Yōkai

thumb|A print by [[Kawanabe Kyōsai]]

are a class of supernatural entities and spirits in Japanese folklore. Yōkai are a vast range of beings, including shapeshifters, ghosts, demons, and tricksters. They can be mischievous, helpful, or malevolent, often appearing as animal-like figures, possessed objects, or humanoids. They embody the mysterious and uncanny aspects of nature and human emotions.

are also referred to as , or . Some academics and Shinto practitioners acknowledge similarities within the seeming dichotomy between the natures of yōkai and most kami, which are generally regarded as relatively beneficent in comparison, and class the two as ultimately the same type of spirits of nature or of a mythological realm.

Their behavior can range from malevolent or mischievous to benevolent towards humans.

often have animal-like features (such as the , depicted as appearing similar to a turtle, and the , commonly depicted with wings), but may also appear humanoid in appearance, such as the (口裂け女). Some resemble inanimate objects (such as the ), while others have no discernible shape. are typically described as having spiritual or supernatural abilities, with shapeshifting being the most common trait associated with them. that shapeshift are known as or .

Japanese folklorists and historians, such as Michael Foster, describe as part of how humans "fashion from a perilous landscape something concrete [...] the naming of identifies the threat, specifying the nature of the danger..." In the Edo period (1603 to 1868), many artists, such as Toriyama Sekien (1712-1788), invented new by taking inspiration from folktales or purely from their imagination. Today, several such (such as the ) are mistakenly thought to originate in more traditional folklore.

The kanji representation of the word comprises two characters that both mean "suspicious, doubtful", and while the Japanese name is simply the Japanese transliteration or pronunciation of the Chinese term yāoguài (which designates similarly strange creatures), some Japanese commentators argue that the word yōkai has taken on many different meanings in Japanese culture, including referring to a large number of uniquely Japanese creatures.

Concept

The concept of varies greatly throughout Japanese culture and historical periods; typically, the older the time period, the higher the number of phenomena deemed to be supernatural and the result of . According to Japanese ideas of animism, spirit-like entities were believed to reside in all things, including natural phenomena and objects. Such spirits possessed emotions and personalities: peaceful spirits were known as , who brought good fortune; violent spirits, known as , brought ill fortune, such as illness and natural disasters. Neither type of spirit was considered to be .

One's ancestors and particularly respected departed elders could also be deemed to be , accruing status as protective spirits who brought fortune to those who worshiped them. Animals, objects and natural features or phenomena were also venerated as or propitiated as depending on the area.

Rituals for converting into were performed, aiming to quell malevolent spirits, prevent misfortune and alleviate the fear arising from phenomena and events that otherwise had no explanation. The ritual for converting into was known as the . rituals for that failed to achieve deification as benevolent spirits, whether through a lack of sufficient veneration or through losing worshippers and thus their divinity, became .

Over time, phenomena and events thought to be supernatural became fewer and fewer, with the depictions of in picture scrolls and paintings beginning to standardize, evolving more into caricatures than fearsome spiritual entities. Elements of the tales and legends surrounding began to be depicted in public entertainment, beginning as early as the Middle Ages in Japan. During and following the Edo period, the mythology and lore of became more defined and formalized.

In Japan before the Meiji period, supernatural beings were rarely referred to as yōkai. Most of the supernatural entities known as yōkai today were instead called by other names, such as oni or bakemono, during the pre-Meiji era. The reason the word yōkai has become the standard term for supernatural beings in modern Japan used both academically and in everyday language is due to a Meiji-era scholar named Inoue Enryō (Japanese: 井上円了). He established an academic discipline called yōkaigaku (yōkaiology) in an effort to eradicate superstitions surrounding them.

