound dialog of the comic as well.

5. Hidarugami – The Hungry Gods

As a boy Mizuki Shigeru encountered the Hidarugami out for a walk in the woods. These spirits of those who died of hunger can cause the living to suffer the pains of starvation. A terrible, terrible ghost.

Mizuki’s encounter with the Hidarugami as a young boy is quite poignant, considering how hunger would become such a defining point for the entire nation of Japan in the decades to come.

4. Sazae Oni – The Turban Shell Demon

The Sazae Oni only pops up briefly in Showa 1926-1939: A History of Japan, when Mizuki Shigeru’s mentor treats young Shigeru to his first taste of the sea snail sazae and warns him of the dangers of the Sazae Oni.

This shape-shifting Sazae Oni is one of the most bizarre in Japan’s yokai menagerie. I’m not sure who first saw this hard-shelled sea snail and imagined a seductive woman.

3. Kitsune no Yomeiri – The Fox Wedding

The phenomenon that convinces a young Mizuki Shigeru that yokai are real. One night, his friend and mentor NonNonBa tells a young Shigeru about the foxes in the mountains and how they hold their marriage ceremonies.

When Shigeru hears the foxes in the mountains, he knows NonNonBa is telling the truth, and that yokai are real!

2. Betobeto San – The Footsteps Yokai

One of the least dangerous monsters in Japanese folklore, Betobeto San is the sound of footsteps walking behind you late at night. One evening Mizuki Shigeru and his brother have an encounter with Betobeto San, and the wise NonNonBa tells them what to do.

1. Tenjoname – The Ceiling Licker

Another yokai story from NonNonBa, who tells the young Mizuki Shigeru about the monstrous Tenjoname who comes in the dark of the night and … licks the ceiling. OK, so that’s not very scary, and other authors have had to improve on the legend of the Tenjoname over the years.

What is a yokai? What is a mononoke? What is a bakemono? Are yurei also yokai? These seemingly basic questions have no precise answers. Almost everyone has their own ideas, and they seldom agree with each other. Because folklore isn’t a science.

Defining these words is like trying to define “monster” or a “superhero.” I have seen (and participated in, ‘cause that’s how I roll) debates on whether the xenomorph from the “Alien” films belongs in a category of “movie monsters.” Some say that because it is an “alien”—and aliens aren’t traditional folkloric monsters—it can’t be a monster. (I disagree.) But the word “monster” isn’t clearly defined. Basically, anything scary can be a monster. So by that token, are ghosts “monsters?” What about “human monsters” like serial killers? Dragons in fantasy movies? When does something stop being a monster? Or start being a monster? What about the Cookie Monster? Or Monsters Inc.?

And how about superheroes? Even though he lacks super powers, Batman is generally accepted as a superhero, but how about Sherlock Holmes? Or Tarzan? Or Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Heracles? Where do you draw the line? Should the line be drawn at all? Does popular consensus matter?

As you can see, there is no real answer. Just opinions. And almost all of the great folklore researchers have their own opinions. They disagree with each other on the definition and categorization of yokai, on exactly what a yokai is and if a yurei counts as a yokai or not. Almost every book on yokai and yurei begins with the definition of terms—what that particular researcher/writer considers to be a yokai or a yurei.

You just kind of have to pick your camp and decide who makes the most sense to you. Or start your own camp, because that’s valid too. Just don’t expect anyone to agree with you.

Etymology of Yurei and Yokai

Hansho from Osaka Prefectural Library

Like (almost) all kanji, the characters for yurei and yokai originate from Chinese. According to researcher Suwa Haruo, the kanji for yurei (幽霊) first appeared in the works of the poet Xie Lingyun who wrote during the time of China’s Southern Dynasty (5 – 7 CE). The kanji for yokai (妖怪) appeared much earlier, in the classical 1st century Book of Han (漢書) which coincidentally also records the first known mention of the island of Japan. (Strange that the first known use of yokai and the first known mention of Japan appear together—there is some deeper meaning in that!)

Neither word has quite the same meaning in Chinese as it does in Japanese. Chinese uses the kanji 鬼 (gui) to mean ghost, which was imported into Japanese as the word “oni.” And the Chinese usage of 妖怪 (yokai) refers specifically to human beings under some sort of supernatural influence. (This is all according to Suwa Haruo, by the way. I have no personal knowledge of the Chinese language!)

Japan imported both terms, with yokai first appearing in the 797 CE history book Shoku Nihongi (続日本紀 ; Chronicles of Japan Continued), the second of the six classical Japanese history texts. Yokai described an unseen world of mysterious, supernatural phenomena. The term represented something invisible, without form or identity; a mysterious energy that pervaded the deep forests, oceans, and mountains.

In truth, the word “yokai” was barely used at all. Ancient Japan had a more common name for this invisible, mysterious energy—mononoke. The idea of mononoke was something to fear—a mysterious, natural force that could come out any time and kill you, like a lightning strike or a tidal wave. It took the artists of the Heian period to give form to this mysterious energy, and transform the mononoke into bakemono, changing things. And then it took the writers of the Edo period to take these shapes and give them stories. Few of these artists and writers would have recognized their work as “yokai.”

