Zashiki-warashi
A child-like yokai said to live in old houses in northern Japan. A house with a zashiki-warashi prospers, and when it leaves, the family declines. Featured in The Legends of Tono, it is the best-known yokai of good fortune.
Yokai
Supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore, such as the tengu and the kappa, passed down in every region of Japan.
Entries: 94
Gashadokuro
A gigantic skeleton yokai said to wander fields at night and attack and eat people. It is said to be formed from the bones of people who died without being given proper funerals. Its image comes from an ukiyo-e print by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.
Oni
The quintessential Japanese yokai, with horns on its head and a tiger-skin loincloth. It is familiar from the Setsubun bean-throwing festival and the folktale Momotaro. Its appearance is said to come from the "ushitora" direction of the demon gate.
Ittan-momen
A yokai in the form of a strip of white cotton cloth about one tan long, which flutters through the evening sky and wraps itself around people's necks and faces. It comes from the folklore of Kimotsuki, Kagoshima Prefecture, and became famous nationwide through the manga GeGeGe no Kitaro.
Yuki-onna (Snow Woman)
A beautiful female yokai in a white kimono who appears on snowy nights and freezes people with her icy breath. The version in Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan is the most famous, and legends of her are told throughout Japan's snow country.
Yoko (Fox Spirit)
The general name for fox yokai that bewitch people or take human form. Foxes are said to grow more tails and power the longer they live. Both good foxes, revered as messengers of Inari, and bad foxes that possess people have been told of.
Azukiarai (Bean Washer)
A yokai that makes a "shoki shoki" sound like washing azuki beans by the river. Usually only the sound is heard, with nothing to be seen. It is said to sing, "Shall I wash beans, or catch a person and eat them?", and legends of it are found throughout Japan.
Nue
A monster with the face of a monkey, the body of a tanuki, the limbs of a tiger and a snake for a tail. It cried eerily at night, and in The Tale of the Heike it was shot down by Minamoto no Yorimasa. Its name became a word for anything of uncertain identity.
Kodama (Tree Spirit)
A spirit said to dwell in old trees. The echo heard in the mountains (kodama or yamabiko) was thought to be the voice of these spirits answering. Cutting down a tree with a kodama is said to bring a curse.
Nurikabe
A yokai that appears as an invisible wall on a night road, blocking the way forward. It comes from a Fukuoka legend introduced by Yanagita Kunio, and it is said to vanish if you sweep the bottom of the wall with a stick.
Nuppeppo
A yokai that looks like a flabby lump of flesh, with no distinction between face and body, said to smell like rotting flesh. Toriyama Sekien drew it, and it is linked with the tale of a "flesh man" that appeared at Sunpu Castle at the start of the Edo period.
Ikuchi
A huge sea monster off the coast of Hitachi Province (Ibaraki Prefecture) described in Edo-period essays. It took hours to pass over a ship, and oil dripped from its body.
Kiyohime
A young woman who, betrayed in her love for the monk Anchin, turned into a giant serpent and chased him. The "Legend of Anchin and Kiyohime," in which she burned him to death inside the bell of Dojoji Temple, is a celebrated subject of Noh and kabuki.
Katawaguruma (One-Wheeled Cart)
A yokai in which a woman rides along a night road in an ox-cart with a single wheel wrapped in flames. It was said to curse anyone who saw it, and appears in Edo-period ghost story collections and Toriyama Sekien's yokai pictures.
Satori
A mountain yokai that reads people's minds. It frightens people by guessing their thoughts one after another, but it is helpless against the unexpected. Told of in the mountains of Hida and Mino, it was also drawn by Toriyama Sekien.
Nurarihyon
A yokai in the form of an old man with a large, protruding back of the head. It slips into houses during the busy evening hours and relaxes, drinking tea as if it were the master. Its image as the "supreme commander of the yokai" spread only in modern times.
Tesso (Iron Rat)
A yokai born when the grudge of the Heian-period monk Raigo turned into a horde of rats with iron teeth. They are said to have devoured the scriptures and Buddhist statues of Enryakuji Temple on Mount Hiei. Toriyama Sekien also drew it in his yokai books.
Nozuchi
A yokai said to live in the mountains and fields, with no eyes or nose, only a big mouth. It is said to roll down slopes to attack people. It is also known as one of the old names of the tsuchinoko.
Amanojaku
A little demon that reads people's hearts and deliberately does the opposite to make mischief. It is linked with the imps trampled underfoot by guardian statues, and its name became the word for a contrary person.
Daidarabotchi
Legends of a giant said to have made mountains and lakes, told all over Japan. He is said to have made Mount Fuji or dug Lake Biwa, and hollows and ponds said to be his footprints remain in many places. He is also said to be the origin of the place name Daita in Tokyo.