Tainted List

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Corrupt; Hazardous.

Akuchū
Hizounomushi, Akuchuu, Hizounokasamushi悪虫
あくちゅう

Translation: evil bug
Habitat: the spleen
Diet: prefers rice

Appearance: Akuchū is a very dangerous bug which infects the spleen. It can easily move throughout its host with its flexible segmented body and broad tail. It has six sharp claws with which it strongly grasps the spleen.

Interactions: Akuchū clings to the spleen and steals the food that its host eats with its hooked bill. No matter how much food is ingested, it is very difficult to gain weight or receive nourishment while infected with an akuchū.

Akuchū infections can be easily cured with mokkō (Chinese medicine made from a species of thistle).

Amazake babā
Amazakebabaa

甘酒婆
あまざけばばあ

Translation: amazake (a sweet, low-alcohol content form of sake) hag
Alternate names: amazake banbā
Habitat: dark streets at night, particularly in urban areas
Diet: amazake and sake

Appearance: Amazake babā is a haggardly old woman from northeastern Japan. She is practically indistinguishable from an ordinary old woman, which makes her difficult to recognize as a yōkai until it is too late.

Interactions: Amazake babā appears on winter nights and travels from house to house. She knocks on doors and calls out, “Might you have any amazake?” Those who answer her, whether the answer is yes or no, fall terribly ill. A cedar branch hung over the door is said to keep the amazake babā from approaching your house.

A variation of amazake babā from Yamanashi prefecture is called amazake banbā. She travels from house to house trying to sell sake and amazake. The consequences of replying to her are the same as with amazake babā, but the way to keep her at bay is slightly different. If you hang a sign at the front door that says “we do not like sake or amazake,” she will leave you alone and go on to the next house.

Origin: Originally amazake babā was considered to be a god of disease—specifically smallpox. During smallpox outbreaks, there was a large increase in amazake babā sightings in major urban centers across Japan, not just in the northeast. Rumors of old women roaming the streets at night selling sake and bringing sickness were rampant in large cities such as Edo, Kyōto, Osaka, and Nagoya. Fear of smallpox was a major concern in urban centers, and contributed to the popularity of amazake babā rumors.

Since the eradication of smallpox, the sickness spread by amazake babā’s has changed from smallpox to the common cold. Even today, statues of her can be found in cities. Mothers visit these statues to leave offerings of sake and amazake so that that their children will not become sick.

Bekatarō
べか太郎
べかたろう

Translation: unknown; a play on the name Tarō
Alternate names: bekuwatarō, bekuwabō, beroritarō, peroritarō, akanbei
Habitat: streets, alleys, and places with spare food
Diet: everything, even people

Appearance: Bekatarō is a short and pudgy yōkai with a head of matted, greasy hair. Its signature move is to pull down its lower eyelids with its fingers and stick its tongue out in a mocking guesture.

Origin: Bekatarō appears in a number of yōkai pictures scrolls under a number of different names. It appears as an illustration with a name only, so nothing is known about what it does or where it comes from. A backstory was eventually invented for bekatarō by Mizuki Shigeru.

Legends: Long ago, there was a baby boy named Tarō with an insatiable appetite. He could eat as much as 10, even 20 adults would eat. Eventually, his parents could no longer afford to feed him. They abandoned him, and he was forced to live on the streets.

Tarō survived by wandering the streets and begging strangers for food. But no matter how much food he was given, it was never enough to satisfy him. He was always hungry. His hunger was so great that be began to wonder what humans tasted like. Eventually, he gave in to his curiosity. He began to catch and eat people, and as a result transformed into a yōkai. From then on, whenever strangers would encounter Tarō on the streets, they would run away from him in fear.

Chirizuka kaiō
Chirizukakaiou塵塚怪王
ちりづかかいおう

Translation: strange king of the dust heap
Habitat: dirty, cluttered places
Diet: unknown

Appearance: Chirizuka kaiō is a red, hairy demon who resembles a small oni. His clothing is old and tattered. He has wild hair and wears a crown on his head. He is the king of the dust heap, but is also sometimes thought of as the king of the tsukumogami—the animated spirits of trash and discarded objects.

Behavior: Chirizuka kaiō appears in picture scrolls depicting the night parade of one hundred demons. In these scrolls he is prying open a Chinese-style chest and releasing a horde of tsukumogami—presumably the objects that were stored in the chest and forgotten.

