Youkai Species List

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(Nature Spirits)

Yōkai (妖怪?, ghost, phantom, strange apparition) are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "bewitching; attractive; calamity" and "apparition; mystery; suspicious".[1] They can also be called ayakashi (妖?), mononoke (物の怪?), or mamono (魔物?). Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them. Often they possess animal features (such as the Kappa, which is similar to a turtle, or the Tengu which has wings), other times they can appear mostly human, some look like inanimate objects and others have no discernible shape. Yōkai usually have a spiritual supernatural power, with shapeshifting being one of the most common. Yōkai that have the ability to shapeshift are called obake.

Japanese folklorists and historians use yōkai as "supernatural or unaccountable phenomena to their informants". In the Edo period, many artists, such as Toriyama Sekien, created yōkai inspired by folklore or their own ideas, and in the present, several yōkai created by them (e.g. Kameosa and Amikiri, see below) are wrongly considered as being of legendary origin.

Ibaraki dōji
Ibarakidouji茨木童子
いばらきどうじ

Translation: a nickname meaning “thorn tree child”

Origin: Ibaraki dōji was one of the most famous and most feared demons to wreck havoc on Japan. She was the chief deputy to Shuten dōji, the greated oni of all. Not very much is known about Ibaraki dōji’s life; it isn’t even known if Ibaraki dōji was male or female. Most stories and illustrations depict Ibaraki dōji as a kijo, or a female oni; yet there are other stories which refer to Shuten dōji’s deputy as a male. There is also a possibility that not only were the two partners in crime, but also lovers. What is known is that Ibaraki dōji was a wholly terrible and fearsome monster, bent of wreaking as much havoc in the human world as possible.

Legends: Ibaraki dōji’s most famous story takes place at Rashōmon, the southern gate of old Kyotos city walls. Rashōmon was built in 789, but after the Heian period it fell into serious disrepair and became known as an unsavory place. It was overgrown and unkempt. Thieves and bandits hung out near it. It even served as a dumping point for unwanted babies, and a spot to dispose of murder victims. But the scariest part of its haunted reputation was the legend of Rashōmon no oni — the demon of Rashōmon.

After his celebrated victory over Shuten dōji, the hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu returned triumphant to Kyoto. He was celebrating at his home with his deputies — Sakata no Kintoki, Urabe no Suetake, Usui Sadamitsu, and Watanabe no Tsuna — when Fujiwara no Yasumasa, a noble, informed them that an oni was seen haunting Rashōmon gate. Watanabe no Tsuna, having just returned from a great battle with Shuten dōji’s clan, could not believe that there were any oni left, and single-handedly went out to investigate. He mounted his horse and went south.

When Tsuna arrived at the gate, a great howling wind broke out and his horse could travel no further. He dismounted and went on foot. Approaching the gate in the fierce gale, he noticed an enormous hand suddenly reach out of the dark to grab his helmet. Tsuna wasted no time, and swung his great katana around, severing the arm of an enormous demon: it was Ibaraki dōji, coming to avenge the murder of Shuten dōji. The injured demon ran away, leaving her arm behind, and Rashōmon was no longer haunted.

Ibaraki dōji later returned to Rashōmon, looking for her arm. She disguised herself as Watanabe no Tsuna’s wetnurse, and was able to steal back her severed arm and flee. After that, her whereabouts were never known again, though for many years after, occasionally in some town or another, villagers would claim that they had seen Ibaraki dōji coming or going, always in connection with some kind of mischief.

Iyaya
Iyaya否哉
いやや

Translation: a slang expression meaning “No way!”
Habitat: dark streets
Diet: as a human

Appearance: From the back, iyaya look like attractive young women wearing beautiful clothing. When somebody calls out to them to get their attention, they turn around and reveal ugly, wrinkly faces like those of old men!

Behavior: Iyaya can be found anywhere. They prefer towns and roads at night where they are more likely to surprise lone travelers. They don’t do anything harmful. Like many yōkai, they live just to shock people. That done, they wander off to find new victims.

Kaichigo
Kaichigo貝児
かいちご

Translation: shell boy
Habitat: decorative shell boxes
Diet: none

Appearance: Kaichigo is the spirit of a shell box come to life. It takes the form of a small, doll-like boy in a kimono.

Behavior: Kaichigo haunt the shell boxes used to store beautiful and expensive painted shells. They come out when nobody is around and play with the shells, flipping them over and moving them around into different positions.

Origin: Kaichigo’s origins lie in kaiawase (“shell matching”), a popular Heian period game which uses painted seashells. Beautiful shells of the right size and color were collected and decorated, their insides lined with gold and painted with scenes from popular stories, such as The Tale of Genji. The two halves of the same shell would be painted with the same scene, and players of the game would try to match the two sides. Beautifully decorated shell boxes, or kaioke, were used to store the shells while not in use.

Kaiawase gradually became replaced by other matching games, such as karuta, which use less exquisite playing pieces. The kaioke and shells themselves came to be viewed as precious art objects instead of toys. Because each shell half will perfectly fit its matching half and no other, expensive kaiawase sets came to be used as wedding dowries—symbolizing a perfect and unique match between bride and groom. Some boxes have been passed down from mother to daughter over and over for centuries. Those kaioke which have been around for a very long time and are no longer used as games begin to resent their existence. They grow restless and want to be played with once again, and develop a soul: the kaichigo.

Kamikiri
髪切り
かみきり

Translation: hair cutter
Habitat: urban areas, dark alleys, toilets, bedrooms
Diet: human hair

Appearance: Kamikiri are a kind of magical arthropod, with a scissor-like beak and hands like razors. They are small, and capable of sneaking quietly through open windows and doors without alerting their victims.

Behavior: A kamikiri’s modus operandi is simple: sneaking about at night and cutting a person’s hair off—suddenly and unexpectedly. They hide under roof tiles and wait for unsuspecting prey to pass by. Kamikiri’s are indiscriminate in their attacks. They go after anyone with hair—men and women, servants and aristocrats. Kamikiri strike in urban areas. They stalk alleys, bathrooms, or other out of the way places. In many cases, the strike goes completely unnoticed until later, when a mop of cut hair is found lying in the street or friends and family point out the victim’s striking new hairstyle. Often, the victim is asleep in bed when the kamikiri attacks. In the days when long hair was the only fashion in Japan, the kamikiri was a terrifying apparition indeed—particularly in high class, urban areas. These days, with the wide variety of hair styles including short hair, kamikiri are no longer feared as they once were.

