Yokai (妖怪) are a class of supernatural monsters, spirits, and demons in Japanese folklore. They are not easily categorized, encompassing a wide range of beings, from mischievous spirits to fearsome monsters, and even objects imbued with supernatural power. Yokai often blur the lines between the natural and supernatural, and are frequently featured in Japanese art, literature, and popular culture.
And click here to learn about a Yokai event occurring in Philadelphia.
2 comments:
Every time I encounter it, I love Japanese folklore, but have always been too lazy to really give it the time it deserves…there’s just so much that it’s intimidating.
It is wonderfully rich and bizarre, but I’ve somehow still managed to passively turn the majority of my exposure over to Miyazaki / Ghibli movies (the photos on this post remind me a lot of 'Spirited Away'!).
Despite that laziness, I did manage to stumble into a neat little web series on Yokai after the ‘Kaidan: an evening of 100 spirits’ post that I thought was pretty great.
Each episode is only 5 - 8 minutes long, so pretty digestible (sorry about the untidy link):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR82S6MFHeImrA8LyfLun8Nq79i6tjaal
The first episode has a little section in it about a place called Sakaiminato...a city that is evidently known as the 'Town of Yokai', and they have all of these amazing little bronze sculptures lining the streets. (at least 170 of them!)
But then, at night, the streetlights all project shadows of various yokai onto the ground!:
https://www.accessible-japan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/mizuki-shigeru-road-night-3.jpg
WOW. That photo is wonderful! Thanks so much for these links!
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