Origin: Chirizuka kaiō’s earliest appearance comes from the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573 CE). In the earliest scrolls he is depicted without name or explanation. His name first appears in the Edo period, where he is depicted in Toriyama Sekien’s tsukumogami encyclopedia Hyakki tsurezure bukuro. This book contains a number of yokai based on puns. Chirizuka kaiō’s name appears to be a pun based on essay 72 from Tsurezure gusa, a popular collection of essays from the 14th century. This essay discusses the folly of having too many things—too much furniture in your home, too many pens at your inkstone, too many Buddhas in a temple, too many rocks and trees in a garden, too many children in your home, and so on. However, there is no such thing as having too many books on your book stand, or too much dust upon your dust heap.

In his description of chirizuka kaiō, Toriyama explains that there is nothing in creation which does not have a leader; the kirin is king of the beasts, the hōō is king of the birds, and so this chirizuka kaiō must be the king of the yama uba. The phrase is actually another pun, and refers to a line from the noh play Yamanba. The line explains that worldly attachments pile up like dust, and if you let them build up into a dust heap then you may turn into a yama uba. Despite this phrasing, chirizuka kaiō has come to be interpreted as the king of tsukumogami rather than yama uba. This is most likely because he appears in Hyakki tsurezure bukuro, which is full of tsukumogami. There is no other connection between chirizuka kaiō and yama uba, as chirizuka kaiō has only ever been depicted releasing yōkai from a chest. Perhaps Toriyama used the word yama uba as an allusion to yōkai born from worldly attachment and ignorance. Yama uba are created when one’s improper attachments pile up like a dust heap. Tsukumogami are born out of forgotten household objects whose owners could not bring themselves to properly dispose of. The same kind of improper attachment is what forms both of these yōkai.

Keneō
Keneou懸衣翁
けんえおう

Translation: clothes-hanging old man
Habitat: Meido, along the banks of the Sanzu River

Datsueba
Datsueba奪衣婆
だつえば

Translation: clothes-stealing old woman
Alternate names: sōzukaba, ubason
Habitat: Meido, along the banks of the Sanzu River

Appearance: Datsueba and Keneō are a terrifying pair of elderly oni. They guard the bridge and the banks of the Sanzu River. All souls must pass by them before moving on to Meido to be judged.

INTERACTION: During a Japanese funeral, 6 mon (and old form of currency) are placed in the coffin to be used as a toll to enter the underworld. Upon reaching the Sanzu River, the souls must cross either by bridge (if they were good in life), by wading in the shallows (if they were only somewhat good), or by swimming across the deepest part of the river (if they were wicked).

After crossing the river, each soul encounters Datsueba, who accepts the toll and strips the souls of the clothes on their backs. Datsueba hands the clothing to her partner, Keneō, who hangs it from a tree by the riverside. The amount that the branch bends under the weight of the clothes serves as a measure of the weight of the sin each soul carries, and is used as evidence in the trials to come. Of course, the clothes of those who had to ford the river or swim across are heavy and wet, which only makes the branches of the tree sag lower. If a soul arrives with no clothes, Keneō flays his or her skin and hangs it from the tree instead.

Datsueba and Keneō perform a little bit of torture themselves, breaking the fingers of those guilty of theft, and so on. They also roam the banks of the river, tormenting the souls of children who are too young to cross the river and must wait for salvation to come to them instead.

According to some accounts, Datsueba is the wife of King Enma. In the Edo period, she became a popular object of folk worship, and temples dedicated to her began to spring up around Japan. Prayers and charms dedicated to Datsueba were used as wards against disease and coughs, in particular for children’s coughs.

Dodomeki
Dodomeki百々目鬼
どどめき

Translation: hundred hundred eye (i.e. many-eyed) demon
Habitat: cities, towns, and especially marketplaces
Diet: as a human

Appearance: Dodomeki are cursed women with very long arms covered in tiny bird eyes. They were once human girls who developed a penchant for stealing money. Because of their wicked actions, one day hundreds of tiny bird eyeballs sprout out of their arms and they transform into this monster.

Origin: When Toriyama Sekien first described this yokai, he inserted a number of puns. The dodomeki is described as being a woman with long arms — having “long arms” in Japanese is a figure of speech meaning somebody who likes to steal a lot. Thus, the dodomeki has long arms, both figuratively and literally.

The copper coin, or dōsen, had a hole in the middle of it, and was colloquially known as a chōmoku, or “bird’s eye,” due to its shape. This play on words is the reason that this yokai grew birds’ eyes as a result of stealing copper coins. Money was also sometimes referred to as oashi, or “feet,” because it comes and goes as if it had its own feet.