Aside from random, malicious attacks, it is said that kamikiri strikes are sometimes a sign that the victim is about to unknowingly marry a yōkai. While these couplings are uncommon, there are a number of stories of kitsune and other shape-changers tricking unsuspecting men into marrying them. Because these improper marriages often end in catastrophe, helpful kamikiri interfere in hopes that the wedding will be called off.

Legends: One account of a kamikiri attack was printed in a newspaper as follows: May 20th, 1874, about 9 p.m. in a neighborhood of Tōkyō. A servant girl named Gin left her master’s mansion to use the outhouse. She suddenly felt a ghostly chill, and a moment later her hair fell disheveled about her face as her long ponytail was lopped off at the base. Gin panicked, and rushed to a neighbor’s house where she promptly fainted. The neighbors investigated the outhouse, and discovered Gin’s severed hair strewn about the floor. Afterwards, Gin became sick from stress and returned to live with her family in the countryside. Nobody ever used that outhouse again.

Kanashibari
Kanashibari金縛り
かなしばり

Translation: bound up with metal

Appearance: Kanashibari is the Japanese term for sleep paralysis, a phenomenon when REM sleep overlaps with waking consciousness. The victim’s body is still paralyzed in sleep, but the eyes are open and the mind is half-awake; and the real and dream worlds mix together. Stories about kanashibari go back all the way to ancient times, and it was attributed to a supernatural force enacted upon the body. There are a number of legends about kanashibari, and each one points at a different cause.

Origin: The most common form of kanashibari comes from possession. When a person is possessed by inugami, kitsune, tanuki, or other kinds of tsukimono, one of the possible symptoms they can develop is immobility or sleep paralysis. This sort of possession could sometimes be overcome if a shugenja — a kind of priest — recited Buddhist sutras to drive out the possessing animal spirit. Once the spirit was driven out, the kanashibari would disappear, and all would be well again.

Other kinds of yokai can inflict kanashibari. The makura-gaeshi, a kind of zashiki-warashi from Ishikawa prefecture, haunts rooms at night, flipping over the pillows of the sleeping inhabitants. Victims sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, feeling a crushing weight on their chest, and find the ghost of a small child sitting on them. This can occur sporadically, or even every night, depending on the mood of the makura-gaeshi. Though not actually harmful, this is a terrifying experience for the victim.

Kanashibari can even be caused by humans — usually priests or sorcerers. The tale of Kiyohime features one passage where the jealous princess is chasing after her lover, Anchin. Trying to escape her advances, Anchin asks the priest at a Kumano shrine for help, and they are able to trap Kiyohime in kanashibari, giving Anchin time to flee.

Finally, kanashibari can be caused by ghosts. A famous account comes from a popular ghost story in Iwate prefecture. There are many variations, but generally what happens is this: during the middle of the night, a person wakes up with an ominous, foreboding sense of dread. He (or she) realizes that he can’t move, even though he is wide awake. It feels like powerful arms are gripping him tight, keeping him immobile. Suddenly, an invisible force tugs on his legs and drags him out from under his futon — usually in the direction of an open window, or a river, or some other dangerous place! After a desperate struggle, he finally snaps out of the sleep paralysis, and sees the ghost of a middle aged woman rising up into the ceiling.

Keukegen
毛羽毛現
けうけげん

Translation: hairy, fluffy sight; alternatively, rare and dubious thing
Habitat: damp homes, dirty gardens, moldy closets, under floorboards
Diet: mold, dirt, and garbage

Appearance: Keukegen are filthy monsters commonly found in populated areas. They are the size of a small dog and appear as a mass of long, dirty hair. Keukegen make their homes in cool, damp, dark places; they are particularly fond of living under floorboards and around run-down homes, where stuffiness, moisture, and lack of human activity create the perfect breeding place for sickness.

Behavior: Despite their apparent cuteness, Keukegen do not make good pets. They are actually a kind of minor spirit of bad luck, disease, and pestilence. They bring sickness and bad health to those whom they live near. Being shy by nature, they try to avoid human contact and are rarely seen. Those who claim to have seen them are often accused of overactive imaginations. However, their proximity is apparent when members of a household mysteriously fall sick or have a run of bad luck. Keukegen are easy to avoid, however. Just clean your house. Keukegen keep away from clean, kempt houses.

Origin: Keukegen’s name is a pun. It is commonly written with characters that mean “a hairy, fluffy sight.” But it can also be written with different characters that mean “rare and dubious.”

Kosode no te
小袖の手
こそでのて

Translation: kosode (a short sleeved kimono) hands

Appearance: Kosode no te appear in short sleeved kimonos formerly owned by prostitutes. This yōkai manifests as a pair of ghostly hands that emerge from the sleeves and assault welching clients—or whoever happens to be nearby.

Origin: Kosode no te can occur for a number of reasons. One common origin is when a prostitute dies in vain, after working for many years to save up the money to buy her freedom. Upon death, such women usually had their clothes donated to a temple in exchange for a funeral and prayers. However, if the woman died still owed money from some of her clients, her spirit might reanimate her old clothing and head off in revenge. The newly formed kosode no te leaves the temple to find the prostitute’s customers and scare them into to paying the money owed.

Another origin is when a dead person’s kimono is sold for cash instead of being donated to a temple, as is customary. If the deceased was unable to properly pass on to nirvana upon death, that person’s spirit may come back and haunt their former kimono.

Narigama
鳴釜
なりがま

Translation: ringing kettle, crying kettle
Alternate names: narikama, kamanari
Habitat: kitchens

Appearance: Narigama are a tsukumogami of kama, iron kettles or cauldrons used to cook rice in old Japanese kitchens. They have long arms and legs. Their bodies are covered in dark hair as if wearing an animal’s pelt. Flames lick the sides of the kettle which either serves as their head, or which they wear like a helmet.

Behavior: Little is known about the true nature of narigama, however a number of theories exist. They are often depicted cavorting with other tsukumogami in illustrations of the night parade of one hundred demons.