Yokai as a word only came into general use the during the Meiji period, thanks to folklorist Inoue Enryo (1858 – 1919). He founded a field of study he called Yokaigaku, or Yokai-ology. Inoue used the term “yokai” in the same way we would say Fortean phenomenon—meaning any weird or supernatural phenomenon. Wanting Japan to move into the modern world, Inoue used the term “yokai” to point out the foolishness of believing in such things in a scientific age, and vowed to shed light into the dark, superstitious corners of Japan. He hoped to eradicate “yokai” by studying it and explaining it scientifically.

Yanagita Kunio’s Yurei vs. Bakemono

Yokai Dangi cover from Amazon.co.jp

Yanagita Kunio took the next attempt at parsing out the various folklore and coming up with some kind of workable system or definitions. Yanagita put differentiated between “obake/obakemono”—being bound to a particular place, and “yurei”—being able to move freely, yet bound to a specific person. Here’s what he said in his Yokai Dangi (妖怪談義；Discussions of Yokai):

“Until recently there was a clear distinction between obake and yurei that anybody would have realized. To start with, obake generally appeared in set locations. If you avoided those particular places, you could live you entire life without ever running into one. In contrast to this, yurei—despite the theory that they have no legs—doggedly came after you. When [a yurei] stalked you, it would chase you even if you escaped a distance of a hundred ri. It is fair to say that this would never be the case with a bakemono. They second point is that bakemono did not choose their victims; rather they targeted the ordinary masses … On the other hand, a yurei only targeted the person it was connected with … And the final point is that there is a vital distinction regarding time. As for a yurei, with the shadowy echo of the bell of Ushimitsu [the Hour of the Ox, approximately 2-2:30 AM], the yurei would soon knock on the door or scratch on the folding screen. In contrast, bakemono appeared at a range of times. A skillful bakemono might darken the whole area and make an appearance even during the daytime, but on the whole, the time that seemed to be most convenient for them was the dim light of dust or dawn. In order for people to see them, and be frightened by them, emerging in the pitch darkness after even the plants have fallen asleep is, to say the least, just not good business practice.”

Translation from Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai.

In Ikeda Yasaburo’s book Nihon no Yurei he almost agrees with Yanagita, seeing two distinct types of yurei. The first kind, as evidenced by the story The Chrysanthemum Vow, show a spirit with a specific purpose and attachment towards another human being. They have the ability to travel, to move “a hundred ri” as Yanagita puts it. The other kind of spirits, as evidenced by The Black Hair, are those spirits bound to a particular place. They may have some sad story keeping them put, but ultimately it is the location that matters.

Ikeda says:

“Usually I just call both types yurei, but it might make sense to make a distinction. You could call the first group—the ones bound to a specific person—yurei, and the second group—those bound to a specific location—yokai. But these groupings are just made for ease of discussion. In truth, the spirit realms are far too complicated for simple classification; any rule or distinction you make is immediately broken.”

Obviously, Ikeda is correct; Yanagita’s distinctions fail the simplest of tests. Look at three of Japan’s most famous ghosts, Okiku (Bancho Sarayashiki), Oiwa (Yotsuya Kaidan), and Otsuyu (Botan Doro). The plate-counting Okiku is bound to her well, and by Yanagita’s definition would be an obakemono and not a yurei. Oiwa is free to travel where she wills, but doesn’t care at all about the Hour of the Ox. When she appears at her husband’s wedding, it is the middle of the day. And the Chinese origin of Otsuyu means that she obeys almost none of Yanagita’s rules, making her neither obakemono nor yurei.

Yanagita was one of Japan’s first folklorists, and a great researcher and gatherer of tales, but I often disagree with his conclusions. Not for any fault of his own; Being the first, he was operating with a limited amount of materials and information, and not able to discuss or cross-reference his findings.

Mizuki Shigeru’s Inclusive Yokai World

Japanese Yokai battle Western Yokai in Mizuki Shigeru’s Great Yokai War

Mizuki Shigeru takes a much broader approach, In his Secrets of the Yokai – Types of Yokai he put everything under the general term of “Yokai” (or “Bakemono,” which he considers the same thing”) and then broke it down into four large categories, one of which is “Yurei.” Mizuki started studying yokai seriously in his 60s when he had largely retired from drawing his famous Kitaro comic. He also did something Yanagita Kunio had never done—he traveled the world and learned about the folklore of other countries, and compared it to his native Japanese folklore he knew so well. From this, he developed a definition of yokai that was as inclusive as possible, broadening the use of the word “yokai” outside of Japan to include “Western yokai” and monsters, and the natural phenomenon and deities of all countries.

Mizuki’s approach is the most widely accepted today, as seen by the Japanese definition of yokai from Wikipedia:

“Yokai as a term encompasses oni, obake, strange phenomenon, monsters, evil spirits of rivers and mountains, demons, goblins, apparitions, shape-changers, magic, ghosts, and mysterious occurrences. Yokai can either be legendary figures from Japanese folklore, or purely fictional creations with little or no history. There are many yokai that come from outside Japan, including strange creatures and phenomena from outer space. Anything that can not readily be understood or explained, anything mysterious and unconfirmed, can be a yokai.”

I personally fall into Mizuki’s camp—I believe yokai are so much more than just Japanese monsters. In fact, if you look at Toriyama Sekien’s yokai encyclopedias many Japanese yokai did not originate in Japan—they are characters from Chinese folklore or Indian Buddhism added to Japan’s pantheon. And even inside Japan, yokai encompass so much more than monsters. There are yokai winds. Yokai illnesses, Yokai transformed/possessed humans. Pure yokai monsters.