The phrase ashi ga tsuku is a common idiom which means “to catch someone who has committed a crime.” Very clever readers would have noticed that if the word ashi, which can also mean money, is replaced with chōmoku, which can also mean money, the phrase changes to mean “covered in bird eyes.”

Legends: Long ago, in what is now Tochigi prefecture, lived a nobleman named Fujiwara no Hidesato. He had just been granted the title of kokushi of Shimotsuke province for his valor in defeating the rebel Taira no Masakado. One day while hunting in his newly acquired countryside, Hidesato was approached by an old man, who warned him that some kind of oni had been sighted at the horse graveyard at Utsunomiya. Hidesato grabbed his bow and arrow and went to investigate.

Hidesato reached the horse graveyard and waited until nightfall. When the hour of the ox came, an enormous demon appeared and ravenously began devouring horse carcasses. The demon stood over ten feet tall, had sharp, spiked hair, and was covered in glowing eyes all over its body. Hidesato carefully aimed an arrow at the brightest glowing eyeball and fired. The arrow hit its mark, and the demon roared in pain, fleeing into the woods until it finally collapsed at the foot of Mount Myōjin.

The battle was not over, for although the demon was near-fatally wounded, it still had power left. From its body erupted a torrent of flame. Its mouth split open and poisonous fumes spewed forth. The toxic air and intense heat proved too much for Fujiwara no Hidesato, who had to give up and return to his palace. When Hidesato returned the next day, the ground was blackened and burnt over a large area, but there was no sign of the demon.

400 years later, during the Muromachi period, the dodomeki finally reappeared. A village had sprung up on the northern slope of Mount Myōjin, and strange things had begun happening. The temple’s head priest had been suffering mysterious injuries and unexplained fires began to break out at the temple. A new head priest, the virtuous and holy Saint Chitoku, was called to discover what the cause of the strange problems was.

Saint Chitoku noticed that one young woman stopped by the temple frequently whenever he preached his sermons, and recognized it as the dodomeki in disguise. The demon, terribly wounded, had retreated into some caves nearby to heal. It transformed into a young woman, and had been visiting the site where it fell, gradually sucking back up all of the noxious fumes that it had breathed out, and collecting all of the blood that it had bled in the battle with Fujiwara no Hidesato. The village temple had been built on top of the battle site, and the dodomeki caused the fires and attacked the priest to scare them away.

One day, Saint Chitoku confronted the demon in disguise, and she finally revealed her true form was a dodomeki. She did not attack him, however; while frequenting the temple, she had overheard Chitoku’s powerful sermons, and they had stuck with her. The dodomeki promised that she would never again commit any act of evil. Since then, the area around Mount Myōjin has come to be known as Dodomeki.

Gaki
Gaki餓鬼
がき

Translation: hungry ghosts, preta; suffering spirits from Buddhist cosmology
Habitat: Gakidō, a realm of suffering, starvation, and thirst
Diet: gaki will try to eat anything, but are never able to find nourishment

Appearance: Gaki are spirits which live in horrible torment and are afflicted with constant suffering. They look vaguely human, but they have distended, bulging bellies and tiny, inefficient mouths and throats. They inhabit a parallel realm called Gakidō. It is a barren place, full of deserts, wastelands, and other inhospitable terrain.

Behavior: Gaki are eternally hungry and thirsty. There are many kinds of gaki, each of which suffers in a different way related to the sins he or she committed in a past life. Some are unable to eat or drink anything at all. Whenever they try to eat, the food instantly bursts into flames and vanishes. These gaki are only able to eat food which has been specially blessed for them in Buddhist services. Some gaki are able to eat only unclean things, such as feces, vomit, corpses, and so on. Others have no trouble eating anything they please. However, no matter how much they wolf down, their hunger and thirst are never sated.

INTERACTION: In some Buddhist traditions, a special ceremony called segaki is performed during the Obon season, to help ease the suffering of the gaki. In this ceremony, offerings of rice and water are laid out on special altars, out of sight of any statues of the gods or Buddha. The gaki are called to come and eat, while prayers are said to ease some of their suffering.

Origin: The realm of the gaki is considered one of the four “unhappy” rebirths. In the cosmology of birth and rebirth, the realm of the gaki is only one step above the realm of Jigoku—the main difference between the inhabitants of Jigoku and the gaki being that those in Jigoku are confined to their prison. Gaki may roam free as they suffer.