Interactions: A narigama’s most amazing talent is the ability to predict the future. As its name suggest, it begins to emit sounds when it is heated over a fire. When the water inside begins to boil, a narigama will begin to ring or cry like an animal. Depending on the sound that it emits, it is possible to know whether the weather will be rainy or fair. An onmyōji or a priest can even divine good and bad fortunes based on the sounds the narigama makes as its contents are boiled.

Origin: Illustrations of narigama appear in some of the oldest hyakki yagyō emaki picture scrolls, although they appear without a name or description. Later, Toriyama Sekien included it in Hyakki tsurezure bukuro along with a brief history. According to Sekien, the narigama was first described in the Hakutaku zu, a record of all the supernatural creatures in the world describing their strengths and weaknesses. The entry in the Hakutaku zu explains that the narigama’s ability to to “ring” is connected to an ancient oni named Renjo.

The Edo Period book Kansō kidan also describes Renjo as haunting kettles. According to this book, when a narigama begins acting up if you stand three shaku (about nintey centimeters) away from it and loudly say the name “Renjo,” the fires will descend into the earth, beneath the house. The haunting will end, and from then on the household will be blessed with good fortune.

At the Kibitsu Shrine in Okayama Prefecture, priests still practice a folk ritual called narukama which involves boiling a kettle and examining the sounds it emits to predict good and bad fortunes. According to the Okayama tradition, the ritual’s powers derive not from Renjo, but from an ancient oni named Ura who long ago terrorized the region. Eventually Ura was slain, but even in death his head cried out nonstop. The flesh was eaten away to the bone by dogs, and still cries emitted from his empty skull. Ura’s head was buried beneath the shrine’s kitchen in order to silence it, but he could still be heard groaning beneath the kettles. Finally, a priestess named Aso hime offered a sacrifice of food to Ura’s restless spirit. This quieted him, and he changed his ways. Since then, Ura’s spirit has used the crying kettle to foretell good and bad fortunes to the Kibitsu Shrine priests.

Toriyama Sekien may have based his description on the narukama ritual, altering the history and connecting it to ancient China in order to make it seem more authentic.

Nopperabō
野箆坊
のっぺらぼう

Translation: faceless monk
Alternate names: often referred to as mujina
Habitat: roads, inns, shops; blends into human society
Diet: unknown, but has no mouth and thus can’t eat

Appearance: Nopperabō resemble ordinary human beings in almost every way, and blend in perfectly with human society. However, the illusion is quickly shattered when met face to face—nopperabō actually have no face at all. Their heads are blank orbs with no eyes, nose, mouth, or features of any kind.

Interactions: These mysterious yōkai are encountered on quiet, empty roads late at night when nobody else is around. Like many yōkai of this kind, their main activity seems to be scaring humans. This they do remarkably well. Nopperabō usually appear in the guise of a man or a woman with his or her back turned towards the observer. When approached, the yōkai turns around and reveals its terrifying true form. To maximize the effect, they often appear with a face at first, and then wipe their face off dramatically with their hand at the most opportune time. Nopperabō revel in the terror they inflict upon their unsuspecting victims.

Nopperabō often work together in groups to scare one individual. As their victim runs away in a panic from the first nopperabō, he runs into another person who asks him what is wrong. When the victim explains what he saw, this person replies, “Oh, you mean like this?” and wipes his face away exactly like the first nopperabō. They are even known to impersonate close relatives of their victims, and sometimes a poor man will run all the way home, having run into multiple faceless monsters, only to tell his wife what he saw and have her too reply, “Oh, you mean like this? …”

Other forms: The nopperabō is a favorite transformation of mischievous animal yōkai—kitsune, tanuki, and especially mujina. In fact, so frequently are encounters with this spirit blamed on shape-shifting badgers that the nopperabō are often mistakenly referred to as mujina.



Ohaguro bettari
お歯黒べったり
おはぐろべったり

Translation: nothing but blackened teeth
Alternate names: often referred to as a kind of nopperabō
Habitat: dark streets near shrines
Diet: unknown

Appearance: Late at night, a disturbing yōkai dressed in beautiful wedding clothes can be seen loitering near temples and shrines. She calls single young men over to her, and they are seldom able to resist her charms. Until of course, they get too close….

From behind, an ohaguro bettari looks like a beautiful woman wearing a kimono—often looking like a newlywed in her bridal gown. She appears at twilight outside of a temple, or inside a man’s own house, disguised as his wife. At first, she conceals her head, or turns away from any viewers. Any man who comes closer to get a better look is surprised when she turns to reveal her face: an ugly, white, featureless dome slathered in thick makeup, containing nothing but a huge, gaping mouth full of blackened teeth. She follows up this initial shock with a horrible cackle, sending the man running away and screaming in terror.

Origin: Ohaguro bettari are similar to a yōkai called nopperabō in appearance and demeanor. Like nopperabō they are often blamed on shape-shifting pranksters like kitsune, tanuki, or mujina looking to have a laugh at the expense of an unwitting human. It has also been suggested that they are the ghosts of ugly women who were unable to marry. Accurate eye-witness reports are hard to come by due to the embarrassment of the victims at having fallen for such an obvious gag. However as no deaths or injuries (other than to pride) have been attributed to ohaguro bettari, and because sightings are rare, a mischievous shape-shifting animal yōkai seems to be a plausible explanation.

Nurikabe
Nurikabe塗壁
ぬりかべ

Translation: painted wall
Habitat: coastal areas; encountered on dark streets and alleys
Diet: unknown

Appearance: Little is known about the true appearance of nurikabe because these yokai are usually said to be invisible. During the Edo period, however, artists began to illustrate this creature, giving it an appearance somewhere between a grotesque, fantastic beast and a flat, white wall. Modern representations of the nurikabe depict it as a plain, gray, bipedal wall with vague face-like features.

Behavior: Nurikabe appear mysteriously on roads late at night. As a traveler is walking, right before his or her eyes, an enormous, invisible wall materializes and blocks the way. There is no way to slip around this yokai; it extends itself as far as to the left and right as one might try to go. There is no way over it either, nor can it be knocked down. However, it is said that if one taps it near the ground with a stick, it will vanish, allowing the traveler to continue on his or her way.

Origin: The true nature of the nurikabe is surrounded in mystery. Based on its name, it seems to be related to other household spirits known as tsukimogami. It has also been suggested that the nurikabe is simply another manifestation of a shape-shifting itachi or tanuki. Mischievous tanuki are said to enlarge their magical scrotums into an invisible wall in order to play pranks on unsuspecting humans.

