From the pioneering work of eighteenth-century painter Toriyama Sekien to contemporary superstar Takashi Murakami, Japan Supernatural presents wildly imaginative works by Japanese artists past and present and takes readers on a journey of discovery through the astonishing array of yōkai culture and yūrei (ghosts)--phenomenal beings from fiendish goblins to mischievous shapeshifters--that have inhabited Japanese culture for centuries. Once a means of explaining the unexplainable, they have been kept alive in stories and artworks. Evolving into a form of entertainment ranging from horror to the comical, they have maintained an ongoing presence in Japanese novels, films, anime, manga, and games. Drawn from around the world, the artworks illustrated in Japan Supernatural date from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and include fantastically detailed ukiyo-e woodblock prints, miniature netsuke, wall-sized scrolls, and large-scale contemporary photographs, paintings, and installations. Some of the greatest Japanese artists of the past, including Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, and Kawanabe Kyosai, are featured alongside contemporary artists such as Chiho Aoshima, Miwa Yanagi, and Takahashi Murakami, who update the tradition for the present.

Japan has perhaps the most lively and richly developed tradition of supernatural lore of any civilization. It is comprised of some of the most relentlessly fearsome goblins, demons, metamorphosed animals and ghosts ever known to man. Japanese poets, actors, dancers, and artists have all delighted in portraying these monsters, often with a playfulness and humor that mitigates the demons' more ferocious qualities, but also with a bold, dramatic fervor designed to impress upon their audiences the lessons of folklore. For, like our own mythological and fairy-tale characters, Japan's supernatural inhabitants suggest much about the morals of the Japanese people and of their efforts to understand the mysteries of the world. This is the first book devoted to the study of the supernatural world and its representation in Japanese art. From the 17th to the 19th centuries many of Japan's most brilliant artists, including Hiroshige, Hokusai, Yoshitoshi, and Zeshin, allowed their imaginations free rein to present these mysteries in a variety of media, including paintings, woodblock prints, screens, netsuke and inrō sculptures, and fans. The 49 color plates and 75 black and white illustrations presented here show a stunning array of Japan's most fiendish figures. Each of the ten chapters focuses on one of the most important themes in Japanese lore, discussing its anthropological meaning and literary and artistic interpretations. -- from back cover.

Since time immemorial, tales of the spooky, paranormal, and mysterious have been staples of folklore across the world. Japan is no exception, and its unique position as a melting pot for cultures from around Asia gives it a particularly rich heritage of supernatural legend and tradition. To write this book on Japan's ghosts and other freaky phenomena, author Catrien Ross collected accounts of the eerie and terrifying from around Japan. Along the way, she braved frightening locales including the unquiet grave of the beautiful, betrayed Oiwa, and sacred Mount Osore, a gateway for communicating with the dead. The result of her journeys is a glimpse into hidden aspects of the Japanese world of the paranormal: a world of blind, women shamans, trees that grow human hair, weeping rocks, and even a graveyard where Jesus is reputed to have been buried. Covering ancient and modern times, Supernatural and Mysterious Japan offers not only some good, old-fashioned scary stories, but some special insights into Japanese culture and psychology. It delivers terrific entertainment—and some good chills—for the Japanophile and the aficioniado of the supernatural, alike.

Woodblock prints, essays, and translations scratch to light the secret lives of Japan's mythological felines.

An eerie yet insightful exploration into the phenomenon of yurei, or Japanese ghosts, both past and present.

A bitterly jealous brother, a samurai who makes the ultimate sacrifice, a cold-hearted husband, a monk who mistakes desire for piety, a fraudulent merchant who meets his match in a supernatural river otter — the motives underlying these traditional Japanese folktale characters are explored with haunting results. Prompted by the sometimes illogical and perplexing actions of folktale characters (Why doesn’t the wolf kill Little Red Riding Hood right away?), master storyteller Rui Umezawa revisits eight popular Japanese folktales, delving beneath their sometimes baffling plot lines to highlight the psychological motivations behind the characters’ actions. In “Betrayal,” a treacherous husband poisons his wife so he can marry another woman. In “Paradise,” a young man saves the life of a sea turtle, who takes him to a luxurious underwater palace, where his every whim is fulfilled. A brother in “Rage” is consumed by jealousy when his brother’s dog digs up a cache of gold. In “Honor,” a samurai kills himself to keep a promise made to his blood brother. Tales of addiction, bravery, sex, greed, abuse and control — these stories take their inspiration from the great Japanese storytelling traditions, as well as from Noh and Kabuki. Sometimes laced with ironic humor, sometimes truly horrifying, these stories of the strange and supernatural will appeal to readers of all ages, but they particularly speak to teenagers. Evocative and haunting illustrations by the stunningly talented Mikiko Fujita add to the eerie beauty of this collection. A detailed afterword outlines the author’s storytelling approach and provides source material for each tale.

Brilliantly entertaining and eerie ghost stories, regarded as major classics in Japan, by the Irish writer and Japanophile Lafcadio Hearn—whose life inspired bestselling writer Monique Truong's novel The Sweetest Fruits A Penguin Classic In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living, and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: "rokuro-kubi," whose heads separate from their bodies at night; "jikininki," or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless "mujina" who haunt lonely neighborhoods. Lafcadio Hearn, a master storyteller, drew on traditional Japanese folklore, infused with memories of his own haunted childhood in Ireland, to create the chilling tales in Japanese Ghost Stories. They are today regarded in Japan as classics in their own right.