Today, the word gaki is also a very nasty term for a child. This comes from the perception of children always wanting more food and never feeling satisfied with what they get.

Gyōchū
Gyouchuu, Kitai, Mimimushi蟯虫
ぎょうちゅう

Translation: intestinal worm; pinworm
Habitat: the genitals

Appearance: Gyōchū are infectious yokai with six arms and long red tongues. They are extremely fond of chatting and gossiping. They live and reproduce in the sex organs, making them a sexually transmitted yōkai. Gyōchū reproduce in the sex organs on Kōshin night, a holy night which occurs every sixty days in the esoteric Kōshin religion. Gyōchū leave their hosts on these nights and visit Enma Daiō, the king of hell and judge of the damned. They tattle on their hosts, telling all of their dreams, desires, and sins to Enma, who will inflict his divine wrath on them accordingly.

Interactions: There is no treatment for a gyōchū infection. The only way to keep safe from this infection is to avoid any chance of contracting an infection by abstaining from sex on Kōshin night. Traditionally, Kōshin night is reserved for praying. Believers gather together and refrain from sleeping for the whole night, so faithful practitioners should have no problem avoiding contracting gyōchū. People who have sex on these holy nights are committing a grave sacrilege, which the gyōchū will report to King Enma. During the feudal era, terrible diseases (leprosy, for example) were believed to be divine punishments for those who disrespect the gods.

Today, the name gyōchū refers to the pinworm.

Gyūkan
Haimushi, Haishaku, Kiukan牛癇
ぎゅうかん

Translation: cow kan (kind of infection)
Alternate names: kiukan, hainoju, haikan (lung kan)
Habitat: the lungs

Appearance: Gyūkan is a type of kan no mushi—a creature which causes distemper and irritability in children. Kan no mushi can take many shapes and infect many parts of the body. A gyūkan is a kan no mushi which takes the shape of a cow and infects the lungs. It has a long tongue and sharp hooves. The lower part of its body is red.

Interactions: Gyūkan tend to act up when their hosts eat and drink. From their position in the lungs, they can sense when food enters the throat. They become very excited, and cause their hosts to faint.

There are many of ways to treat it with acupuncture. However, as it grows older its horns become longer and sharper, and recovery becomes more difficult.

Haimushi
Haimushi, Haishaku, Kiukan肺虫
はいむし

Translation: lung worm, lung bug
Habitat: the lungs
Diet: cooked rice

Appearance: Haimushi is a tiny moth-like creature with a segmented body and four wings. They live in the lungs most of the time, but occasionally leave the body and fly through the air. They have red faces with a triple-forked mouth, and white bodies like that of a maggot. They have colorful, feathery wings. They feed mainly on cooked rice.

Interactions: Haimushi infect the lungs and cause various health problems. If a haimushi leaves its host and gets lost, the person will die and the haimushi will transform into a fireball and burn up.

A haimushi infection can be treated with byakujutsu, a traditional remedy made from the powdered root of the herb Atractylodes japonica.

Haishaku
Haimushi, Haishaku, Kiukan肺積
はいしゃく

Translation: lung shaku (a type of infection)
Alternate names: sokuhon
Habitat: the lungs

Appearance: Haishaku originates under the right armpit and gradually migrates into the lungs. It grows from a smaller larval form into a large, white, lumpy shape that envelops the lungs and causes sickness. Its nose opens directly into the lugs, so it is extremely sensitive to smells.

Interactions: People infected with haishaku develop smooth, white skin. They begin to dislike strong smells, whether good or bad, and instead prefer raw, fishy smells. They prefer spicy foods over bland ones. They also commonly become pessimistic and depressed. Because the haishaku is shaped like a cloud, their hearts too become cloudy and subdued. Tears will also flow like rain.

Haishaku infections can be treated with very gentle and shallow acupuncture. Anything stronger than that will be too painful for the victim.

Hajikkaki
恥っかき
はじっかき

Translation: embarasser, shamer
Habitat: underground
Diet: unknown; likely feeds off its own shame

Appearance: Hajikkaki are pathetic looking yōkai with plump, white, hairless blobby bodies. They have round eyes and protruding fangs. They frequently cover their heads with their hands in a display of shame or embarrassment.

Origin: Hajikkaki appear in a number of old yokai scrolls, such as the Bakemono tsukushi emaki. Like most of the yōkai found in scrolls, all that is recorded is a name and an illustration. Everything else about them is entirely speculation, added on later by storytellers and folklorists.