Oboroguruma
Oboroguruma朧車
おぼろぐるま

Translation: hazy cart
Habitat: city streets, late at night
Diet: the lingering anger of ancient nobles

Appearance: On misty, moonlit nights, residents of Kyōto occasionally hear the squeak of an oxcart in the street. Stepping outside to check and see, they discover a half-transparent, ghost-like oxcart with an enormous, grotesque face parked outside of their home.

Origin: Carriage yōkai have existed in picture scrolls for hundreds of years. They may originally have been a kind of tsukumogami, or object-turned-yōkai. Most of these scrolls were created for their vivid imagery rather than for any particular story. Oboroguruma may have initially been created without any backstory. When Toriyama Sekien published his yōkai bestiaries, he included the oboroguruma and gave a description. He linked it to a famous scene in The Tale of Genji when Lady Rokujō and her rival Lady Aoi competed for a parking space and got into a carriage fight.

Long ago, sightseeing in the capital was accomplished by means of oxcart taxis. When it got crowded—particularly during festival seasons—the taxi drivers got into carriage fights. They slammed their carriages against each other to grab the best spots for sightseeing. Just like parking can be a problem in cities today, parking in ancient Kyōto was a huge source of frustration.

The resentment of nobles who didn’t get the prime sightseeing spot they wanted was something to be feared. The negative feelings could build up and become a powerful force of their own, which is where these yōkai come from. Oboroguruma materialized out of the wrath of nobles who lost these carriage fights and were not able to reserve the sightseeing spots that they wanted.

Oitekebori
Oitekebori置行堀
おいてけぼり

Translation: drop-it-and-get-out-of-here canal

Appearance: Oitekebori is a mysterious apparition that was seen in Honjo, Sumida ward, Tokyo. It takes the form of a human ghost, and haunts fishermen and others who stray too close to its home in the canals. Its name derives from a slang version of the phrase, “oite ike!” meaning, “drop it and get out of here!”

Origin: Nobody really knows exactly what oitekebori was. The most likely explanation is that a kappa was responsible. Hungry and too lazy to fish on his own, he terrorized some innocent fishermen and stole their catch. Other explanations blame a tricky tanuki. Still other explanations exist, covering everything from a yūrei, a kawauso, a mujina, or a suppon (a soft-shelled turtle-turned-yokai).

Legends: Long ago, Honjo was full of canals and waterways, and those canals were teaming with fish. It was common for people to make their living catching and selling fish caught in the moat system.

One night, two fishermen were fishing in a particular spot in Honjo at sunset. They noticed that they were catching many more fish than usual, and so they fished and fished, filling their baskets to the brim. After some time, when they could hold no more fish, they happily packed up their tackle and prepared to carry their large catches home. Just as they were about to leave, they heard an eerie, terrible voice come up from the canal: “Oiteke!”

What happens next depends on who is telling the story. Some say that both fishermen dropped their baskets and fled, and when they returned later that night, both baskets were empty. Others say that they fled home with their baskets, but when they got home and looked inside, there wasn’t even a single fish in the baskets. But the most chilling version goes like this:

Both fisherman turned and fled from the canal, one of them dropping his basket and the other taking his basket with him. The fisherman who dropped his basket ran all the way back to his house and bolted the door shut. The other fisherman didn’t get very far — a ghostly hand rose up out of the canal and dragged him down into the water, basket and all. And he was never seen again.

Ōkaburo
Ookaburo大禿
おおかぶろ

Translation: big kamuro (an apprentice oiran)
Alternate names: ōkamuro
Habitat: brothels
Diet: herbs and dew from chrysanthemums

Appearance: Ōkaburo are cross-dressing yōkai found in brothels. They take the appearance of oversized kamuro, little girls employed as a servants in brothels. Only they are much larger than a typical girl of 5.

Origin: The origins of this yōkai are vague. Ōkaburo are best known for their depiction by Toriyama Sekien. His ōkaburo is actually a male yōkai dressed up as a young kamuro, wearing a chrysanthemum-patterned kimono. His description makes an allusion to Peng Zu, a legendary Taoist wizard from China. Peng Zu lived past the age of 700 by having lots of sex with both women and men, and keeping a strict herbal diet which included licking the dew off of chrysanthemums. For this Peng Zu took the nickname Kiku-jidō, or chrysanthemum boy. Sekien likely intended his ōkaburo to be a pun referring to homosexual brothels in which young boys were dressed up as kamuro and offered to male patrons. Aside from the obvious connotations of having a young boy dressed up as a kamuro, the chrysanthemum was used as a secret symbol for homosexuality; the shape of the petals was supposed to represent an anus. The nickname chrysanthemum boy, the chrysanthemums on the kimono, and the image of licking the dew off of “chrysanthemums” leave little to the imagination as to what Sekien was alluding to with this yōkai.

A story of an ōkamuro with very different origins comes from a pleasure house in Hiroshima, where a particularly short-tempered oiran was employed. One day, her ohaguro (a tea-like mixture of hot water and iron filings used to blacken the teeth of courtesans) had been improperly prepared. The color would not stick to her teeth. Enraged, she grabbed the nearest kamuro and poured the entire pot of boiling liquid down the little girl’s throat. The girl, vomiting up her insides, smeared her bloody handprints along the wall as she died in anguish. Ever since, it was said that the voice of that young kamuro could be heard at night, calling out for vengeance against the oiran.

Okka
Kanazuchibou, Okka大化
おっか

Translation: a baby-talk corruption of obake (“monster”)
Alternate names: akaheru, chikarakoko, gamanoke (“frog spirit”); countless others

Appearance: Okka is a small, bulbous yōkai. It is usually depicted as a round, bright red creature with big eyes, two clawed feet, and a diminutive tail. There are many variations of this yokai, with minor difference in color, number of appendages, facial features, and hair.

Origin: Okka appears in many of the oldest yōkai picture scrolls. Since its original name was never recorded, countless names have been used to describe this yōkai. The word okka is a baby talk variation of obake, a generic word for a ghost or monster. It fits this yōkai quite well, as okka itself has a somewhat generic and baby-like appearance. It also fits an established pattern of monsters being named in baby talk; waira, otoroshi, gagoze, and uwan are also thought to be “baby-fied” variations of scary words.