But then again, I am as guilty as anyone for also using the word yokai as a shorthand for Japanese monsters. Because it is convenient, and gets the meaning across in a simple fashion. And sometimes, convenience trumps accuracy. Because folklore isn’t a science.

Yurei and Yokai – Dead Things

Yurei entry from Toriyama Sekein’s Hyakkai Yagyo

Then you get into a whole other area—Are yurei a type of yokai? Or are they something different? Again, there is no universally accepted answer. Yanagita Kunio considered yurei to be yokai, but not bakemono. Mizuki Shigeru considers yurei to be one of the Big Four categories of yokai. Matt Alt calls yurei and yokai out as two separate things in his books Yokai Attack! and Yurei Attack!: The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide. (I respectfully disagree.)

To me, this is the easiest question—of course, yurei are yokai. All you have to do is look at the yokai collections from the Edo period. Yurei were always included as entries. Edo period kaidan-shu freely mixed ghost and monster stories. Games of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai always included strange stories of any type, with no differentiation between yurei and yokai. They were all just “weird tales.”

For that matter, some yokai monsters are in fact dead humans who returned as yokai. Many things can happen to a human spirit after death. They can move on to peace, transform into a yurei and haunt away, or transform into a monster with a life that lasts far beyond their death. Perhaps the most famous example is the Emperor Sutoku who died and was reborn as the Evil King of the Tengu, a story that appears in both the Hōgen Monogatari and Tales of Moonlight and Rain (Translations from the Asian Classics)
. Or there is the massive Gashadokuro, sometimes said to be the assembled bones of people who died of starvation. Or Dorotaro, the spirit of a farmer whose fields were mistreated by his son.

There are many others. Yurei is clearly just one form a human being can manifest as after death. They can become kami. They can become yurei. They can become yokai. All though saying “they can become yokai” is redundant, as they are all yokai.

Religion and Yokai – Degraded and Unworshiped Gods

Another thing Yanagita Kunio says—and this I agree with him on—is that some yokai are the traditional, historical, and forgotten gods of Japan. In his book Hitotsume Kozo he outlines his “degradation theory,” showing how ancient gods are slowly demoted into small-time monsters, and then folktales. He uses the kappa as an example. Once a powerful water deity—and there are still a few kappa shrines in Japan—the kappa was demoted over the centuries to a beastly monster, to something almost harmless, until now it is little more than one of Japan’s “cute character mascots.”

Many yokai also share strong ties with Buddhism. During the Edo period Kaidan Boom, several strange monsters and gods were imported from India and China and recast in roles as Japanese yokai. As with Yanagita’s degradation theory, these once-mighty beings become silly goblins in the Japanese pantheon,

Komatsu Kazuhiko put forward  the idea that yokai are sort of the B-List of the kami pantheon, the “unworshiped gods.” It has long been thought that spirits can be transformed into kami via ritual and worship. By that measure, yokai are simply proto-kami, amassed spiritual energy that has managed to take form, but needs the extra boost from human worship to advance to the next stage and become a true kami.

Just as many yokai have no connection to religion at all. Toriyama Sekein created a host of yokai for his books, some of which were just ghostly twists on plays on words or popular phrases. Kyokotsu the Crazy Bones being one of the most obvious examples. A few hundred years later, and these Toriyama-invented yokai are considered just as valid as something like a kappa that is thousands of years older.

Modern Yokai

When you ask “What’s the Difference Between Yurei and Yokai?” you sort of have to decide if you mean historical, or modern. In the Edo period and older, there was absolutely no difference. You go back even further, and yokai and yurei are indistinguishable. But as we move more and more into the modern manga-influence era, where yokai are being used as characters in comics, and the meanings of the words appear to be changing.

I think manga is the biggest influence on yokai today. Comics like Kitaro, Inuyasha, and Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan are teaching a new generation of readers what yokai are, and it is something entirely different from what Yanagita Kunio recorded in his notebooks. Modern yokai have distinct personality and complex motivations, instead of Yanagita’s repetitious monsters bound to their locations and lacking true motive power. And yurei are being left out of the party, treated as something different from yokai entirely.

Kejoro from Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan

Those manga yokai are probably just as valid as Toriyama Sekein’s yokai catalog. The definitions of yurei and yokai have changed over the centuries, and will continue to change going into the future. Because “change” is at the heart of yokai. They mold to meet the needs of the current generation. They are mutable.

In his book Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai, Michael Dylan Foster puts it best. He says he ”intentionally leaves the definition open-ended, for the history of yokai is very much the history of efforts to describe and define the object being considered.”

Translator’s Note:

This is a long, rambling answer to a question by reader Chiara Leerendix, who was having a debate with her professor on the differences between yurei and yokai. He claimed that yurei were spirits of the dead and related to death and religion, while yokai were just monsters without any deeper meaning or religious connection. Obviously, I disagree with that. But the debate is ongoing.

While I don’t have an exact answer for Chiara, hopefully this will provide her with some good arguing points to take to her professor. Of course, her professor is welcome to respond to this post as well!

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Japanese Wikipedia, and Kaii Yokai Densho Database

It starts with a high fever and some stomach pains, and ends with a giant mouth poking out of your own stomach, speaking in your own voice demanding food and drink. It’s bad enough getting sick, but you don’t want to catch a yokai disease. Especially you don’t want to get infected by an oseichu, a mimicking roundworm.

