What is gashadokuro?
Gashadokuro is a skeleton yokai many times the size of a person. It is said to wander the fields at night with a rattling “gasha-gasha” sound, and when it finds a living person it attacks, crushes them in its hand and eats them. It is said to be born from the gathered bones and grudges of people who were never given proper funerals, such as those killed in battle or who died of starvation by the roadside.
A yokai born in the Showa era
Gashadokuro is often assumed to be an ancient yokai, but its name and story only spread in the Showa era, becoming famous through children’s yokai books from the 1960s onward. The name gashadokuro does not appear in sources from the Edo period or earlier, so it is considered a relatively new yokai.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi’s “Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre”
The image of the gashadokuro is based on a print by the Edo-period ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi, known in English as “Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre.” In this dramatic composition, a giant skeleton summoned by Princess Takiyasha, said to be the daughter of Taira no Masakado, pushes aside a bamboo blind to attack samurai. The skeleton in this print became widely known as the image of the gashadokuro.