It has been suggested that okka may be a frog spirit, based on its appearance. It has also been suggested that okka is a tsukumogami, as it appears alongside other tsukumogami in paintings. Though it was never given a name or an explanation, okka has yet remained a common sight in scrolls depicting the night parade of one hundred demons. Okka is frequently depicted together with kanazuchibō; it appears to be the target of kanazuchibō’s hammer. However, their frequent pairing may be no more than a coincidence. Painters frequently copied directly from earlier yōkai scrolls, and without any description there is no way of knowing if the original painting that depicts okka being targeted by kanazuchibō was done so for a specific reason, or just because it looked amusing.

Otoroshi
おとろし

Translation: a regional corruption of osoroshii, meaning “scary”
Alternate names: odoroshi, odoro odoro, keippai
Habitat: shrines, temples, and homes; found above gates and doors
Diet: small animals and wicked people

Behavior: Otoroshi are known by many regional names, most of them being wordplays denoting this monster’s fearsome appearance and wild, course mane that covers its body. Otoroshi appear as hairy, hunched, four-legged beasts with fierce claws and tusks. They have blue or orange skin.

Appearance: Though its existence has been known of for centuries, little is known about this rare and mysterious creature. Otoroshi are masters of disguise and are rarely seen except for when they want to be. They are most commonly spotted in high places like roofs. Other favorite places are the torii archways at shrines and the gates above temples that separate the physical world from the realm of the gods.

Interactions: Otoroshi act as a kind of guardian of these holy places. They eat the wild animals found in shrines and temples—particularly pigeons, sparrows, and other birds. Otoroshi attack humans only rarely: when they spot a wicked or imprudent person near a holy place—or when one tries to enter through the gateway they are guarding. Otoroshi attack by pouncing on their victims from above, tearing them to shreds, and devouring their remains.

Origin: While its name implies ferocity and its appearance is quite grotesque, it is only known to be dangerous to the wicked. The name otoroshi, while not a word itself, appears to be derived from variations in regional dialects. It is generally accepted to be a corruption of osoroshii, meaning “scary.” Nothing is known of its origins; it is speculated to be related to a similar yōkai, the waira, due to their common habits and environment.

Yamauba
山姥
やまうば

Translation: mountain hag, mountain crone
Alternate names: yamanba, onibaba
Habitat: isolated huts or caves, deep in the mountains
Diet: generally eats human food, but will cook anything available

Appearance: Yamauba are the old hags and witches of the Japanese mountains and forests. They were once human but became corrupted and transformed into monsters. Some sport horns or fangs, but most often yamauba look just like ordinary kind old ladies with no sign of their evil nature—until they attack.

Interactions: Yamauba live alone in huts by the road, where they occasionally offer weary travelers shelter, food, and a place to sleep. Late at night when their guests are fast asleep, yamauba transform into their true shape—an ugly, old, demonic witch. Thus revealed, they try to catch and eat their guests, often using powerful magic. Stories of encounters with yamauba have been spread by those few travelers lucky enough to escape. These tales were then passed along for generations until they came to be told as bedtime stories to disobedient children: “Be good or yamauba will come to get you!”

Origin: Sometimes yamauba are created when young women accused of crimes or wicked deeds flee into the wilderness and live in exile. The women transform gradually over many years into mountain witches. In some cases, their origin can be explained by an old custom from times of famine or economic hardship. When it became impossible to feed everyone, families had to make a hard choice: remove one member so that the rest can survive. Often the sacrifice chosen was the newly born or the elderly. Some families led their mothers deep into the woods and left them there to die. These abandoned old women, either out of rage or desperation, transformed into horrible monsters that fed on humans and practiced black magic.


Ouni
Ouni苧うに
おうに

Translation: ramie peat (named for her resemblance to these plants)
ALTERNATIVE NAMES: wauwau
Habitat: deep in the mountains
Diet: omnivorous

Appearance: Ouni looks like an ugly old woman with an angry face and a body covered in long, black hair. She is a kind of yamauba, or mountain hag. She lives deep in the mountains, away from civilization, and only occasionally appears before humans.

Interactions: Unlike most yamauba, ouni are friendly towards humans who treat them kindly. They occasionally visit rural houses or mountain huts late at night. When this happens, the ouni asks the owners of the house to give her free lodging and a meal for the night. If they are kind and invite her in, during the night she spins an enormous amount of thread for the family and then vanishes without a trace.

Origin: Ouni’s name comes from the Japanese word for ramie, a fibrous plant that is used to make thread, and peat, the rotten muck found in swamps that comes from rotting plant matter. The first part of her name comes from the thread which she spins at night, usually in the form of ramie, as well as the long, black hair which covers her body and resembles thick threads. The second part refers to her filthy, black, hairy body, which makes her look like she is covered in dead vegetation.


Oshiroi babā
白粉婆
おしろいばばあ

Translation: face powder hag
Alternate names: oshiroi bāsan
Habitat: dark streets at night, particularly near snowy mountains
Diet: unknown

Appearance: Oshiroi babā are ghastly old hags who appear in mountainous areas near the end of the year. They are accompanied by a telltale jara jara sound, as if someone were dragging along a mirror as they hobble through the streets. Their backs are hideously twisted and bent like an old woman’s after a lifetime hard work. They carry a cane in one hand, and a sake bottle in the other, and wear a broken straw hat. Their most defining feature is their wrinkly old face caked with thick, sloppy, white face powder.

Interactions: Oshiroi babā don’t interact with humans too often. For the most part, their looks alone are awful enough that anyone who sees them quickly runs away. They occasionally accost people, demanding makeup or trying to buy sake. In this way they are somewhat similar to other old hag yōkai who wander the streets at night, such as amazake babā. However, nearly every account of oshiroi babā describes them as hideous and scary, but not dangerous.

Origin: According to some local legends, oshiroi babā are a variation of yuki onna. They descend from mountains into villages on snowy nights. Other legends say that they are more similar to yama uba, who occasionally demand makeup from travelers or appear at the bases of mountains to buy alcohol. According to Toriyama Sekien, oshiroi babā serve as the attendants of Shifun Senjō, the goddess of rouge and makeup.

