An Introduction to Yōkai Culture: Monsters, Ghosts, and Outsiders in Japanese History

by Kazuhiko Komatsu, Hiroko Yoda (Translator), Matt Alt (Translator)

Since ancient times, the Japanese have lived with superstitions of strange presences and phenomena known as "yōkai," creating a culture by turns infused with unease, fear, and divinity. Tsukimono spirit possessions. Fearsome kappa, oni, and tengu. Yamauba crones. Ghostly yūrei. Otherworldy ijin...Where did they come from? Why do they remain so popular? Written by Japan's premier scholar of yōkai and strange tales, this book is both an introduction to the rich imagination and spirituality of Japan's yōkai culture and a history of the authors and writings that have shaped yōkai studies as a field.

Genres: Nonfiction, Japan, History, Mythology, Folklore, Asia, Literature

196 pages, Hardcover

First published May 22, 2012

About the author

Also: 小松 和彦

Reviews

[Pedro Pascoe · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fascinating subject, dryly dissected as only an academic can.
I started this one off with a bang, having read a bit about Yokai in other books. I finished with a crawl, to be honest.
This was less a collection of stories about Yokai, and more of a collection of bumper-sticker summations of academic books and papers on the subject, covering most of the juicy subjects (the Yokai themselves), with a brief summation of works on Outsiders and Boundaries to boot.
While the odd insight (largely socialogical and psychological) gave this book a different perspective on the phenomena as a whole, this book was criminally padded out with lists, in Japanese, then English translations of titles in their entirely of works, with authors mentioned. Quite often the summation was shorter than the citation itself. Clocking in at 175 pages, with pictures, this work could have easily been presented in well under a hundred if not for this citation of works within the text itself. Padding? Fear of Appendices? Ah, but this book has those as well, bafflingly so. While invaluable as a reference for further reading and research, it detracted from the overall reading experience. The title, more accurately, should read 'An Introduction to the Academic Studies of Yokai Culture'.
Komatsu is clearly passionate about his chosen subject material, and the 2 stars reflect the subject material and his passion. I wish the work could have been written with less emphasis on the citations of sources, and moreso on the works themselves, their implications, and impact on the field, and conclusions drawn from this wide scope of study in a presently narrow field. And hats off, too, for attempting to bring this subject to more light. It just doesn't quite present itself as a popular reader in its present form, despite the lovely pictures. Alas...

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was pretty solid for a brief introduction to yōkai. It covers an awful lot considering it's quite a short book, and gives lots of recommendations for further reading. Fab to have more of Komatsu sensei's work available in English.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was rather skeptical about this study at first but found it fascinating. Written by leading scholar in field, head of Nichibunken. Cap off to translator Matt Alt. The kind of review of Japanese scholarship that seldom gets translated from into English.

[❀ Diana ❀ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather than your typical compendium of Japanese monsters, Kazuhiko Komatsu dwells into the yōkai culture with quite an extensive academic research on it. He, altogether with other Japanese scholars, points about differences between your usual yōkai, obake, yūrei, bakemono, oni and other creatures that have fascinated both the Japanese culture as well as the Occident.

One such example is when he compares yūrei andobake, in the prism of Kyogoku Natsuhiko's explanation of the former:

When a person who has died appears before us, that is indeed a yūrei ... But should it it lose its name, it can only be called an obake. The reason for this is that, a yūrei retains its consciousness and self after death.

A very interesting read with lots of compelling illustrations and an even more extensive reading list. :)

[Sunny :) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This is everything I could have possibly wanted out of a book about Yōkai culture. It includes a historiography of folklore studies, explicit examples of culture affecting folklore AND folklore affecting culture AND folklore research affecting culture and folklore AND culture affecting folklore research, talk of yōkai as symbols, analysis of physical and cultural contexts, academic beef, this truly is just chef's kiss exactly what I needed to read.

I definitely got a bit lost near the end with the last two chapters, but they sparked a curiosity in me which I think is a win. I read a lot of academic and casual works about religion, folklore, and mythology, and while reading this I saw so many ties and similarities to different pieces of lore from different areas, which is FASCINATING!