What Does Oseichu Mean?

Oseichu is made up of three kanji – 応 (O; affirmative, agreements ) + 声 (sei; voice) + 虫 (chu; worm, bug). The three kanji translate roughly into “Voice Mimicking Bug,” all though the word “bug” refers more to the infectious disease type than the insect type.

The term osei (応声) is really only used in relation to this yokai. In fact, sometimes the “chu” is dropped altogether and it is just called an osei.

The Oseichu of Chusaburo

This is a story from the 16th year of Genroku (1703 CE). The laborer Shichizaemon lived with his family in Tokyo. One day, his son Chusaburo was struck down with a terrible fever and pain in his stomach. The illness continued, and after a few days they could see a boil growing form the son’s belly. The boil kept growing larger and spreading until it resembled a massive, human mouth. Everyone in the family was shocked when the boil finally opened its mouth, and began speaking in Chusaburo’s own voice. The voice began demanding food, and anything shoved into the giant mouth soon disappeared. The mouth was never satisfied and demanded more and more food, while Natsaburo was slowly starving to death, deprived of sustenance.

Shichizaemon tried every medicine he could find, and summoned exorcists and sorcerers of all type to help the misfortune of his child, but to no avail.

At his wit’s end on how to help his son, Shichizaemon sent for the famous doctor Kan Gensai. The renowned physician took one look at Chusaburo and declared that he was infected with an Oseichu. Dr. Gensai whipped up a special blend of six medicines, and fed them directly into the extra mouth protruding from Chusaburo’s belly. After the first day, the mouth ceased to speak and the boil reduced in size. By the second day, Chusaburo expelled a giant worm from his anus—33 centimeters long. The worm looked like a lizard, with an arrow shaped head and long body. It tried to run away, but everyone in the room immediately set upon it and beat it to death.

With the Oseichu expunged, Chusaburo made a complete recovery.

Yokai Diseases and Mysterious Bugs

The oseichu is thought to have come to Japan from China, where there are similar stories based off of real-life parasitic worms like roundworms. Oseichu is a good example of how yokai can be many things, from giant, one-eyed monsters down to strange, infectious diseases. Oseichu are not a type of monster, but are considered a type of kibyo (奇病; Strange Illness) brought on by kaichu (怪虫; Mysterious Bugs). It is easy to see how roundworms can become yokai. A sudden fever and feeling of hunger, finishing with a large worm being expelled from the anus—that must have been terrifying to those who weren’t aware of what was happening.

The oseichu is found in three Edo period collections; the Shin Chomonju (新著聞集; New Collection of Famous Tales), the Shiojiri (塩尻; Salt’s End), and the Kanden jihitsu (閑田次筆; Continued Tales of a Fallow Field).

Both the Shin Chomonju and Shiojiri tell tales similar to The Oseichu of Chusaburo, with only slight variation. Shin Chomonju sets the story in Tokyo, while Shiojiri says the mysterious illness occurred in the Abura no Koji district of Kyoto. Shiojiri also says the medicine took 10 days instead of 2.

The Kanden Jihitsu tells a similar, but different story. In the 3rd year of Genbun (1738) , a side show manager running a Misemono (Seeing Things) show in Tamba province (modern day Kyoto) heard a rumor about a woman infected by an oseichu. He immediately went to her house to attempt to recruit her for the show, and was stunned to find an authentic case of the disease. An unmistakable voice came from the woman’s belly. The woman’s husband was ashamed of her condition, however, and would not allow her to be displayed. The disappointed side show manager went home empty handed.

Translator’s Note:

It’s November, and that means Thanksgiving Day in the US! And Thanksgiving Day means eating so much your stomach hurts afterwards, and that got me thinking about Oseichu.

Oseichu is an odd yokai. It doesn’t appear very often in yokai collections. I would like to that’s because it is gross, but yokai have never let being gross bother them! This one is clearly a supernatural version of a natural disease/parasite – the roundworm. Something I hope I never have to experience in real life!

Further Reading:

For more bizarre yokai, check out:

Jinmenju – The Human Faced Tree

Inen – The Possessing Ghost

Kejoro – The Hair Hooker

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Ehon Hyakumonogatari, and Japanese Wikipedia

In Kaga province (modern day Ishikawa prefecture), there lived a wealthy man known as “Salty Choji” who kept 300 head of horses. Now, these horses weren’t for riding. This man had a taste for horse flesh, and would slaughter his horses like cattle then pickle them in salt or preserve them in miso paste to get them tasting just right. Every night he tucked into a pile of salty horse meat with gusto.

Such was the man’s appetite that Choji ate his way through 299 of his own horses, until all that was left was an ancient animal that wasn’t good for labor or food. One night Choji just couldn’t stand it any longer, and he shot the old beast anyways, then slathered it in salt and ate it down in a gluttonous frenzy. That night, however, the tables turned against Choji—the spirit of the old horse came to him in a dream and bit him on his neck.

From that night on, whenever the clock stuck the hour of the time when Choji had killed the old horse, its spirit appeared and entered Choji’s body. But this wasn’t your normal possession; the horse forced his way through Choji’s mouth, and crawled straight through to his stomach. The pain was intense, and Choji felt every inch of the massive horse stretching his innards and intestinal tract. As he lay in agony night after night, Choji bitterly regretted all of his evil deeds and his ravenous appetites that lead him to this fate. But his regrets did him no good. For it was too late.