Although nothing is written about hajikkaki, its illustrations are based on a Chinese spirit called the shahyōchū (謝豹虫). In Chinese folklore, shahyōchū are frog-like bugs which are born from the souls of people who died while feeling embarrassed. They are so shy that they spend their entire lives buried under the ground. If you should dig one up, it will bestow a curse of shame on you, and something terribly shameful or embarrassing will happen to you. Because hajikkaki’s name evokes the same feelings of shame, it’s possible that it was meant to be an artistic interpretation or reinvention of shahyōchū.

Hashika dōji
はしか童子
はしかどうじ

Translation: measles boy
Habitat: areas infected with measles

Appearance: Hashika dōji is a personification of measles who appears in Japanese prints. He looks like a large, ugly, muscular boy with red pox marks all over his body.

Origin: Measles has been endemic to Japan since ancient times. There where thirteen major epidemics recorded during the Edo Period. It was considered to be a right of passage that everyone would have to go through at some point in their life. Numerous folk remedies were devised for measles over the centuries. Many of them were similar to the traditions that grew up in response to other infectious diseases like smallpox. Small shrine to the gods of the disease were built to appease them into sparing the life of the infected. Images believed to have special warding powers were hung as talismans in homes where measles appeared. These images are called hashika e.

Hashika e became popular towards the end of the Edo Period, when new ideas about medicine were beginning to arrive in Japan. They were produced in large quantities and distributed around infected areas during outbreaks. They served a dual purpose–not only were the images used for good luck and to keep the evil spirits who cause measles at bay, but they were also informative. They contained detailed instructions on disease prevention, including lists of things to abstain from and medicinal foods to eat. Some important things to avoid during infection were sex, fish and shellfish, poultry, alcohol, oily foods, and pickled vegetables. Foods that were supposed to be helpful against measles included azuki beans, winter melon, lily, kanpyō, miso, sweet potato, black soybeans, barley, and zenmai. Some hashika e even contained information on the history of measles in Japan, and tips and techniques to treat the infected.

Hashika dōji was a common figure depicted in hashika e. He was usually depicted being tied up and beaten by small, anthropomorphic figures. These figures represent the industries which suffered due to loss of business during outbreaks. People with kegs for heads represented sake breweries, while tub-headed people represented bath houses. Entertainment industries were represented by prostitutes and people with pleasure boats for heads. These figures all teamed up to defeat the gigantic disease boy and save their industries. These images were also satirical; figures representing doctors and medicine peddlers–industries which profited during epidemics–were shown defending Hashika dōji and trying to calm the angry mob.

Hinoshu
Hishaku, Hinoshu脾ノ聚
ひのしゅ

Translation: spleen shu (a type of infection)
Habitat: the spleen

Appearance: Hinoshu is microbial yōkai with a lumpy, boulder-like appearance and an extremely large mouth. It infects the spleen.

Interactions: Hinoshu attacks occur when its host is relaxing outside, and when the host is among a crowd of people. It rolls about inside the body, bruising every part and causing a lot of pain. The victim feels as if he has fallen from a height onto an enormous boulder. Viewing beautiful rocks, such as in a zen garden, causes this infection to act up much more strongly, as the hinoshu becomes excited at all of the beautiful rocks.

When an infection takes this form, it becomes very difficult to recover from this illness. Traditionally, acupuncture is used to treat it, however the treatment is too complicated to learn in a book. It must be learned orally, from someone who has treated a hinoshu before.

Hishaku
Hishaku, Hinoshu脾積
ひしゃく

Translation: spleen shaku (a type of infection)
Alternate names: hiki
Habitat: near the belly button

Appearance: Hishaku is a microbe which lives near the belly button and infects the spleen. It has a fuzzy, yellowish, wolf-like body and a long red tongue. It has no legs. A large red pentagon-like shape appears on the hishaku’s side; this is a representation of the belly button.

Interactions: Hishaku mainly infect women. They cause in their hosts an extreme fondness for sweets, as well as a yellow tinge in the face. Hishaku hosts tend to hum non-stop. They can cause extremely heavy menstrual bleeding as well as irregular vaginal discharge. Women infected this way have difficulty getting out of bed. Hishaku infections are most likely to occur during the changing of the seasons. This is because hishaku are related to the element of earth in Chinese element theory, and those days are also closely related to the element of earth.