This felt like a book I would have fallen in love with as a kid reading about spooky stories and mythological figures, and it really brought me back to that unbridled curiosity. Great stuff

[Andre · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, overall this book was a dissappointment. It did start good, e.g. It was interesting to read how these tool yokai were originally depicted the way they still are because it was supposed to show their transformation into oni but these mixed states were what stuck and became popular.
Sadly this book became very boring very fast. I just don't care about translation of culture or what emic and etic are. I hoped that the next chapter "On the Trail of Yokai studies" would be better. And finally, there would be something more concrete. Granted, there is the old problem of the author being too much into himself talking. Seriously, why bother to talk about gods possessing people as an example why spirit possession doesn't fit the concept of tsukimomo? Gods are not considered spirits by most people. It might be interesting that the term Tsukimomo originated in academics and not folklore, but damn why is he doing stuff like this and talking about research?
Why does he translate kitsune-tsuki as fox spirit attachment? He doesn't use the term spirit for oni-tsuki or tengu-tsuki? Kitsune just means fox. I am a bit dissappointed that he made that mistake. And this book is supposed to be about yokai culture but he spent a lot of time on "possession studies", and sure that is part of culture but dammit, I was a third into the book and there is a lot of culture missing. Where is the pop culture, the souveniers etc? It was all studies this and studies that and who studied this or that is just boring. Where is the yokai culture?!
It got better when he wrote about kappa and it sparked my interest again: I do wonder, have kappa and other ugly yokai become so popular and widespread exactly because people don't fear them anymore? It would be interesting and ironic that the demystification of yokai was what led to their current popularity, you can interact with them more freely because you don't need to be afraid of them anymore.
This text about the kawaro (kind of pre-kappa) and how they are turtles and tortoises that with age turn into yokai, makes me wonder: Are kappa a result of people preferring the partially transformed shapes of these turtles and where turtles the bad guys in the Mario franchise because they are based on kappa? I haven't seen examples of evil turtles from japanese folktales but from chinese ones. BUT, then came "New directions in Kappa Research"... I hate such chapters, what has that to do with culture? It was interesting before where Kappa might come from, but where is the contemporary culture stuff? This should be labelled Yokai studies and not Yokai culture. And Tengu could be considered unique to Japan, but so are other yokai, so why call out tengu? And btw. It is still a bit annoying to read about all these studies. And emperors, aristocrats, warriors and monks who fail in their various political and battlefield struggles were transformed into tengu. It was that easy? And tengu noses are phallic symbols, symbols of homosexuality and consequently infertility? He doesn't elaborate on that, he just claims it.
I ask myself what the difference between yurei & yokai is supposed to be. The author definies a yurei as the soul of a dead person in the form it had when living. And seems to follow another author who states that when a yurei loses its name, it can only be called an obake (monster), when it loses its "self" as a human individual it dissappears or transforms into something else. So lots of ghosts here are yokai then. And when the yurei chapter was over, I did wonder why it is here, respectively takes over so much space. Why is there a chapter on outsiders and sacrifices? There has been one mentioning that over time mountain holy people devolved into yokai and now there is the topic of human sacrifices , but where on earth is the connected to yokai truly? Sure it is interesting to read about potential human sacrifices both as reality and in legends like this monk killing an ape-god who wanted such sacrifices, but why is it here? If it weren't for two pictures with with border deities, the chapter on bourders would be a complete waste of time and space. This last chapter on boundaries was completely pointless. I wanted something about yokai in japanese culture, but got almost nothing about that.

[Gaze Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a lot more academic than I was expecting. Rather than a coffee table book of folk legends we are given a scholastic introduction into the academic field of Japanese Folkloric research. The writer, Komatsu Kazuhiko, takes his work very seriously and he says as much in the introduction. He examines the popular Yokai legends from an historical, anthropological, and sociological viewpoint, presenting various theories as to how and why various popular Yokai creatures came about. Through these stories we are also given insight into Japanese history and culture itself. Mr. Kazuhiko argues that in order to truly understand Japan, one must also look at Yokai, and he certainly makes a case for this in this book. There is also a clear sense that this book is merely scratching the surface, as various and sometimes conflicting theories are presented, but not fleshed out. Kazuhiko himself tries to present himself as unbiased and often abstains from giving his own personal opinions on the conflicting research he presents. He ends the book with a fairly extensive reading list for each of the different chapters of the book. He even includes a section of works available in English. The book had a lot of fascinating insights into Yokai beliefs in Japan, but I will admit that I did sometimes find the presentation of the material rather dry. Still, it is obvious to me that Komatsu Kazuhiko really cares about his Yokai research and wants to show it as a legitimate field of research, and through this book he hopes to introduce others to this field as well.

[Nisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exact rating: 5/5

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book by typing in “yokai” in the NLB’s search bar, because I can’t keep track of all the books coming out and I need my folklore fix. While this is not your standard collection of folktales or an introduction to Yokai in the style of Yokai Attack, I absolutely adored this slightly more academic take on Yokai.

