Yōkai and creatures of Japanese folklore
Kitsune, tanuki, tengu, kappa, oni and the other yōkai of Japanese folklore, as Edo-period books and prints drew them and as the stories tell them, and where modern anime and games depart from that record.
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Animals that change shape
- Kitsune (fox)The fox of Japanese folklore: a shape-shifter that takes a woman’s form, possesses people and lights foxfire. In Shinto the fox belongs to Inari, the kami of rice, and pairs of stone foxes guard Inari’s shrines.
- Tanuki (raccoon dog)The tanuki, the Japanese raccoon dog, is a shape-shifter in folklore that drums on its belly, disguises itself as a monk and plays tricks on travellers. Since the 1950s its pottery figure, in a hat and holding a sake flask, has stood at shop doors for luck.
- Bakeneko and nekomata (cat yōkai)Bakeneko and nekomata are the cats of Japanese folklore that change shape or bewitch people: an old cat turned yōkai, or a cat with a long tail. In the Nabeshima legend a cat with two tails takes the form of a lord’s favourite.
- Jorōgumo (spider woman)The jorōgumo is a spider yōkai: a spider that can turn into a woman, or a spider-woman who controls small spiders. It is also the Japanese name of a real spider, the joro spider now spreading in the United States.
Mountain and water spirits
- TenguTengu are the goblins of Japan’s mountains and forests: bird-like at first, with wings and a beak, and later long-nosed, red-faced men in the dress of mountain ascetics, with a feather fan. Some count them as the kami of the mountains.
- KappaThe kappa is the water imp of Japan’s rivers and ponds: child-sized, with a beak, a shell, webbed hands and a hollow on its head that holds the water of its strength. It drags people and horses into the water, and loves cucumbers and sumo.
Demons and apparitions
- Oni (and the oni mask)Oni are the demons and ogres of Japan: horned, fanged and clawed, dressed in tiger skin. Every Setsubun people drive them out with roasted beans, but in Shinto oni can also be visiting beings who bring blessings.
- Yuki-onna (snow woman)Yuki-onna, the snow woman, is a pale woman who comes with the snow and kills with her cold. In Lafcadio Hearn’s story of 1904 she spares a young woodcutter, later marries him, and vanishes when he breaks his promise of silence.
- Rokurokubi (long-necked woman)The rokurokubi is a yōkai in human form, usually a woman, whose neck stretches to great lengths. A related creature, the nukekubi, has a head that leaves its body after dark.
- Karakasa-obake (umbrella ghost)The karakasa-obake, or kasa-obake, is an old paper umbrella turned yōkai, often shown hopping on a single leg. It is one of the tsukumogami: household things that come to life once they have been used for a long time or thrown away.
Lucky and dream-eating beasts
- Baku (dream eater)The baku is the dream eater: a beast with an elephant’s trunk and tusks that devours bad dreams. Its picture was hung in houses and its name written on pillows, and people called “Baku kurae!” (“Devour, O baku!”) after a nightmare.
- KirinThe kirin is the Japanese form of the Chinese qilin: a one-horned beast with a deer’s body and an ox’s tail that treads without a sound, harms no living thing and appears only under wise rulers. In modern Japanese the word also means giraffe.
About yōkai and creatures of Japanese folklore
These pages are about the yōkai, the supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore. Komatsu Kazuhiko, former director-general of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, defines yōkai as strange, abnormal phenomena beyond the grasp of the unaided mind, given a physical form. They include animals that change shape, the fox, the Tanuki (raccoon dog) and the cat, and the spider that becomes a woman; the Tengu of the mountains and the Kappa of the rivers; the Oni (and the oni mask), the snow woman, the long-necked Rokurokubi (long-necked woman) and the umbrella that comes to life; and two beasts of Chinese origin, the dream-eating Baku (dream eater) and the Kirin. Isao Adachi, writing in Japan Spotlight, says the usual Western translation, “monster”, is far from the image Japanese people have of yōkai. He compares them to the fairies of Germanic and Celtic peoples, except that yōkai play tricks on people and are sometimes harmful.
Toriyama Sekien’s catalogues
Much of how yōkai look goes back to one artist. Toriyama Sekien, the pen name of Sano Toyofusa (1712–88), was an ukiyo-e artist who trained Kitagawa Utamaro, and he published four books of yōkai pictures: Gazu hyakki yagyō (the Illustrated Night Parade of the Demon Horde) in 1776, Konjaku gazu zoku hyakki, Konjaku hyakki shūi in 1781 and Hyakki tsurezure bukuro in 1784. The National Diet Library dates the second book to 1777; the translators Nippon.com interviewed give 1779. Before Sekien, the translator Yoda Hiroko says, yōkai were known from painted scrolls, where they appeared on their own without backgrounds, and Sekien placed them in settings. His books were mass-produced and reprinted three times, and her co-translator Matt Alt calls them the first yōkai product. The first three books gather yōkai everybody knew, like the kappa and the tengu; in the fourth, the translator Isami Romero says, Sekien turned the things of the kitchen and the house into yōkai from his own imagination. The National Diet Library notes that later ukiyo-e artists, Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi among them, used Sekien’s books as a guide.
The folklore and the modern yōkai
These pages keep the record of the Edo period (Sekien’s books, the prints, and the stories Lafcadio Hearn and others wrote down around 1900) apart from the yōkai of manga, anime and games. The modern boom has a clear starting point in Mizuki Shigeru (1922–2015), whose GeGeGe no Kitarō became a hit in 1967 and was adapted for anime and live-action film and translated into dozens of languages; the Japan Tourism Agency notes that many of its characters were Mizuki’s own creations. Mizuki traced his love of yōkai to a woman he called Nononba, who told him stories of the supernatural when he was a boy, and Adachi writes that some of his yōkai came from the folklorist Kunio Yanagita’s study of the tales of Tōno. Alt, writing for the Smithsonian Libraries, which hold copies of Sekien’s books, notes that monsters hiding in plain sight, as in Pokémon Go, are nothing new in Japan, and calls the yōkai the ancestors of the mascots and characters of Japan today.
Sources
- Umbrella-Shaped Yokai (Highlighting Japan, June 2023), Tanaka Nozomi, “Umbrella-Shaped Yokai” (with Komatsu Kazuhiko), Highlighting Japan, Government of Japan, June 2023, Cabinet Office, Government of Japan, article text
- Isao Adachi, Japan Spotlight, July/August 2010 (Kitaro and yokai), Isao Adachi, “Keeping Up”, Japan Spotlight (Japan Economic Foundation), July/August 2010, p. 4, Japan Economic Foundation, p. 4
- TORIYAMA Sekien’s Illustrated Night Parade of the Demon Horde (NDL Image Bank), National Diet Library, NDL Image Bank, Columns: “TORIYAMA Sekien’s Illustrated Night Parade of the Demon Horde”, National Diet Library, Japan, introduction
- The “Yōkai” Art of the Master (Nippon.com), Nippon.com, interview with Isami Romero, Matt Alt and Yoda Hiroko on Toriyama Sekien, Nippon.com, interview text
- Manga Artist Mizuki Shigeru (Japan Tourism Agency), Japan Tourism Agency, multilingual commentary database, R2-01659: “Manga Artist Mizuki Shigeru”, Japan Tourism Agency, English text
- Toriyama Sekien’s Spooky Parade (Smithsonian Libraries), Matt Alt, “Toriyama Sekien’s Spooky Parade”, Unbound (blog of the Smithsonian Libraries and Archives), Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, post text
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research