Choji summoned every manner of doctor and exorcist to aid him in his suffering. They tried everything they could but without effect. No amount of medicine or prayers for reprieve could lessen his agony. Choji’s torment continued for 100 days until at last he died. It was said his corpse was broken and shattered, like an overburdened packhorse.

Translator’s Note:

Another tale of overeating for November, and the American Thanksgiving holiday. There are a few more to come in their series! This story comes from the Edo period kaidan-shu Ehon Hyakumonogatari (絵本百物語; Picture Book of 100 Stories).

The tale of Salty Choji isn’t as strange as it seems. Although rare nowadays, horse is a standard part of Japanese cuisine, mostly eaten raw and sliced as the sashimi called basashi. I have eaten it many times. It’s delicious! So the shock of the story isn’t really what Choji was eating, but how much of it. All things in moderation is the moral of the story. That and Choji forgetting an important fact of Japanese folklore—the older an animal is, the more likely it is to have developed supernatural powers. Salty Choji should have left that old horse alone, and just gone shopping for some new ones.

The story of Shio no Choji (Salty Choji) inspired a story for the anime series Kyogoku Natsuhiko Kosetsu Hyaku Monogatari (京極夏彦 巷説百物語; Natsuhiko Kyogohe ku’s Hundred Stories), most commonly known in English as Requiem From the Darkness. I say “inspired by” instead of “adapted from” because the version of Salty Choji found in the series is VERY different from the original folktale. There is cannibalism involved, and fratricide, and all sorts of things that never appear in the simple story of Shio no Choji who could couldn’t control his appetite.

Further Reading:

For more tales of hungry yokai and yokai food, check out:

Oseichu – The Mimicking Roundworm

Jinmenju – The Human Face Tree

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 and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara and Japanese Wikipedia

You can still see turtle restaurants in Japan today offering a full-course suppon meal, including a glass of blood served with sake. But they are much rarer today than they were during the Edo period. A few strange stories come down to us from those times about ghostly goings-on in the turtle shops. This is one of them.

A man named Kiroku had a successful suppon shop in Nigata city. Every day he butchered and served up hundreds of turtles. One day at work, his body suddenly felt heavy. At the same time, everything became cold and dark, and it felt like he was being submerged under water. He tried to shout, but no voice came out. He felt around with his hands, and felt something even colder. It was a turtle shell. All around him were hundreds of turtles, crawling over his body and dragging him down.

Finally, Kiroku managed to let out a cry of horror, which brought his wife running into the room. When she opened the door, all of the turtles vanished.

This happened night after night, until finally Kiroku had enough. He had learned his lesson, and swore an oath against the taking of life. The wrathful turtle ghosts never came again.

Translator’s Note:

The second story of the dangers of overindulgence of suppon and ghostly revenge for Thanksgiving. This tale comes from the Edo period kaidan-shu Hokuetsu Kidan (北越奇談; Strange Stories from Hokuetsu), where it was illustrated by the famous artist Katsushika Hokusai.

The original story was called Suppon no Kaii, which used the term怪異 (Kaii; strangeness). Mizuki changed it to the term onryo (怨霊), which refers specifically to a grudge-bearing spirit. The word is used almost exclusively for the yurei of human beings, so it is a bit odd seeing it used in the context of these turtles who are angry at being eaten. But it just goes to show the flexibility of folklore.

Mizuki Shigeru adds a footnote to this story, saying that living things must consume other living things in order to stay alive—that is the very nature of life. Even the turtles in this story needed to kill in order to live, so logically they object to the gluttony of so many of them being eaten, not the very fact they were eaten at all. Go ahead and eat turtles, Mizuki says, just appreciate their sacrifice and don’t eat too many!

Further Reading:

For more tales of magical turtles and over-eating yokai, check out:

Suppon no Yurei – The Turtle Ghost

The Appearance of the Spirit Turtle

Shio no Choji – Salty Choji

Oseichu – The Mimicking Roundworm

Translated and adapted from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Ehon Hyakumonogatari, and Japanese Wikipedia

A tale as old as time; in a drunken night of revelry, you climb in bed with a beautiful girl but wake up the next day sleeping besides a giant fat woman. What happened? That hot, sexy gal must have been infected by that insidious yokai disease nebutori – the Sleeping Fatty.

What Does Nebutori Mean?

Nebutori can be written a few ways, all of which are disgusting. The most common is寝肥 which combines 寝 (ne; Sleep) + 肥 (butori; dung, night soil … you know; poop). The term is a play on words, rhyming with 寝太 , meaning寝 (ne; Sleep) + 太 (futori; to gain weight, fat).

Nebutori is a yokai disease. It only infects women, and makes them fat while they sleep–either suddenly or gradually. It is considered an infectious disease, like a bacteria. Women infected with nebutori don’t necessesarily eat more—they just get fat while they sleep. (And yes, it is just women. I have never seen a nebutori tale involving men. Sorry.)

The term has spread into modern Japanese, where it is sometimes used in context to sudden or inexplicable weight gain. Nebutori is also used to describe weight gain in elderly women, especially those on a high-calorie / low-exorcize diet.

Sad Stories of Nebutori

Nebutori originates from the Edo period Ehon Monogatari (絵本百物語; Picture Book of 100 Strange Stories). The story is short and sweet.