Sansei
Sansei山精
さんせい

Translation: mountain sprite
Alternate names: sanki (mountain demon)
Habitat: mountains
Diet: crabs and frogs

Appearance: Sansei are small humanoid spirits that live deep in the mountains. They range in size anywhere from about one foot tall, to three or four feet tall. Sansei’s most noticeable trait is their single leg, which is turned around backwards. They are known as the leaders of all animals which live in the mountains, and their diet mainly consists of frogs and stone crabs, of which they are particularly fond and enjoy broiling with salt.

Interactions: Sansei occasionally sneak into woodcutters’ houses and mountain huts to steal salt, which they use to flavor the crabs that they eat. Though not very aggressive, they do sometimes attack humans. When this happens, if one calls out, “Hiderigami!” the sansei will flee in terror. However, if one calls out, “Sansei!” instead, that person will meet some horrible fate, such as falling ill or having their house catch on fire.

Shibaten
芝天
しばてん

Translation: mini tengu, lawn tengu
Alternate names: shibatengu, enkō
Habitat: riverbanks
Diet: omnivirous; fond of cucumbers

Appearance: Shibaten look like hairy, naked boys or monkeys standing about three shaku (91 centimeters) tall. They live along riverbanks in Tokushima and Kōchi Prefectures. Despite their small stature and weak appearance, their strength is greater than a grown man’s.

Behavior: Shibaten spend much of the year up in the mountains, away from humans. They create phantom sounds, such as falling trees or rockslides. On the 6th day of the 6th month (by the old lunar calendar), they migrate en masse from the mountains into the rivers and transform into enkō.

They are fond of cucumbers. They often raid gardens just as the vegetables reach their peak ripeness, running off with an entire batch.

Interactions: When a person passes by a riverside at night, shibaten leap out of the brush and challenge them to a sumō match. At first the shibaten will lose on purpose, and challenge the person to a rematch. This will continue on and on, the shibaten gradually using more and more strength, until the person is helplessly tossed and thrown about. Before they know it the entire night has gone by, and the person passes out from exhaustion. When they awaken, there is no sign of the shibaten. If they ask anyone nearby what happened, they explain that the person spent the entire night wrestling a boulder or a bale of straw like a fool.

Origin: The word shiba means a grassy lawn, but in this case it specifically means a small thing. The name shibaten comes from the idea that these yōkai were a small species of tengu. Despite their name, shibaten are thought to be a kind of kappa rather than a tengu.

Legends: Long ago in Kōchi, there was a skillful sumō wrestler named Yakichi. He was attending a summer party in a neighboring village when the day had grown late. He decided to return home via a shortcut through the mountains. As he walked along the road, all of a sudden seven or eight little kids jumped out of the bushes and surrounded him, saying, “Hey old man! Come wrestle us!”

“Why you little brats!” Yakichi reached out to teach them a lesson, but before he could grab one, BOOM! he was on his back. He got up, and then again BOOM! he was knocked down again. Yakichi couldn’t understand how these little brats were beating him. He finally managed to grab on to one and was shocked to find he couldn’t make the kid move at all. He pushed and he pulled, but the kid didn’t budge.

It was getting late, and Yakichi’s family wondered why he hadn’t returned home yet. They lit lanterns and traveled along the road to look for him. They discovered Yakichi deep in the mountains with his arms wrapped around a big tree stump, heaving and straining to knock it over.

“Yakichi! What are you doing?” they asked him.

“I’m doing everything I can! But this kid won’t give up!” he grunted.

“You fool! That’s a mulberry tree!”

Yakichi stepped back and blinked his eyes. “So it is… How did that happen?” The expensive kimono he had worn to the party was tattered and torn all over, and completely ruined. It suddenly dawned on him that he had been tricked by shibaten into wrestling a tree stump.

Shichinin misaki
七人ミサキ
しちにんみさき

Translation: the seven spirits
Habitat: usually encountered near bodies of water
Diet: none; survives solely on vengeance

Appearance: The shichinin misaki are a band of seven ghosts who appear in Shikoku and Western Japan. They are most often encountered near bodies of water, such as along the seashore or by riverbanks. They are always seven in number, and the bring disaster upon any who meet them.

Interactions: People who encounter the shichinin misaki almost always die shortly after. Frequently this take the form of a mysterious and deadly fever. These victims join the ranks of the shichinin misaki, replacing the spirit responsible for killing them. Some say that the replaced spirit is then finally able to attain Nirvana. Thus, the number of spirits always remains fixed at seven.

Origin: The word misaki (御先) means “one who goes before,” and has a number of nuanced meanings. One of these refers to the retainers and servants who would travel in front of a noble or priest’s procession. Another refers to divine animals, particularly ravens, foxes, monkeys, who acted as messengers in the service of higher ranking spirits. Finally, it can refer to spirits (bōrei) of those who died unnatural deaths, and who are able to possess and control the living. Misaki (岬) can also refer to a cape or a peninsula, which might describe why the shichinin misaki are so frequently encountered at the borders between land and sea.

There are a number of theories about how this self-perpetuating group began. Because they are usually encountered near water, it is said that they may be the ghosts of drowning victims. Some theories describe them as the spirits of Taira soldiers who died in a boar trap while fleeing their enemies during the Genpei War. Others attribute them to the spirits of seven wicked priests who were murdered by a group of townspeople they were tormenting. Others say they are the spirits of seven women pilgrims who were thrown overboard at sea and drowned.

The most popular story about the shichinin misaki comes from Tōsa Province (present day Kōchi Prefecture) during the Sengoku Period. Kira Chikazane, a senior retainer and nephew of Chōsokabe Motochika. During a crisis of succession within the Chōsobake clan, Chikazane opposed his lord Motochika. As a result, he was later ordered to commit seppuku. Chikazane’s seven retainers also followed him into death by suicide. After that, strange occurrences were reported around the graves of Chikazane and his retainers. These were attributed to their restless, vengeful spirits.

Hearing the story of the shichinin misaki, Motochika performed services to appease the restless spirits of Chikazane and his retainers. He built a shrine in Chikazane’s name, which still stands today (the Kira Shrine in Kōchi City); however, none of these had any effect at stopping the vengeance of the shichinin misaki.

Even today, the shichinin misaki are said to haunt Western Japan and Shikoku, and Kōchi City in particular. Traffic accidents and other strange occurrences are blamed on the restless spirits of the shichinin misaki.