Hishaku can be treated with acupuncture in an area about one centimeter around the belly button. The techniques for this treatment are only passed down orally.

Hizō no kasamushi
Hizounomushi, Akuchuu, Hizounokasamushi脾臓の笠虫
ひぞうのかさむし

Translation: capped spleen worm
Habitat: the spleen

Appearance: Hizō no kasamushi get their name from the bright red cap-like feature on top of their heads. They have a long, worm-like body covered in short red hairs, which ends in a hairy forked tail.

Interactions: The hizō no kasamushi’s cap interferes with the normal intake of food, so people infected with this worm become pale and weak. It can cause rapid weight loss as well as extreme weight gain.

This bug is very difficult to remove the from body, but its symptoms can be somewhat relieved by taking Chinese medicine made from agi (dried gum from the roots of ferula plants) and gajutsu (made from the stems and roots of turmeric plants).

Hizō no mushi
Hizounomushi, Akuchuu, Hizounokasamushi脾臓の虫
ひぞうのむし

Translation: spleen worm
Habitat: the spleen

Appearance: Hizō no mushi lives in the spleen and attacks the liver and muscles. It has a bright red body which is very hot. Its limbs are tipped with sharp claws. It staggers throughout the body on its thin legs.

Interactions: People infected with hizō no mushi take on some of its characteristics; most notably the staggering style of walking about, with left and right arms spread wide. When hizō no mushi reaches out from the spleen and grasps the liver in its talons, its victims develop hyperthermia. When hizō no mushi grasps the muscles in its talons, the victim’s body becomes hot and he begins to feel dizzy as if hit on the head.

A hizō no mushi infection can be cured by taking Chinese medicine made from mokkō (a species of thistle) and daiō (a kind of rheum).

Kakuran no mushi
Taibyounokesshaku, Kakurannomushi, Kishaku霍乱の虫
かくらんのむし

Translation: vomit and diarrhea bug
Habitat: the stomach

Appearance: Kakuran no mushi is a parasitic yōkai which lives in the stomach. It has a black head and a red body. It has tiny legs interspersed across its long body. Its facial expression resembles that of a person who is about to vomit; its mouth is open and its eyes are tiny pinpoints.

Interactions: People infected with kakuran no mushi suffer symptoms similar to food poisoning: frequent diarrhea and vomiting. This infection can be cured by taking goshuyu, a medicine made from a dried, unripe fruit (Tetradium ruticarpum).

In one record of a kakuran no mushi infection, this yōkai’s head was briefly visible in its host’s mouth during a particularly violent bout of vomiting. A friend of the victim grabbed the kakuran no mushi’s head to try to pull it out, but when he did, the victim became very weak and seemed as if he was about to lose consciousness. The friend let go of the head, and the kakuran no mushi retreated back into its hosts body. Afterwards, the victim died. When an autopsy was performed, the doctor found the kakuran no mushi wrapped up around its host’s liver so tightly that he couldn’t remove it. The doctor ground up shazenshi (Plantago asiatica) and mokkō (Saussurea costus) and sprinkled it on the kakuran no mushi, and the creature disappeared.

Kazenbō
Kazenbou火前坊
かぜんぼう

Translation: monk in the flames
Habitat: Toribeyama, a mountain in Kyōto
Diet: none

Appearance: Kazenbō is a ghostly apparition which resembles a monk wreathed in flames, being burnt alive. They appear on a mountain in Kyoto called Toribeyama, which has been used as a grave site for many centuries

Behavior: Kazenbō appear occasionally to visitors to the mountain. They don’t do anything harmful, but their horrific appearance is very disturbing. They materialize, appear to suffer in flames which never completely consume them, and then disappear.

Origin: During the Heian period, Toribeyama was an important burial ground and cremation site, especially for the nobility of the city. During major epidemics, many diseased bodies were burned there. It is said that there was an unending column of smoke rising from the mountain from all the burning bodies.

Towards the end of the 10th century, a number of monks decided to offer themselves up in ritual sacrifice by fire. They believed that in doing so, they would rid themselves of their worldy attachments, along with their bodies, and achieve enlightenment. The ceremony was open to the public, and a large number of people came to witness the event. However, it would seem that a number of these priests did not actually achieve enlightenment. They must not have been able to truly give up their attachments to the material world. So now, instead, their ghosts are doomed to haunt Toribeyama, appearing in ghostly flames as beggar-monks wreathed in the fires of ignorance and sin.