A man goes out for a night on the town. After a marathon drinking sessions, he meets and beds a beautiful young girl. They fall asleep next to each other, but in the middle of the night, the man is awoken by a thunderous snore—louder than a passing carriage. He opens his eyes and is shocked to find that—instead of the beautiful girl he went to bed with—he is sleeping next to an enormous mass of quivering flesh.

I found a different story while researching, but I am not sure of its literary origin. It comes from Okushu (modern day Aomori and Iwate prefectures). It doesn’t really seem to describe a case of nebutori—just a woman slowly gaining weight over time—but that is how the tale is listed.

A man and his wife lived together. When they married the wife was slim and beautiful, but she caught nebutori and ballooned in size. The couple owned ten futons, and seven were spread out for the wife to sleep on. Eventually the man became disgusted with this gigantic wife and divorced her. That’s why wives in Okushu are warned to be on the lookout for catching nebutori.

Nebutori and Tanuki Possession

This is an additional tale that is sometimes called nebutori, although in truth it is a case of tanukitsukai—tanuki possession. This story, coming from the 1828 book Shichuso (視聴草; Tales of Looking and Listening).

An elderly woman named Yachi lay on her death bed, breathing her last. To the stunned surprise of her assembled family, Yachi suddenly sprang up and declared herself healthy, but starving. The family brought forth food they had prepared for the funeral service, and the old woman ate it all. But Yachi was still ravenous. While waiting for more food to be prepared, she drank sake and sang boisterous songs. The family was pleased to have Yachi so energetic again, but perplexed. They summoned a doctor to examine her.

The doctor could find nothing wrong with Yachi. Meanwhile, her body was swelling to enormous proportions and she soon outgrew her clothes. The family dug out the winter clothes to try and drape around her, and as they took away her light summer kimono they noticed something strange—the inside was covered in the hair of some kind of beast. The family grew suspicious, and placed a paper and pen next to Yachi asking her to write down her next menu request. With this promptly done, the family knew something was wrong—Yachi could neither read nor write.

That night, the family secretly moved an image of the Amidha Buddha into Yachi’s room. With that done, they saw a shocked tanuki crawl from Yachi’s mouth and flee into the night, leaving behind the dead body it had occupied for awhile.

Translator’s Note:

Is anyone feeling like they caught a case of nebutori after Thanksgiving? Although nebutori isn’t really from overeating—it is more like the yokai equivalent of beer goggles. A drunken guy goes to bed with a hotty and wakes up with a notty. It couldn’t have been a drunken mistake, right? Best to blame it on a yokai disease!

Nebutori is another example that shows just how wide the definition of “yokai” can be. There is no creature here, no monster. Just a “yokai disease” that infects ordinary people.

Further Reading:

For more Thanksgiving-inspired tales of overeating yokai, check out:

Shio no Choji – Salty Choji

Suppon no Onryo – The Vengeful Ghosts of the Turtles

Suppon no Yurei – The Turtle Ghost

Oseichu – The Mimicking Roundworm

Japan’s native Yokai monsters can be almost anything—haunted trees, magical cats, transformed rats, or vengeful ghosts of slaughtered warriors. Or they can be food. Maybe animals who are sick of being overeaten. Or mysterious bugs that get into your system and infect you like a disease.

I put this series together for American Thanksgiving, to showcase some of Japan’s more bizarre yokai and as a cautionary tale for those tempted to over-indulge in their favorite foods. After all, eating a few soft-shelled turtles or savoring some salted horse meat is perfectly natural and fine. But consuming it by the hundreds invites ghostly revenge.

Click Each Title to Read the Full Story of Each Yokai

6. Sazae Oni – The Turban Shell Demon

Sazae are a delicacy in Japan. The official English translation is “turban shell,” but they are more like a type of sea snail. And they are delicious. This tale of the Sazae Oni is something that would probably never associate with a sea snail—a shape-shifting supernatural seductress who boards and beds a ship full of men, then robs them of something very previous indeed.

5. Oseichu – The Mimicking Roundworm

This yokai disease starts as a small bump on your stomach, but soon enlarges into an angry red boil. The one day, the boil explodes into a giant mouth that speaks in your own voice and demands to be fed. This insatiable mouth will eat everything in the house unless it is stopped, slowly starving its host to death.

4. Suppon no Yurei – The Turtle Ghost

Being a connoisseur can be a good thing, but being a glutton is another thing all together. This is a tale of three friends who loved the taste of turtle flesh, and went from restaurant to restaurant like Edo period foodies eating all of the turtles they could. One night they spotted a new restaurant, but the chef has a little surprise in store for them.

3. Suppon on Onryo – The Vengeful Ghosts of the Turtles

Another tale of too many turtles. This one from a husband and wife who owned a popular turtle restaurant and who slaughtered and served up turtles by the hundreds. One day, the turtles decided enough was enough, and turned the tables. Illustrated Japan’s most famous artist, Katsushika Hokusai.

2. Shio no Choji – Salty Choji

Choji was a man who loved salted horse meat. And he loved it a lot. He owned a herd of 300 horse, and ate them down to the last one. When he was about to eat on his final horse—an old, beaten down old thing without an ounce of edible meat on him—his gluttony was finally undone. Choji was treated to an excruciating feast.