Shōkera
精螻蛄
しょうけら

Translation: mole cricket spirit
Habitat: rooftops, temples; only appears every sixty nights
Diet: wicked humans who try to outsmart the gods

Appearance: The shōkera is a large, dark-skinned, three-toed demon which spends most of its time lurking about on rooftops. Not much is known about this fearsome beast aside from its hunting practices. The shōkera is believed to be some kind of demon with connections to Kōshin, an esoteric Japanese folk religion with origins in Taoism.

Interactions: Shōkera only appear on special nights in the Kōshin faith which occurs every sixty nights. A shōkera spies through windows, doorways, or skylights in houses, and hunts for impious behavior. Then it pounces down in a vicious attack. Because Kōshin is no longer a widespread religion—and because victims of shōkera attacks would only be implicating themselves as wicked by admitting to seeing one—little else is known about the shōkera.

Origin: According to Kōshin, there are three spiritual worms or insects, called the sanshi, which live inside every human body. Every sixty nights, on a special night called kōshin machi, these worms leave the body while their host human sleeps. The sanshi travel to heaven to report on the good and bad deeds of their human. The emperor of heaven then uses this information to lengthen or shorten people’s lives according to their deeds. While good people have nothing to fear from kōshin machi, the wicked might try to circumvent having their bad deeds reported by staying awake and reciting prayers all night long during these special nights so that the sanshi cannot leave the body. That’s when the shōkera goes to work. It lurks about on rooftops during these nights, peers into windows, and hunts for anyone violating the laws of heaven.

Suzuri no tamashii
硯の魂
すずりのたましい

Translation: inkstone spirit

Appearance: An ink stone which has been used to copy the same manuscript over and over again for many generations begins to take on aspects of the story itself. Suzuri no tamashii can manifest phantom sounds and illusory characters from the story, which arise from the ink and wreak havoc on the writing desk.

Behavior: Suzuri no tamashii echo the brutal slaughter from when the Taira clan was wiped out in the final battle of the Genpei War. When used, they produce sounds like the echo of the sea, the din of battle, and the screams of warriors. The ink inside begins to ripple and billow like the sea’s waves, and tiny boats and soldiers materialize out of the ink.

Origin: One of the most bloody tales of old Japan deals with the civil war between the Taira and Minamoto clans, known as the Genpei War. In the final naval battle of the war, the entire Taira clan was brutally wiped out. Many of the slaughtered Taira soldiers transformed into onryō, and their grudge-curse infects the ink stones which have been used to repeatedly copy their story.

Taka onna
高女
たかおんな

Translation: tall woman
Alternate names: takajo
Habitat: red light districts
Diet: as a normal person

Appearance: Taka onna appear as ordinary, homely human women most of the time. But they have the power to elongate their bodies and grow to several meters in height. Like other brothel yōkai, they are rarely seen outside of the red light districts, but are fairly common yōkai nonetheless. Sightings of these yōkai peaked during the Edo period and continued up to the post-war period—the time when brothels and yūkaku (“pleasure districts”) were at their height in Japan.

Behavior: Taka onna are frequently spotted peering into the second-story windows of brothels and homes where romantic liaisons are taking place. Their activities are generally limited to peeping into windows. Though they rarely attack humans physically, taka onna do enjoy scaring and harassing both men and women who frequent the pleasure districts, jealous of the physical pleasure they were never able to know in life.

Origin: Taka onna were originally ordinary women who were too unattractive to marry (or to find work in the red light districts which they haunt). Through jealousy, they became twisted and corrupted, and transformed into ugly, malicious monsters that prey on others’ sexual energy.

Legends: Taka onna encounters were often the subject of bawdy anecdotes, as they generally revolve around trips to the pleasure districts. In one account, though, a woodcutter describes how he discovered that his own wife was a taka onna. His child mysteriously disappeared one day, and over a short period his servants also began to disappear one by one. Unable to figure out what was happening, the woodcutter began to suspect his wife. One night while pretending to sleep in bed, he witnessed his wife jump into a well. She then elongated her body and climbed back out. The woodcutter fled into the mountains, and never returned to his home.

Teke teke
Teketeke

テケテケ

Translation: onomatopoeic; the sound of her walking on her hands
Alternate names: shaka shaka, pata pata, kata kata, koto koto, hijikake babā
Habitat: urban areas and roads
Diet: none

Appearance: Teke teke is a ghost who appears in a number of urban legends. Teke teke are almost always women (though in a few versions of the urban legend, the ghost is male). She has no lower half; she runs about on her arms, creating the distinctive “teke teke” sound from which she gets her name.

Interactions: Teke teke chases its victims down dark roads. Despite having no legs, a teke teke can run incredibly fast—so fast, in fact, that it can even catch up to victims who are speeding away in cars. When it catches them, something terrible happens—the legends are not always clear what. In some variations of the story the teke teke carries a sickle. It slices its victims in half at the waist and steals their legs.

Origin: Like with most urban legends, there are so many versions of the teke teke story that it is impossible to know what the original story was or where it began. Every locality has its own version with different details. In some stories, the teke teke was the victim of a tragic accident; in others, it was suicide. In some stories, certain magic charms can protect you from its wrath; in others nothing can protect you and you will certainly die. In some versions, the teke teke’s victims become teke teke themselves. There are a number of threads in common between many of the variations, and the most common ones point towards a woman from Hokkaidō named Kashima Reiko.

Legends: In the years after World War 2, an office worker in Muroran, Hokkaidō was assaulted and raped by American military personnel. That night, she leaped off a bridge onto the railroad tracks and was hit by an oncoming train. The impact was so forceful that her body was torn in half at the waist. The severe cold of the Hokkaidō night caused her blood vessels to contract and prevented her from bleeding out quickly. Instead, she squirmed and wriggled about for help for several minutes. She crawled all the way to a train station and was seen by an attendant. Instead of trying to help her, the station attendant just covered her with a plastic tarp. She died a slow, agonizing death.

According to legend, three days after hearing this story, you will see the ghost of a woman with no lower half. The ghost is that of the woman hit by the train. The ghost will try to catch you, and escape is impossible even in a car; the ghost can crawl at speeds of up to 150 km per hour. Some say that the ghost is searching for her legs, which were lost when she was cut in half. Others say that she is angry at humanity for not helping her when she was dying, and that she is simply out to slaughter as many people as she can. When she catches you, she will tear you in half and steal the lower half of your body.

