The Japanese Yokai Handbook: A Guide to the Spookiest Ghosts, Demons, Monsters and Evil Creatures from Japanese Folklore

by Masami Kinoshita

This book is your ultimate guide to Japan's scariest creatures!

Yokai come in every imaginable shape and form--from frightening ghosts and cruel demons to cute fairies and enchanted animals. They can be evil monsters, harmless tricksters or prophets of doom, depending on their inclination.

This book profiles 100 of the most fascinating Yokai,

Yokai expert Masami Kinoshita has been documenting Yokai in folklore, and in real life, for many years. This book presents her most interesting findings and has over 175 full-color illustrations that vividly depict the appearances of these weird creatures. No matter their origins, each Yokai has a strange and wonderful story that is sure to amaze you!

Genres: Nonfiction, Japan

176 pages, Paperback

Published November 14, 2023

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

In her introduction to Yokai, Masami Kinoshita builds on her background as a Yokai expert stemming from earlier studies of demons and spirits in Japanese literature. Kinoshita conducts Yokai tours, has made numerous television appearances and ran the online Nara Monster Times. She also travels around regions of Japan conducting interviews and unearthing Yokai-related stories and folklore. Handbooks dealing with Japanese myth and folklore are apparently popular in Japan, a variation of the kind of field guide associated with birds or local wildlife. Kinoshita’s guide is a light, accessible introduction to an array of Yokai from ghosts to monsters, from the well-known to the more obscure, accompanied by a lavish selection of colourful, playful illustrations. Primarily aimed at younger readers from pre-teens to teens, Kinoshita’s book divides Yokai into broad categories from “super scary” to “super mysterious”, intermingling their individual profiles with a selection of overviews of sites famous for their links to specific Yokai. The sheer variety of Yokai represented here was fascinating as well as the diversity of their origins from classical literature to urban legend: from the sinister, giant hairballs known as Asoke no-ke to the Nozuji who feed on nearby rabbits to the bizarre Asukiarai invisible to the human eye only detected from the sound of their obsessive red-bean washing. The writing is a little clunky at times and the references to Japanese culture and traditions will almost certainly need framing for many readers but overall found this surprisingly entertaining and informative.

Thanks to Edelweiss and to publisher Tuttle for an ARC

[LG (A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions) · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Japanese Yokai Handbook is a guide to various Japanese supernatural beings. Most entries consist of only one page, which has a trading card-style image on it with a rarity level, ratings for scariness, danger, immortality, speed, and intelligence, a couple paragraphs of information, and some brief info, if known, about the yokai's origins, size, place it can be found, and general characteristics. Each chapter focuses on a general type of yokai (scary, mysterious, powerful, weird, cute, simple, sad, kind, evil, and stupid). In between chapters, the author answers some basic questions about yokai and gives brief overviews of locations known for particular yokai.

Either this mostly covered yokai I've never heard of, or the author's depictions were so different from what I've seen in manga or anime that I didn't recognize them. Unfortunately, most of the information was so brief that I didn't feel like I learned very much, although some of the yokai covered were definitely intriguing. There was one modern yokai (first mentioned on internet forums in the 21st century), Kunekune, although its information was just as brief as all the rest.

One of my biggest issues with this book was that it was riddled with typos - misspellings, grammatical errors, and even partial sentences. Pages 34-35 had a particularly confusing example. Page 34 ends at the end of the last sentence of its sole paragraph. Page 35 begins with the last two words of a sentence that doesn't exist on page 34.

This is definitely written for younger audiences (one of the questions the author addresses is "There are scary stories of ghosts at school. Are those yokai?"), but they might be even more frustrated and confused with the errors in the text than I was.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

[T.S.C. Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cute little guide about Yokai for the young and elderly.
Delightful, fun, and easy to read in one sitting!

[Izzati · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

I was excited for the book because it was exactly what I was looking for: a book about Japanese ghosts and monsters but in visual form. It was a bit pricey, but I supposed it would be worth it because it was fully coloured.

Let me begin with what I actually like about the book. I like the card visual idea. As a Pokemon fan who once had the monster cards and played the card battle video game, this was interesting for me. I also like that the monsters are categorized into “scary”, “cute”, “stupid”, “sad”, etc. I especially enjoyed the “cute” category. The inclusion of actual places like shrines that have to do with some of the ghosts are also fun. I felt like visiting those places next time I go to Japan!

But the book was intended for the younger audience. I didn’t care for the Q&As at all (where did they get those Qs anyways? Schools, I’m guessing?). But that was still okay. What was not okay was the inconsistencies within the book. Part of me could hardly believe this book was under Tuttle. Here are some of the examples:
1. Name of the ghost itself keeps changing within the same page. Now, I understand that Japanese can have different pronunciations of the same kanji, but since this was translated, the translation should’ve stuck to just one so as to not confuse readers who read in English.
2. The details of the ghost in words versus the illustration differ! Another confusion to the mix.
3. The details on the cards sometimes don’t make sense, for example a yokai categorized as one of the stupidest has a high “intelligence” on the card.

All these inaccuracies make for a less than satisfying read. But I did enjoy the book to a certain extent.

[Samuel Goldberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really like the art and trading card style stats, would have adored it even more as a kid. The translation is… not good. Word choice is weird, sentences don’t flow, and it’ll occasionally reference something out of the blue as though it’s come up before. And that’s on top of at least some Yokai totally missing huge parts of their stories or identities

[Zia · Rating 2 out of 5]

This definitely needed some better editing, but it was OK overall.

[Karel Baloun · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not just for children, but for anyone who is interested in Japanese culture, or even just a different distinctive form of fantasy. How much more rich is this fancy tradition than the American shallow idea of ghosts and haunted spirits! The author does slide in various gems of solid advice for young adults and children. I am pleased that examples of global fairytales, like this are now available in my own California Public library.

“You might say that Yokai are a tool for us to learn about ourselves.” (P9)
The quality of the art is fantastic.. colorful, imaginative, original, clever, thought-provoking, funny. Japanese manga tradition gives so much to the world, and here it is in full color.

Atop page 38 is a distressingly obvious editing error.. makes me think if I read more carefully, i'd find others. Not sure how the 1-3 speed, immortality, etc ratings are assigned, as many feel wrong to me. Also the rating of scaryness makes very little sense, almost randomly assigned.

I do like how the backstories are reliably sourced from published stories, especially including works over 1000 years old like the Manyoshu and Kojiki, and supported with ancient artifacts found at temples and museums. And I appreciate many of the author's asides, in a voice that is both passionate and authentic.

[Ferry Visser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Met ontzettend veel plezier heb ik ‘The Japanese Yokai Handbook’ gelezen. De tekeningen in het boek zijn geweldig en geven een duidelijk beeld van de yokai. De kaartvorm van de illustratie doet denken aan de pokemon kaarten en dat is een grappige verwijzing. De informatie over sommige yokai is duidelijk en helder, alleen in mijn ervaring te summier. Daardoor is dit boek meer een intrigerende kennismaking, dan een handboek. Ik ga in ieder geval meer lezen over de fascinerende yokai!

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting book about Yokai. I knew very few of them so I really enjoyed reading about the ones I had never heard of before. There were a few spelling and grammatical mistakes that I spotted which brought down my rating a little bit but overall I really enjoyed this.

[Edvard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely pictures and design, but the informational content was often minimal. This was to the book's detriment, but as the intended audience is probably quite a bit younger than I am, I suppose it's fair.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lightsome listing of some yokai.

[Zahra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