1. Nebutori – The Sleeping Fatty

A classic story—a man goes out drinking one night and brings home a slender, sexy woman. After a night of passion, they fall asleep exhausted. The next morning the man is shocked to find out that he is not in bed with a beautiful woman, but a giant mound of flesh the size of four woman. Somehow, over the night, he bedmate caught the yokai disease nebutori-the sleeping fatty.

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Konjyaku Hyakki Shui, and Japanese Wikipedia

Weather-beaten, sake-bearing snow lady or servant to the Goddess of Cosmetics? It all depends on who ask when you are dealing with Oshiroi Baba – The Face Powder Hag.

What Does Oshiroi Baba Mean?

Oshiroi Baba uses the kanji 白粉 (oshiroi; white face powder) + 婆 (baba; old woman, hag). The word oshiroi specifically refers to the white face powder used by geisha and maiko.

Her name is pretty straight forward, and leans towards the Goddess of Cosmetics definition of this yokai.

What Does Oshiroi Baba Look Like?

No matter which definition of Oshiroi Baba you prefer, she always looks the same. An ancient woman with a back severely bent by age, she leans on a bamboo cane. She wears a ragged kimono and a massive, straw umbrella hat covered in heavy snow. In her hand is a bottle of sake, usually a classic ceramic tokkuri. Her face is covered in oshiroi powder, often slathered on without delicacy or care.

By some accounts she drags a mirror behind her, which clangs and rattles in her wake. The mirror, however, is almost always heard but not seen. Few depictions of the Oshiroi Baba include this detail.

Servant to The Goddess of Cosmetics

Oshiroi Baba appears in Toriyama Sekien’s Konjyaku Hyakki Shui (今昔百鬼拾遺; Supplement to The Hundred Demons from the Present and the Past). Toriyama wrote:

“Legend tells of a Goddess of Crimson Cosmetics named Shifun Senjo (脂粉仙娘). Her servant is the possibly Oshiroi Baba, who comes on moonlit nights in the twelfth month as she has since long ago.”

The source for Toriyama’s picture and story are not known. In fact, even this so-called “Goddess of Crimson Cosmetics” Shifun Senjo appears nowhere other than Toriyama’s prescription. Draw what conclusions from that as you may.

The Sake-Bearing Snow Hag

Another legend of the Oshiroi Baba supposedly comes from the Noto Peninsula in Ishikawa prefecture. The story tells of an old yokai woman who comes out during heavy snow storms bringing hot sake to those in need—like some alcohol-bearing Santa Claus.

This story comes from folklorist Fujiwara Morihiko’s book Zusetsu Minzokugaku Zensho(図説民俗学全集; Complete Illustrated Work of Folklore). Fujiwara describes the Oshiroi Baba as analogous to the Yuki Onna. However, there is no supporting evidence to Fujiwara’s claims, and subsequent folklorists have been unable to find any such legends from the Noto Peninsula or elsewhere.

The Oshiroi Baba of Hasedera Temple

Oshiroi Baba from the film Yokai Hyakumonogatari. Image found on this site.

A further story of the Oshiroi Baba comes from Hasedera Temple in Nara prefecture. It has been sourced back to the Muromachi period, and has little in common with other legends.

In the 6th year of Tembun (1537), Abbot Koshin of Hasedera Temple had an idea to help the war-torn state of the nation. He would assemble artistic monks from across the country to paint an image of the Goddess Kannon—an image on a sheet of paper as large as the Hondo main temple itself.

Unfortunately, the army of the Ashikaga shogunate came into town at the same time, and requisitioned all of the provisions that were supposed to go to feeding the artist-monks. With the food all going to the soldiers, the monks were starving and were unable to complete their painting. They pleaded and prayed to Kannon to give them the means to finish their great work.

The next day, a young monk spotted an unknown young woman washing rice down at the local well. She pulled rice from her bucket, washed and ground it on a stone, then set it into a plate to dry. The strange thing was, her bucket never seemed to empty. So long as she left a single grain behind, the bucket would magically refill with rice. Soon there was enough rice to feed the entire Temple.

The young monk was amazed, and felt this woman must be an emissary of Kannon, if not Kannon herself. But as she was bent over her work, he could not see her face. And the young monk desperately wanted to see her face. He came up with a plan and lobbed a small stone at her back. As she looked up, he saw her face glowed with a holy light. Her skin was snow white, and looked as if she were made of oshiroi powder. And in spite of the young appearance of her body, her face was deeply lined as if she felt all of the worries of the monks of the world.

Fortified by this miracle, the artist monks were able to finish their portrait. In gratitude, they enshrined the Oishiroi Baba and built a temple in her honor. This temple can still be seen on the grounds of Hasedera Temple today.

Translator’s Note:

My theme for December is snow monsters, so of course the first one I pick isn’t really a snow monster! Well, I suppose it all depends on which legend you prefer. There is very little background on this yokai, and most agree that it was invented by Toriyama Sekein and that others have attempted to fill in the blanks ever since. Why he would draw an old woman in the snow, then make her the servant of some mysterious Goddess of Cosmetics, is a mystery. Not to mention the fact that she is clearly carrying a sake bottle and not some sort of cosmetics palette … ah well, no one every accused Toriyama of making sense.

Personally, I like the sake-bearing snow yokai who bounds up like some sort of magical St. Bernard dog or Santa Claus and pours hot sake down the throats of those in need. I think it suits the image best.  But then I also love the story of Hasedera Temple, as that was a temple I spent quite a bit of time at when I was a JET in Nara prefecture. I heard the story of the rice when I was there, but never connected it with the Oshiroi Baba until now.

Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources

Is Japan’s Icicle Woman naughty or nice? Loving or lethal? If the stories are to be believed, Japan’s answer to Pygmalion can swing both ways. So a warning to men—if you fashion a woman out of an icicle, even when you pour your entire heart into it, don’t be surprised if she turns out cold-blooded.

What Does Tsurara Onna Mean?

Another yokai with a straight-forward name, tsurara onna’s name is written asつらら (tsurara; icicle) + 女 (onna; woman). Strangely enough, she almost never uses the kanji for tsurara (氷柱), always using the hiragana instead. The only reason I can think of for this is that kanji was once considered masculine for names, and hiragana feminine. It’s a possibility, but that’s all it is.

There are two regional variations on Tsurara Onna, using local dialect for the word “icicle.” One is Shigama Nyobo (シガマ女房; Icicle Wife) from Western Aomori prefecture, and the other is Kanekori Musume  (カネコリ娘; Icicle Daughter) from Gifu prefecture.

What are Tsurara Onna?

All Tsurara Onna stories start out the same—a lonely man gazes out of his window in winter, and marvels at the beauty of an icicle hanging from his eaves. As he stares deeply into its crystal structure, he wishes he could meet a woman as beautiful as the icicle to ease the pains of his loneliness. Like magic (for it is indeed magic) a woman fitting that description shows up the very next day.

The woman appears at the man’s door, seeking refuge from a massive, sudden snow storm. The man lets the beautiful woman in, and they fall in love. The woman decides never to leave, and the two become husband and wife. (In old Japan, no ceremony was necessary for this; as soon as a couple decided they were married, then they were married).

Life is good—for a while. The man’s new wife is attentive and loving and everything he hoped for. But then things go wrong, because there is rarely a Happily Ever After in Japanese folklore, and never when you are dealing with snow monsters.

Tsurara Onna tales fork at this point, into one of two endings. The ending you get depends largely on the region of Japan you live in.

Story #1 – The Sweet Woman Undone by Her Husband’s Love

The man is overjoyed at his new wife, but worried too. He cannot help but notice that his bride never uses the bath, even on the most chilly of nights. The poor man is worried about his wife’s health—surely she will take sick if she does not warm herself in the bath? Not to mention cleanliness. Time after time, he entreats her to use the bath. They are married now, he assures her, and she shouldn’t feel shy or ashamed.

The woman demurs, but eventually she can no longer refuse her husband. After he prepares a warming bath for her, the man busies himself about the house so she can enjoy her soak. Hours pass, and the man becomes worried about her. Perhaps she has fallen asleep? He goes into the back to check on her, and finds the tub empty, with only frozen shards of shattered icicles laying around the perimeter of the bath. These too slowly melt away …

This version of the tale is most often found in the Tohoku region, including Aomori and Nigata prefectures. There are some further variations:

Yamagata Prefecture – The woman does not go to the bath, but into the kitchen to heat up some hot sake for her husband. After a long wait, he goes to the kitchen to find the shattered icicle shards.

Akita Prefecture – This version has a husband and wife taking care of a young woman traveler instead of a new bride; but the results are the same. Against her wishes, into the bath the young traveler goes.

Story #2 – The Frozen Dagger of Hate

Her, the husband does not coax his wife into the bath, or ask her to retrieve hot sake for him. Instead they pass the winter in bliss. But as spring comes and the temperature warms, the man notices his wife getting anxious. One day he wakes up to find her gone, the door of their house standing open and the last of the winter winds blowing through.

The man is heartbroken, but assumes his wife has left him after using him for shelter though the winter. He moves on with his life, and meets a new woman and falls in love. Come summer, he moves his new wife into his house. They pass the months happily until winter comes again.

When the world again freezes over, the man notices a particularly large icicle forming from the eaves of his house. Fascinated by it, he goes outside for a better look. There he sees his former wife, livid that she has been replaced.

Inside the house, the new wife hears her husband shriek in agony. She rushes outside and finds him dead, a large icicle piercing his head through his eyeball.

This angrier version of the Tsurara Onna tale is found mostly in Nigata prefecture.

Translator’s Note:

The second in a series on snow monsters for December, the Tsurara Onna is a type of story found all over the world. A man bringing a woman to life from an inanimate object is a typical folklore story, the archetype of which is the Greek story of Pygmalion. With the second version of Tsurara Onna, I also can’t help but think of a sexier, angrier version of Frosty the Snowman—especially how she has to leave in the spring and return in the winter.

The Tsurara Onna also falls into the “magical wife” category so often found in Japanese folklore. These come in a myriad of variety, but always with the same simple plot. An unmarried man suddenly meets a wonderful woman, and they are married. They can stay happy forever so long as the husband obeys a single rule (for example, “Don’t look in a box,” or “Don’t tell anyone your story,” or “Don’t make me take a bath.”). The rule is inevitably broken, the wife leaves—with or without vengeance—and the man is left alone again, knowing that he could have had a happy life if he just would have obeyed the stupid rule.

Further Reading:

For more tales of snow monsters and magical wives, check out:

Oshiroi Baba – The White Face Powder Hag

Kitsune no Yomeiri – The Fox Wedding

The Yurei Child