Yokai: Japanese Mysterious Monsters and Phenomena

by Shingo Ito (Consultant Editor)

Over 100 Japanese Yokai, including Oni, Tengu, and Kitsune, are introduced with illustrations and bilingual Japanese/English descriptions!

192 pages, Paperback

Published April 16, 2025

Reviews

[Pranav Iyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gifted me this from thier trip to Japan, this was fun subway commute read - the illustrations are very well done! The level of detail associated with some of these monsters and thier origin stories is really interesting. I’d love to know more in depth maybe a showcase or a short story to go with but I understand this was meant to be a pocket edition. It was also very interesting for me to note some of the parallels in South Asian lore as well.

[Amphitrite · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wished this book went more in-depth into the stories of each character. Each monster was given a synopsis with as much detail as a Pokemon card, but it was a good introduction the Japanese monsters lore

[Sarah Sihombing · Rating 5 out of 5]

After 2 months of mental and brain assassination attempt (NAH it actually molded the 日本語 part of my small brain) disguised as self-challenge, i proudly present the 442 nouns, 304 verbs, 84 adverbs and 77 adjectives that I solemnly swear will be forgotten one by one after this reading (;_;)

The book is wonderful, the illustrations are legit and the yokais are all cool but what’s crazy is the vocab that I will remember the most are all freaky words like “to kill”, “curse”, “death”, “creepy” because of the topics 😭

P.S. : Right after finishing translating this book and writing down all the vocabs, I only experience relief for 1 sec as I felt the “Washoku” version eyeing me from the side bookcase…..gulp……no not today……easier book after this……please……