An Introduction to Yokai Culture isn’t so much an introduction to the different types of yokai as it is an introduction to the study of yokai in Japan. The book covers the definition of yokai, the history of the word, Tsukimono, Kappa, Oni, Tengu, and more. While the topics aren’t as extensive as a regular yokai encyclopedia, the book goes into detail about how these yokai have been viewed over time, how popular images of them came about, and what they might be telling us about Japanese culture.

Two chapters of the book that stood out to me were those on Tsukimono and Ijin. The chapter on Tsukimono, which the book defines as a “vaguely defined spiritual presence that causes some abnormal or undesirable situation”, considers the topic of Tsukimono-suji, or families with Tsukimono lineages (aka they had spirits attached to them). From there, the book goes on to consider how a family might have a spirit attached to them, and discusses the use of such ideas in a community that is in flux and how it might be used against newcomers.

Likewise, the chapter on Ijin, or outsiders, focuses on the community. I had no idea about the darker side of how ijin were treated – that they could be sacrifices, so this chapter was pretty shocking and rather sad. There was also this quote about ijin that I wanted to share:

“Groups create ijin in order to define themselves as peers or insiders. These ijin are then used as a medium to strengthen the group’s own bonds of solidarity as it discusses how to deal with them, whether that means acceptance, self-segregation, or expulsion”

This definitely happens today, even when you’re not in Japan, which goes to show that through the study of culture via folklore, we can come to see the ways our cultures are similar (or dissimilar).

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and found myself taking copious notes. It’s not a very long book and although it’s an academic overview, the language used was easy enough for a layman like me to understand. I’d recommend this to people who love folklore and would like to take a step back and consider how folklore can reveal aspects of culture to us.

This review was first posted at Eustea Reads

[Miguel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Académico, riguroso y atrapante análisis de la cultura Yokai

Lejos de ser un recopilatorio de relatos y leyendas, o un catálogo de monstruos, este tratado académico explora las raíces antropológicas, históricas y culturales que dieron origen y moldearon mucho del llamado "fenómeno yokai".

Conceptualizando pero si dejar de lado el aspecto de lo fantástico y con una gran erudición el profesor Kazuhiko lleva al lector a explorar las principales categorías que dan sentido al folclore tradicional de Japón, así mientras los primeros capítulos los emplea en definir que es y que no es un yokai, así como un conjunto de fenómenos extraños asociados como los tsukimono (posesiones por espíritus) o takusen (trances divinos), conforme el lector comprende la perspectiva local y temporal de donde surgen estas creencias, se develan categorías mucho más complejas: kappa (hombres lacustres), oni (ogros o demonios), tengu y yamauba (hombres pájaro / arpías), yurei (fantasmas), hasta llegar a realizar una verdadera disertación sobre el enfoque que la cultura tradicional nipona ha desplegado sobre los extranjeros (los otros, los ajenos) y como la teoría de la frontera (boundary theory) explica las particularidades del folklor vinculado a los Yokai.

Sin duda, un libro que atrapa, aunque por momentos al inicio su lectura puede desencantar por la abundante cantidad de citas bibliográficas y la cantidad limitada de imágenes, los múltiples enfoques que menciona sobre los orígenes de cada categoría de yokai, sus características, contexto histórico y especialmente su proyección en el presente, harán que cualquier interesado en la cultura japonesa más tradicional, se sienta satisfecho y por supuesto aquellos que gustan abordar las leyendas desde un punto más allá de la sola estética.
__________________________________________________________
8/10

Si te interesa el folclore japonés o buscas inspiración sobre temática yokai este es tu libro

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good premise for everyone who has taken interest in Yokai and wishes to see them analyzed as more than just still, unmoving objects. The author, a prominent researcher in the field of Yokai studies, introduces the basic subdivisions that can be found in any Yokai anthology (tsukimono or "things that attach themselves to people", kappa, oni, tengu, yamauba and yurei), and offers an interesting final proposition to delve deeper into the study of ijin (the "outcast" in folklore), ikenie (human sacrifices) and boundaries. This work is in no way a complete survey of the topic nor it claims to be, instead offering a huge list of recommended readings by Japanese scholars (which I'll definitely check out when my Japanese level is high enough, lol). Definitely encouraged me to explore more on the Yokai subject and especially on the historical/social reasons why these creatures occupy such a prominent space in Japanese folklore. The book also features a lot of fascinating illustrations from historical pieces.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Komatsu Kazuhiko, a longtime scholar of folklore, has written a wonderful intro to the scholarship of yokai and the weird in Japanese culture. This isn't a collection of stories, and in fact if you have no familiarity with yokai or yurai stories you might be a bit lost. This book is a history and summary of academic theories of the strange in Japan. Included are yokai that many people know, like kappa, oni, and tengu, and topics many non-Japanese people likely know less about, like outsider murders/folklore and spirit possession. It's a small, well-made book with some illustrations, but certainly not a "coffee table book," as one reviewer here said, and if what you want is a coffee table book with yokai illustrations this is definitely not what you're looking for. If instead you already know some Japanese folklore and want a deeper dive and info about what to read next, this is for you. The bibliography is wonderful and I'm adding so many books to my to-read list.