Shortly after hearing the legend, she will ask you a riddle, either in a dream, or in a mysterious phone call. The only way to escape death is to answer her questions exactly the right way. She will ask you: “Do you need your legs?” You must reply: “I need them right now.” Then, she will ask you: “Who told you my story?” You must reply: “Kashima Reiko. Ka as in mask (仮面), shi as in death (死), ma as in demon (魔), rei as in ghost (霊), and ko as in accident (事故).” If you answer her riddles without mistake, she may just let you live.

Tenjō kudari
Tenjoukudari天井下
てんじょうくだり

Translation: ceiling hanger
Alternate names: tenjō-sagari, tenzurushi
Habitat: attics
Diet: unknown; possibly humans

Appearance: Tenjō kudari has the appearance of a naked, ugly, old woman with a long tongue, and long, disheveled hair. This yokai was first documented by Toriyama Sekien, and aside from his illustration, little else is known about it.

Behavior: Tenjō kudari spends most of its time in hiding, living in the narrow crawlspace between the ceiling and the roof. Every so often, in the middle of the night, it crawls out from the ceiling, upside-down, to scare people.

Origin: In old Japan, the space above the ceiling was connected with a lot of superstitions about dead bodies rolling about or women being confined like prisoners. Tenjō kudari seems to have been something Toriyama inventioned based on those myths. Fittingly, during his time, the phrase “to show someone the ceiling” was a colloquial expression for causing trouble — which tenjō kudari certainly does.

A few possible connections to origins outside of Toriyama’s imagination exist. One involves the story of a yokai that moved into the roof crawlspace of an inn in Yamanashi. During the night, it would descend from the ceiling and snatch up travelers to eat. However, it’s not sure whether this myth inspired Toriyama Sekien or rather was inspired by his work.

Tenome
Tenome手の目
てのめ

Translation: eyes on hands
Habitat: open fields and gravyards at night
Diet: human bones, fresh from the body

Appearance: Tenome takes the appearance of an elderly zato, a kind of blind guildsman. Its face has no eyes at all; instead, it has eyes on the palms of its hands.

Behavior: Tenome wander through open fields or graveyards at night, hunting for tasty humans. They wait until their prey is very close before attacking. By the time one is able to recognize that they are face-to-face with not a zato but a yokai, it is often too late to escape. Tenome can run very quickly, and while their vision is not particularly strong, they have a powerful sense of smell which helps them follow their victims in the dark.

Origin: Tenome’s true nature is not known, but they are most likely the ghosts of blind men who were robbed and murdered by thugs. This explanation can be traced to a folk tale, in which a man is attacked at night by a monster with eyes on its palms but none on its face. The man flees to a nearby inn for shelter. He tells the innkeeper what he saw, and the innkeeper replies that a few days ago, a blind man was attacked and robbed out in that field. As the man lay dying in the grass, he cried out with his last breath, “If only I could have had once glace at their faces! If I only had eyes that worked — even if only on the palms of my hands…!” The old blind man’s resent-filled death caused him to be reborn as a yokai — with eyes on the palms of its hands, just as he wished.

Legends: In Shichi-jo, Kyoto, a young man entered the graveyard at night as a test of his courage. From out of the darkness, a blind old man approached the young man. When the elderly figure got close enough to be seen in detail, the young man saw that it had eyeballs on the palms of his hands, and it was coming after him!

The young man ran as fast as he could to a nearby temple and begged the priest for sanctuary. The priest hid the man inside of a long chest and locked the lid. Shortly afterwards, the monster entered the temple, sniffing loudly as if it was hunting. The young man could hear he sniffing noise getting closer and closer, until it stopped right next to the chest he was hiding in. Then, there was a strange slurping sound, like the sound of a dog sucking on an animal’s bones. A little while later, the eerie sounds vanished, and all was quiet. The priest opened up the chest to let the young man out, but all that was inside of the chest was the loose, empty skin of the young man. His bones had been completely sucked out of his body!

Ubume
姑獲鳥
うぶめ

Translation: woman in late pregnancy; often written with different characters
Alternate names: obo, unme, ugume, ubame tori, and many others
Habitat: haunts the area where she gave birth
Diet: none; only exists to deliver her baby into safe hands

Appearance: When a woman dies just before, during, or shortly after childbirth, anxiety for her child may prevent her spirit from passing on. This troubled attachment manifests as a ghost known as an ubume. These women appear on dark, rainy nights. Ubume can appear in many forms: a woman carrying a baby; a pregnant woman; or a blood-soaked walking corpse carrying an underdeveloped fetus. Other times they just appear as horrific, bloody, pregnant women crying out desperately into the night for help.

These variations are due to the burial traditions of different regions, as well as the circumstances of their death. In some areas, when a pregnant woman died she would be buried with the unborn fetus still inside of her. In other places, the fetus would be cut out of her and placed in her arms during burial. Women who died after delivering stillborn babies were also buried this way.

Behavior: These tragic spirits wander the areas near where they died, seeking aid from the living which they cannot provide themselves. If the mother died after childbirth but her baby survived, the newly formed ubume will try to care for the child in whatever way it can. She enters shops or homes to try to purchase food, clothes, or sweets for her still-living child. In place of money she pays with handfuls of dead leaves. These ghosts also try to lead humans to the place where their baby is hidden so that it can be taken to its living relatives, or adopted by another person.

In cases where both mother and child died, an ubume can appear carrying the bundled corpse of her infant. When a human approaches, the ghost tries to deliver the bundle into the arms of the living. If the stranger accepts, the ghost vanishes, and the bundle grows heavier and heavier until the helpful stranger is crushed under its weight.

Other forms: The name ubume is written with characters that imply a bird’s name. The literal translation of these characters is “child-snatching bird” and some theories connect this spirit with another yōkai called the ubumetori. This yōkai is an evil bird which flies through the sky searching for clothing that has been left on the clothesline overnight. When it finds some, it smears its poisonous blood on the clothing. Shortly afterward, the owner of those clothes begins to develop shakes and convulsions; possibly leading to death. Ubumetori are also blamed for snatching babies and taking them away into the night sky. Whether this bird is another form of the ghostly mother or a separate spirit with a similar name is not known.