Kekkai
Kekkai

血塊
けっかい

Translation: blood clot
Alternate names: kekke
Habitat: under the floorboards of its birth house
Diet: its own mother

Appearance: Kekkai are a kind of sankai—childbirth monster—from Saitama, Kanagawa, and Nagano prefectures. They are small and ugly, resembling a monkey. Their hair is said to grow in backwards, and they have two tongues: one red and one white. They are sometimes born from pregnant mothers instead of human babies.

Behavior: When a kekkai emerges, covered in blood and amniotic fluid, it quickly scampers away from its mother and tries to escape. This is most often accomplished through the irori, or earthen hearth, a common feature in old country houses. It either burrows down beneath the floorboards, or climbs up the long pothook which hangs above the irori and flees. If the kekkai is able to escape, it will return later to kill its mother while. It does this by burrowing up through the floorboards and into its sleeping mother, tearing her apart.

Interactions: A few traditional precautions exist to protect against kekkai. The most important is preparation. A large shamoji—a spatula—is placed by the irori. When the kekkai tries to climb up the pothook, it must be swatted down and caught before it has a chance to escape.

Another common precaution is to surround the floor around the mother with byōbu—folding screens—to prevent a kekkai from escaping. This practice is the source of a play on words surrounding this yōkai’s name: the byōbu creates a spiritual barrier, or kekkai (結界), which prevents the kekkai from escaping.

Origin: Kekkai are almost certainly a way to explain the dangers surrounding childbirth and the existence of birth defects. Before modern medicine was invented, death from complications relating to childbirth was not uncommon. A grieving family might be easily convinced that a mother’s death was caused by some evil spirit—some kind of spiritual punishment for the family’s sins. Similarly, it is not hard to imagine how earlier cultures might have seen premature, stillborn, or deformed babies as monsters. Referring to them as yōkai may have been an attempt to understand the unknown and unexplainable.

Kishaku
Taibyounokesshaku, Kakurannomushi, Kishaku気積
きしゃく

Translation: mind/spirit/mood shaku (a type of infection)
Habitat: the stomach
Diet: oily foods

Appearance: Kishaku’s most distinguishing feature is its mouth, which is split three ways. It has a red, furry body with a white stripe and a black tail. It loves greasy, oily foods. It lives in the stomach and feeds off of the oily foods, such as fish and chicken, that its host eats. It completely ignores rice and other foods that it doesn’t like.

Interactions: People infected with kishaku experience an extreme increase in sexual desire. This sickness can be cured with medicine made from a tiger’s intestines.

Kitai
Gyouchuu, Kitai, Mimimushi鬼胎
きたい

Translation: uterus evil spirit; uterus ghost
Habitat: the uterus

Appearance: Kitai is a grotesque infectious yōkai which begins as a blood clot the size of a large sake cup. Its life cycle begins in the left abdomen, and as it grows it migrates to the uterus. Gradually, it develops a face that looks like a frightful cow, bright red with black horns. It grows a long body which coils around like a snake’s. Kitai has a very short temper, but moves extremely slowly, like a slug. Because of this it tends to feel a lot of stress, which it passes on to its host.

Interactions: Once a kitai takes on its adult form it is difficult to recover from. When a kitai slithers about inside of its host, it causes bouts of hysteria. It is difficult to treat with acupuncture, because the needles often cause the kitai to become stressed, which worsens the condition. There are secret ways of treating slow moving bugs like the kitai, but they are passed on orally from master to student.

Kokuri babā
古庫裏婆
こくりばばあ

Translation: hag of the old temple living quarters
Habitat: old, dilapidated temples
Diet: human flesh

Appearance: A kokuri babā is an old hag which inhabits temples deep in the mountains. She hides herself away in the back of the temple and feeds off of human corpses.

Behavior: A kokuri babā was once a priest’s widow at a remote, rural temple. While her husband lived, she was a dutiful wife, helping run the temple, tending to the needs of the parishioners, cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of the temple grounds. However, after her husband’s death, she retreated into the temple’s living quarters and became a shut in. When her food stores ran out, she began to steal the offerings left behind by people visiting the temple. Because of this grave sin, she transformed into a yokai, unable to pass on to the next life. From then on, she developed a taste for human flesh. She survived by carving up meat from the corpses of the recently dead. When there were no fresh corpses available, she would unearth previously buried corpses and peel off chunks of their rotting skin off to gnaw on.

