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Yōkai (妖怪, "apparitions", "spirits", or "demons", also Romanized youkai, yokai, or yookai) are a class of obake, creatures in Japanese folklore (many with Chinese origins) ranging from the evil oni to the mischievous kitsune or snow woman Yuki-onna. Some possess part animal and part human features (e.g. Kappa and Tengu). Yōkai generally have a sort of spiritual or supernatural power, and so encounters with human beings tend to be dangerous. Yōkai also have different motives and agendas from human beings, which are often completely incomprehensible. Some modern stories tell of yōkai breeding with human beings to produce hanyō.
Japanese folklorists and historians use yōkai as "supernatural or unaccountable phenomena to their informants". 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.
Types
There are a wide variety of yōkai in Japanese mythology. In general, yōkai is a broad term, and can be used to encompass virtually all monsters and supernatural beings, even including creatures from Western mythology on occasion (e.g., the German bugbear is often included in Japanese mythology to the point that some mistakenly believe it originates from said myths).
"Ghostly zoology"
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
- Boars
- Hebi, snakes
- Mujina
- Cats (called bakeneko or nekomata when they gain supernatural power)
- 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
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. The futakuchi-onna (二口女, two mouthed woman), for example, grows an extra mouth on the back of her head, which is unknowingly fed by strands of her hair acting as tentacles of sorts. This is caused by a woman's extreme anxiety over her figure, and is only one example of extreme emotions causing supernatural changes in human beings. 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), dorotabou (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 Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, however, Mizuki's works have yet to be translated into English.
Anime and Manga
Yōkai have appeared in numerous anime and manga series, including:
- The InuYasha manga and anime series featuring a hanyou (or half-yōkai) and various yōkai and other spirits from Japanese mythology
- In the movie Princess Mononoke, there are many forest spirits
- The movie Pom Poko features tanuki as main characters and kitsune as supporting ones
- In the movie Spirited Away there is a bathhouse full of many kinds of spirits
- A character in the manga Hell Teacher Nube is a rokurokubi; many other yōkai play roles in the series as well
- The main character of the manga and anime Naruto has a kyubi or a nine-tailed fox sealed inside him
- Episode five of the anime xxxHolic features a number of kitsune
- The main character, Lum, and her family in the manga and anime Urusei Yatura are oni
- An aka-oni and ao-oni appear in the manga and anime Dragonball Z
- Jorge, a character in the manga and anime Yu Yu Hakusho is an oni
- In the anime and manga Saiyuki, Yōkai is a species that co-exists with the human race, and are the main antagonists of the series. However, of the four main protagonists, three are of part-yōkai heritage: a yōkai-like kami (god), a hanyou, and a former-human full yōkai.
- Many other manga and anime contain different types of yōkai. There are too many to mention here, but some others are Azumanga Daioh, Detective Conan (Case Closed), Ranma 1/2, Shaman King, and Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo.
- The anime Tactics in which the main character is some kind of japanese exorcist fighting onis and aradamas, whose team comprises yōkai such as a shapeshifter fox and a black tengu.
- Some Digimon are based on yōkai, such as the oni-like Ogremon and the kitsune-based Renamon.
Media and Other Works
Aside from appearances in anime and manga, yōkai have appeared in a number of other media as well. Amongst these are:
- The Yokai Daisenso movie series of the 1960s and 70s, as well as the 2005 remake
- The Harry Potter series, in which kappa and other creatures play minor roles
- The Tom Robbins novel Villa Incognito features a tanuki as the central character
- In "The Weeping Demon" segment of Akira Kurosawa's "Dreams", the central character encounters a person that resembles a traditional oni
- In the Hellboy comic books, Hellboy travelled to Japan and encountered a group of nukekubi.
- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III movie takes the mutant heroes back in time to feudal Japan where they are aligned with an ancient prophecy. They are mistaken for and referenced as kappa in the film.
Foreign Works
In the English-speaking world, knowledge of yōkai is slowly, but surely, developing a dedicated following. Hawaiian folklorist Glen Grant was known for his "Obake Files", a series of reports he developed about supernatural incidents in Hawaii; the grand bulk of these incidents and reports were of Japanese origin, though in retelling have been much modified from their original forms in Japanese folklore. Additionally, Mexican-American folklorist and author Alfred Avila included "La Japonesa", a story about a nekomusume, in his collection Mexican Ghost Tales of the Southwest.
See also
- Yaoguai
- Yūrei
- Obake
- Shigeru Mizuki
- Yuurei zaka
- Kijimunaa and other legendary beings of the Ryukyu Islands
- Onryō
- List of legendary creatures in Japanese mythology
External links
| Japanese mythology | ||
|---|---|---|
| Mythic texts |   | |
| Japanese creation myth | ||
| Takamagahara mythology | ||
| Izumo mythology | ||
| Hyūga mythology | ||
| Human age | ||
| Mythological locations | ||
| Mythological weapons | ||
| Major Buddhist figures | ||
| Seven Lucky Gods | ||
| Legendary creatures | ||
| Other | ||