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What’s the Difference Between Yurei and Yokai?
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...
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Oseichu – The Mimicking Roundworm
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...
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Shio no Choji – Salty Choji
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”...
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Suppon no Yurei – The Turtle Ghost
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...
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Suppon on Onryo – The Vengeful Ghosts of the Turtles
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...
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Nebutori – The Sleeping Fatty
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...
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When Food Attacks – 6 Food Monsters From Japan
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...
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Oshiroi Baba – The Face Powder Hag
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...
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Tsurara Onna – The Icicle Woman
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...
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Yukinba/Yukifuriba – The Snow Hags
Translated and Sourced from Bakemono Emaki, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources Hopping on one foot and eternally hunting for children to eat, the Yukinba is one of Japan’s most horrible snow...
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Yuki Warashi / Yukinbo – The Snow Babies
Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources Snow and ice have a certain magic to them. You can craft them into whatever shape you want, from snow men to...
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Yuki Onba and Yukinko – The Snow Mother and the Snow Child
Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Miyagi-ken no Kowai Hanashi, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources Walking along a forest path at night in the dead of winter, you come upon a...
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Yuki Onna – The Snow Woman
Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Kwaidan, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources The Yuki Onna is one of Japan’s most well-known and yet unknown yokai....
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Yuki Jiji – The Old Man of the Snow
Translated and Sourced from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujyara, Kaii Yokai Densho Database, Japanese Wikipedia, and Other Sources In the village of Hishiyama in Nigata prefecture, there is at least one...
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7 Types of Yokai – Japan’s Snow Monsters
In the frozen north of the Japan, the snow piles deep and high and brings monsters. Whether riding on the avalanche, or coming in the guise of a beautiful young woman or a little lost boy, or hoping...
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Two Tales From the Konjaku Monogatari
Translated and Adapted from Konjaku Monogatari – Tales of Times Now Past How Tosuke Ki’s Meeting with a Ghost-Woman in Mino Province Ended in His Death Tosuke Ki was traveling to his estate in Mino...
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Mizuki Shigeru and American Horror Comics
When you think of influences on Japanese comic book legend Mizuki Shigeru, names like Basil Wolverton, Bob Powell, and Warren Kremmer don’t usually spring to mind. After all, those artists drew for...
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Neko No Kai – The Cat Mystery
Translated from Edo Tokyo Kaii Hyakumonogatari March 17th: A black-spotted, two-tailed cat appeared suddenly, slinking around the Motoyoshi family farmhouse. The son of the family, Genjiro, was fond...
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Yurei FAQ – Five Facts About Japanese Ghosts
To learn much more about Japanese Ghosts, check out my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost Yurei—Japanese Ghosts—follow certain rules; obey certain laws. They have a specific appearance and purpose. These...
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On Cutting a Spider’s Leg During a Game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai
Translated from Tonoigusa The brave young men had gathered together for a single purpose. “Tonight, we will exchange 100 stories and see if the legends are true; see if something terrifying awaits us...
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