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ukiyo-e print of yōkai, by Aotoshi Matsui

Yōkai ([妖怪, bewitching mystery] Error: {{nihongo}}: text has italic markup (help)) is a broad class of creature or spirit that exists in Japanese folklore.

Meaning

Translators assign the term yōkai many approximate English equivalents, among them "monster", "spirit", "apparition", "goblin", and "demon". Technically yōkai is defined as any being or phenomenon which defies an everyday explanation. Yōkai, a loanword derived from the Chinese yaōguaì, was a term exlusive to academic studies of folklore before it was popularized in post-war Japan by cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki. Mizuki's characters and illustrations, which were heavily inspired by the classic Japanese monsters and spirits which folklorists identified as yōkai, have have had a great influence on the modern popular conception of these creatures.

Modern Culture

Main article: Yōkai in popular culture

The folklore-inspired characters of Shigeru Mizuki and others have had a profound influence on Japan's modern love-affair with the monstrous, a phenomenon often referred to as the "Yōkai Boom". Though often as grotesque and spooky as their classic bakemono predecessors, modern yōkai often exhibit cute or comical traits as well.

In Edo period, many artists, such as Toriyama Sekien, created a lot of yōkai inspired by folklore or their own ideas, and present day not a few yōkai created by them (e.g. Kameosa and Amikiri, see below) wrongly considered as a legendary origin.

Some yōkai simply avoid human beings; they generally inhabit secluded areas far from human dwellings. Other yōkai, however, choose to live near human settlements out of some strange attraction to mankind; perhaps they are drawn by the warmth of human houses, or the oil that humans keep to feed their fires. Yōkai are traditionally associated with fire, the direction northeast, and the season of summer, when the spirit world is closest to the world of humans. Yōkai and obake are often depicted in guises as much humorous as terrifying.

Manga artist Shigeru Mizuki popularized many types of yōkai in his works since the 1960s (e.g. one-eyed yōkai superhero Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro). Lafcadio Hearn's collection of Japanese ghost stories entitled Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things includes stories of yūrei and yōkai such as Yuki-onna.

References

• Daijisen definition: Yōkai
• Daijirin definition: Yōkai
• Komatsu, Kazuhiko (January). "On Mizuki Shigeru's Depictions of Monsters and Apparitions" (PDF). Nichibunken Newsletter (57): 2–3. Retrieved January 18 2007. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Types

There are a wide variety of yōkai in Japanese folklore. In general, yōkai is a broad term, and can be used to encompass virtually all monsters and supernatural beings, even including creatures from European folklore on occasion (e.g., the English bugbear is often included in Japanese folklore to the point that some mistakenly believe it originates from said folklore).

"Ghostly zoology"

File:Yokai2.jpg

ukiyo-e print of yōkai, by Kawanabe Kyosai

In Japan, there can be found a good number of animals that are thought to have magic of their own. Most of these are henge (変化), shapeshifters, which often imitate humans, mostly women. Some of the better known animal yokai include the following:

• Tanuki
• Kitsune, (foxes)
• Hebi, (snakes)
• Mujina
• Bakeneko and nekomata, (cats)
• Ōkami, (wolves)
• Tsuchigumo (giant spiders)

Oni

One of the most well-known aspects of Japanese folklore is the oni, which is a sort of mountain-dwelling ogre, usually depicted with red, blue, brown or black skin, two horns on its head, a wide mouth filled with fangs, and wearing nothing but a tigerskin loincloth. It often carries an iron club or a giant sword. Oni are mostly depicted as evil, but can occasionally be the embodiment of an ambivalent natural force. They are, like many obake, associated with the direction northeast.

Tsukumogami

Tsukumogami are an entire class of yōkai and obake, comprising ordinary household items that have come to life on the anniversary of their one-hundredth birthday. This virtually unlimited classification includes Bakezouri (straw sandals), Karakasa (old umbrellas), Kameosa (old sake jars), and Morinji-no-kama (tea kettles).

Human transformations

ukiyo-e print of yōkai, by Kawanabe Kyosai

There are a large number of yōkai which were originally ordinary human beings, transformed into something horrific and grotesque usually by some sort of extreme emotional state. Women suffering from intense jealousy, for example, were thought to transform into the female oni represented by hannya masks. Other examples of human transformations or humanoid yōkai are the rokuro-kubi (humans able to elongate their necks during the night), the ohaguro-bettari (a figure, usually female, that turns to reveal a face with only a blackened mouth), futakuchi-onna (a woman with a voracious extra mouth on the back of her head), and dorotabō (the risen corpse of a farmer, who haunts his abused land), among many others.

Miscellaneous

There are countless number of yōkai that are too bizarre to fit into broad categories. These are usually some sort of perversion or transformation of creatures found in ordinary life, or are entirely new types of goblin-like creatures. Some examples are the abura-sumashi, an old, smug-faced and potato-headed goblin who drinks oil; the amikiri, a creature that exists for no other purpose than to cut mosquito netting; and the ushioni, a cow demon that is sometimes depicted with the body of a giant spider.

Popular culture

Various kinds of yōkai are encountered in folklore and folklore-inspired art and literature, particularly manga and Japanese horror. The man to whom most of the credit should go for keeping yōkai in the popular imagination (at least in Japan) is Shigeru Mizuki, the manga creator of such series as Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro and Sanpei no Kappa. With the exception of three volumes of Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, however, Mizuki's works have yet to be translated into English.

Main article: Yōkai in popular culture

See also

• Yaoguai
• Yūrei
• Obake
• Shigeru Mizuki
• Yuurei zaka
• Kijimunaa and other legendary beings of the Ryūkyū Islands
• Onryō
• List of legendary creatures in Japanese mythology

External links

• Youkai and Kaidan (PDF file)
• The Obakemono Project
• Tales of Ghostly Japan