File:Katsushika_Hokusai_-_The_Lantern_Ghost%2C_Iwa_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg| by Katsushika Hokusai

File:Kuniyoshi Kidomaru.jpg| by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

File:Suushi Nekomata.jpg| from the Hyakkai Zukan by Sawaki Suushi

File:Yoshitoshi_The_Ground_Spider.jpg| from the by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

File:Gamayoukai.JPG| from the Volume 2, special issue as follows:

(; animals, either real or imaginary)
(; trees)
(; paths)
(; water)
(; sound)
(; the sea)
(; mountains)
(; snow)

History

Ancient history

772 CE: In the , there is the statement "Shinto purification is performed because appear very often in the imperial court," using the word to not refer to any one phenomenon in particular, but to strange phenomena in general.
Middle of the Heian period (794–1185/1192): In The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon, there is the statement "there are tenacious ," as well as a statement by Murasaki Shikibu that "the have become quite dreadful," which are the first appearances of the word .
1370: In the , in the fifth volume, there is the statement, "Sagami no Nyudo was not at all frightened by ."

right|thumb|upright=1.25|[[Yamata no Orochi from the by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi]]

The ancient times were a period abundant in literature and folktales mentioning and explaining . Literature such as the , the , and various expositioned on legends from the ancient past, and mentions of , , among other kinds of mysterious phenomena can already be seen in them. In the Heian period, collections of stories about and other supernatural phenomena were published in multiple volumes, starting with publications such as the and the , and in these publications, mentions of phenomena such as can be seen.

The that appear in this literature were passed on to later generations. Despite the literature mentioning and explaining these , they were never given any visual depictions. In Buddhist paintings such as the Hell Scroll (Nara National Museum), which came from the later Heian period, there are visual expressions of the idea of , but actual visual depictions would only come later in the Middle Ages, from the Kamakura period and beyond.

Yamata no Orochi was originally a local god but turned into a who was slain by Susanoo. Yasaburo was originally a bandit whose vengeful spirit () turned into a poisonous snake upon death and plagued the water in a paddy, but eventually became deified as the "wisdom god of the well." and are sometimes treated as gods in one area and in other areas. From these examples, it can be seen that among Japanese gods, there are some beings that can go from god to and vice versa.

Post-classical history

right|thumb|upright=1.25|The , author unknown, [[Muromachi period]]

Medieval Japan was a time period where publications such as , , and other visual depictions of started to appear. While there were religious publications such as the , others, such as the , were intended more for entertainment, starting the trend where became more and more seen as subjects of entertainment. For examples, tales of extermination could be said to be a result of emphasizing the superior status of human society over . Publications included:

The (about an ), the (about a ), the (concerning serpent/dragon-folk oppressed by a giant centipede yōkai), the (about ), and the (about a giant snake). These were about that come from even older times.
The , in which Sugawara no Michizane was a lightning god who took on the form of an , and despite attacking people after doing this, he was still deified as a god in the end.
The , the , (both about Tamamo-no-Mae), and the (about a monkey). These told of mutations of animals.
The , which told tales of thrown away, not-too-precious objects that come to have a spirit residing in them planning evil deeds against humans, and ultimately get exorcised and sent to peace.
The , depicting many different kinds of all marching together

In this way, that were mentioned only in writing were given a visual appearance in the Middle Ages. In the , familiar tales such as Urashima Tarō and Issun-bōshi also appeared.

The next major change in came after the period of warring states, in the Edo period.

Modern history

Edo period

1677: Publication of the , a collection of tales of various monsters.
1706: Publication of the . In volumes such as (volume 1) and (volume 4), collections of tales that seem to come from China were adapted into a Japanese setting.
1712: Publication of the by Terajima Ryōan, a collection of tales based on the Chinese .
1716: In the specialized dictionary , there is an entry on , which states, "Among the commoners in my society, there are many kinds of (mysterious phenomena), often mispronounced by commoners as Types include the cry of weasels, the howling of foxes, the bustling of mice, the rising of the chicken, the cry of the birds, the pooping of the birds on clothing, and sounds similar to voices that come from cauldrons and bottles. These types of things appear in the , methods of exorcising them can be seen, so it should serve as a basis."
1788: Publication of the by Masayoshi Kitao. This was a diagram book of , but it was prefaced with the statement "it can be said that the so-called in our society is a representation of our feelings that arise from fear," and already in this era, while were being researched, it indicated that there were people who questioned whether really existed or not.

It was in this era that the technology of the printing press and publication was first started to be widely used, that a publishing culture developed, and was frequently a subject of and other publications.