[Melos Han-Tani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Resource (from mid 2000s) that gives a historical overview of most of the subfields of Yokai studies, and, importantly, also talks about some of the theories behind the emergence of certain types of Yokai (for example, the way that farmer families might try to turn the tide against others through claiming another, more successful was 'possessed' by spirits). Yokai stories are fun, but I think what's more interesting to me is for what reasons people were practicing and spreading these kinds of beliefs.

Some chapters are really strong, the weaker ones feel a bit more cursory-overview and reference-list-y. But that in itself is of great value.

[Yasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting little book on the background and popularity of the yokai. It's a pity that the book wasn't longer so that the reader could have more history on the mythology of Japan. A very worth while read!

[Greg Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

More a coffee table book that focuses on Japanese supernatural subjects, and then somewhat selectively. Very good historiography of yokai studies though, with a focus on Japanese scholarship, which is rare even in translation.

[Estel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a delightful book if you're interested in the history and cultural anthropology aspects of yokai and their classifications in Japanese society. I really enjoyed it and wish more like this was available in English translation.

[Jbondandrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good introduction to Yokai culture. I look forward to reading other such books.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

An introduction to the subject - with a clear focus on the academic study of the it, and how it has developed over the years.

[Raymond Paquette · Rating 4 out of 5]

While most of it was a reflection on the previous research, it contained enough interesting tidbits to stimulate my imagination.

[Stray Toki · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's very informative yet hard to read (and at times really boring).
Not exactly what I was looking for.
While the book does introduce you to yokai, yurei and outsiders, the author mainly focuses on how related research developed over the years, how approaches changed and where are we (and the author himself as a leading yokai scholar of our time) now.
The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore while it has its downsides makes for a way better introduction to yokai culture in my opinion.

[Ariane · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone seriously interested in yokai and Japanese folk studies!


I’ve read at least a dozen books in English and French about yokai: upon picking this one from the shelf at the library, I thought there must not be much more to learn on this topic… boy, was I wrong!

Actually, to say this book’s topic is yokai, as the title suggests, can seem misleading: as the first chapter explains, Komatsu’s view of yokai is one much wider than Japanese monsters and occasional ghosts. That's where the subtitle comes into play: « Monsters, Ghosts, and Outsiders in Japanese History ». What seems to me as a novelty in English books about yokai here is the notion of outsiders and how Komatsu brilliantly surveys existing literature and research (including his own), making apparent the links between monsters, divine entities, supernatural events and different notions of outsiders and boundaries in Japanese political and religious history.

This is the first book I have read in English that gives a logical space in the yokai field to tsukimono (possessions), shamanic beliefs, yamabushi, kami-kakushi (spiriting away), the concept of ijin (outsiders) and human sacrifice such as hitobashira (foundation sacrifices; yes, as in emprisoning live people in a building’s foundations, for example). Fascinating!

Also, 
I think 
this was my first time reading an English book about yokai that explained the history of yokaigaku (study of yokai) in folklore studies, and also mentioned what is questionable in peer research and which specific topics are under-represented or poorly documented.

[William Anderson · Rating 3 out of 5]

More aptly this is a primer on the study of yokai vs yokai themselves. A majority of the book is references to the authors own work in a clear attempt to garnish sales/build their own credentials vs to inspire genuine additional reading.

Despite these shortcomings however, there are enough pieces of insight, culture, and lore to get you through the book and maybe spark some further interest. While only a couple major categories of Yokai are discussed (Oni, Tengu, Kappa... etc) those that are reviewed are given a sufficient introduction.

[Lindsay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as coherent as I'd ultimately have liked, and devolved at times into the encyclopedic. The history on folklore research, the chapter on yurei, and the chapter on borders were the most worth reading (although the latter really did not mesh with the project as a whole).

[Aaron Meyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book, rather scholarly at times so be prepared. Does give a look into the various types of yokai throughout Japanese history. Alot of sources in the back in Japanese and English that are worth looking into as well.

[Joaquín Reyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice :3 me gustan los yokai