Interactions: Kokuri babā do not usually interact with people, preferring to stay hidden away in the back rooms of their temples. However, when traveling monks pay a visit to their temple, they do not pass up the chance for some fresh meat. People who encounter a kokuri babā usually realize too late that they are in danger.

Origin: Kokuri babā was invented by Toriyama Sekien for his book Konjaku hyakki shūi. Although it is written with words that literally mean “hag of the old temple living quarters,” Sekien was well known for using wordplay in his yōkai names, and this yōkai was no exception.

Kokuri is reminiscent of a popular folk phrase “Mukuri kokuri,” which is used as a metaphor for something scary. Indeed, Sekien points out in his description that kokuri babā is even more fearsome than Datsueba, the skin-flaying hag of the underworld. Parents would scold misbehaving children with, “Mukuri kokuri, a demon will come (if you don’t stop misbehaving)!”

Mukuri kokuri has a long history, originating in the the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. The Mongols under Kublai Khan had conquered China and Korea, and they had set their sights on Japan. The invaders were viewed by most people as the living embodiment of demons. Japan’s victory against the Mongols—thanks in no small part to two typhoons (believed to be kamikaze, or “divine winds” sent from the gods) which eradicated the two major Mongol invasion fleets—ended Mongol expansion and is had a profound impact on the identity of Japan as a nation. The memory of the invasions remained strong for generations, and became a part of folklore. The fear of invading Mongols was the basis for the phrase “Mōko Kōkuri no oni ga kuru” (“The Mongolian-Korean demons are coming!”), which over the centuries was corrupted down to just mukuri kokuri.

Koshō
Koseu, Oozakenomushi小姓
こしょう

Translation: page, apprentice
Alternate names: koseu
Habitat: between the heart and the diaphragm
Diet: prefers sweet sake

Appearance: Koshō is a parasitic yōkai with a snakelike body and a child-like face. It has a white, scruffy beard. It has an umbrella-like protrusion on the top of its head. It can speak, and is constantly chattering like a child. It loves sweet sake. In lives in between the heart and the diaphragm, where neither medicine nor needles can reach.

Interactions: A koshō infection is a terminal illness. Not even the best doctors have ever come up with a way to treat it. The umbrella-like protrusion on its head blocks medicine, and it hides too deep in the body for acupuncture to be effective.

Kurote
Kurote黒手
くろて

Translation: black hand
Habitat: toilets
Diet: unknown

Appearance: A kurote is a bizarre, hairy yōkai from the Noto peninsula in Ishikawa Prefecture.

Legends: Long ago in the province of Noto, there was a samurai named Kasamatsu Jingobei. He lived in a nice house, as was typical of samurai at the time. One day, his wife went to use the bathroom, and something strange happened. While using the toilet, she felt a hand reach up from the darkness and stroke her behind. She told her husband, who suspected the work of a mischievous tanuki or kitsune. Jingobei drew his katana and entered the bathroom. Sure enough, as he stood over the toilet, something moved—an arm, covered in thick, black hair, reached up out of the darkness and began making a stroking motion. With one swing of his sword, Jingobei sliced the hand clean off. He put it into a box.

Several days later, three yōkai disguised as priests appeared at Jingobei’s house. Not realizing their true form, Jingobei invited them in. The first priest said, “There is a strange presence in this house…”

Jingobei brought out the box and showed them the hand. The second priest said, “This is the hand of a creature known as a kurote who lives in humans’ toilets.”

The third priest examined the hand closely and snarled, “This is my hand which you cut from my arm!” He immediately transformed into a 9-foot tall, black-haired monster. He snatched the hand away, and then all three priests vanished.

Sometime later, while Jingobei was walking home late at night, something like a quilt fell down from the sky on top of him. Wrapped up and unable to move, Jingobei was lifted up seven feet into the air and then violently slammed to the ground. When he came to, Jingobei noticed that the sword he was carrying on his belt—the one which he used to cut off the kurote’s hand—was missing.

Mimimushi
Gyouchuu, Kitai, Mimimushi耳虫
みみむし

Translation: ear worm
Habitat: the ears and heart

Appearance: Mimimushi is an infectious yōkai with long ears and a spotted, snake-like body. It writhes and slithers back and forth as it migrates between the ears and the heart, causing discomfort in its host.

Interactions: People infected with mimimushi crave cold foods and avoid hot food. Their stomachs appear swollen and bloated. Infections can be treated with remedies made from the herb byakujutsu (Atractylodes japonica) and the mushroom bukuryō (Poria cocos).