As a result, shops that handled such books spread and became widely used, making the general public's impression of each fixed, spreading throughout Japan. For example, before the Edo period, there were plenty of interpretations about what the were that were classified as , but because of books and publishing, the notion of became anchored to what is now the modern notion of .

Meiji and Taishō periods

right|thumb|The Heavy Basket from the by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1892

1891: Publication of the by Shibue Tamotsu. It introduced folktales from Europe, such as the Grimm Tales.
1896: Publication of the by Inoue Enryō
1900: Performance of the kabuki play at the Kabuki-za in January. It was a performance in which appeared numerous such as the , skeletons, , , among others. Onoe Kikugorō V played the role of many of these, such as the .
1914: Publication of the by Mitsutaro Shirai. Shirai expounded on plant from the point of view of a plant pathologist and herbalist.

With the Meiji Restoration, Western ideas and translated Western publications began to make an impact, and Western tales were particularly sought after. Things like , , and were talked about, and were even depicted in classical . Although the were misunderstood as a kind of Japanese or , they actually became well known among the populace through a called by San'yūtei Enchō, which were adoptions of European tales such as the Grimm fairy tale "Godfather Death" and the Italian opera (1850). Also, in 1908, Kyōka Izumi and jointly translated Gerhart Hauptmann's play The Sunken Bell. Later works of Kyōka such as were influenced by The Sunken Bell, and so it can be seen that folktales that come from the West became adapted into Japanese tales of .

Shōwa period

Since have been introduced in various kinds of media, they have become well known among people from all walks of life. The from before the war, the manga industry, shops that continued to exist until around the 1970s, and television all contributed to the public knowledge and familiarity with . play a role in attracting tourism and revitalizing local mecca regions such as Tōno in Iwate Prefecture (where stories in Kunio Yanagita's ' were collected) or Tottori Prefecture (Shigeru Mizuki's birthplace).

In this way, are spoken about in legends in various forms, but traditional oral storytelling by the elders and the older people is rare, and regionally unique situations and backgrounds in oral storytelling are not easily conveyed. For example, the classical represented by can only be felt as something realistic by living close to nature, such as with (Japanese raccoon dogs), foxes and weasels. Furthermore, in the suburbs and other regions, even when living in a primary-sector environment, there are tools that are no longer seen, such as the inkstone, the (a large cooking pot), or the (a bucket used for getting water from a well), and there exist that are reminiscent of old lifestyles, such as the and the .

On the other hand, the introduced through mass media are not limited to only those that come from classical sources like folklore, and just as in the Edo period, new fictional continue to be invented, such as scary school stories and other urban legends like and , giving birth to new . From 1975 onwards, starting with the popularity of , these urban legends began to be referred to in mass media as "modern ." This terminology was also used in recent publications dealing with urban legends, and the researcher on , , used this especially frequently. and Mizuki himself, through , created about 30 new .

There has been much criticism that this mixing of classical with newly created is making light of tradition and legends. the haradashi, with its belly on its face, and the mumashika, a comical-looking yokai with a horse head and a deer body.

In popular culture

are often referred to as Japanese spirits or East Asian ghosts, like the legend or the story of the "Slit-mouthed girl," both of which hail from Japanese legend. The term can also be interpreted as something strange or unusual.

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, and is one of the first Western publications of its kind.

Yōkai remain prevalent in modern works of fiction. Shigeru Mizuki, the manga creator of such series as GeGeGe no Kitaro and Kappa no Sanpei, keeps yōkai in the popular imagination. Other popular works focusing on yōkai include the Nurarihyon no Mago series, Yu Yu Hakusho, Inuyasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale, Yo-kai Watch and the 1960s Yokai Monsters film series, which was loosely remade in 2005 as Takashi Miike's The Great Yokai War and more recently Yukinobu Tatsu's Dandadan and the video games Genshin Impact, Phasmophobia and Nioh series.

References

Notes

Citations

Works cited

External links

Yōkai and Kaidan (PDF; 1.1 MB)
The Ōishi Hyōroku Monogatari Picture Scroll
Database of images of Strange Phenomena and Yōkai (Monstrous Beings)
Collection: Supernatural in Japanese Art , from University of Michigan Museum of Art