Tono Monogatari

by Shigeru Mizuki, Zack Davisson (Translator)

The beloved mangaka adapts one of his country - and the world’s - great works of supernatural literature

Shigeru Mizuki―Japan’s grand master of yokai comics―adapts one of the most important works of supernatural literature into comic book form. The cultural equivalent of the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, Tono Monogatari is a defining text of Japanese folklore and one of the country’s most important works of literature. This graphic novel was created during the later stage of Mizuki’s career, after he had retired from the daily grind of commercial comics to create personal, lasting works of art.

Originally written in 1910 by folklorists and field researchers Kunio Yanagita and Kizen Sasaki, Tono Monogatari celebrates and archives legends from the Tono region. These stories were recorded as Japan’s rapid modernization led to the disappearance of traditional culture. This adaptation mingles the original text with Mizuki attempts to retrace Yanagita and Sasaki’s path, but finds his old body is not quite up to the challenge of following in their footsteps. As Mizuki wanders through Tono he retells some of the most famous legends, manifesting a host of monsters, dragons, and foxes. In the finale, Mizuki meets Yanagita himself and they sit down to discuss their works.

Translated and with additional essays by Mizuki scholar Zack Davisson, Tono Monogatari displays Mizuki at his finest, exploring the world he most cherished.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Japan, Fiction, Short Stories

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 29, 2010

About the author

Shigeru Mizuki (水木しげる) was a Japanese manga cartoonist, most known for his horror manga GeGeGe no Kitaro. He was a specialist in stories of yōkai and was considered a master of the genre. Mizuki was a member of The Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, and had travelled to over 60 countries in the world to engage in fieldwork of the yōkai and spirits of different cultures. He has been published in Japan, South Korea, France, Spain, Taiwan, the United States and Italy. He is also known for his World War II memoirs and his work as a biographer.

Reviews

[The Artisan Geek]

15/1/21
One of Mizuki's last works, centering around yokai and kami from Northern Japan -- so cool! Drawn and Quarterly were so kind to gift me a copy of this really interesting manga :) I will feature this manga and my thoughts on my channel once it comes out in March.

You can find me on
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[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sensei Shigeru Mizuki—Japan’s master and scholar of yokai comics—adapts a classic yokai text from a 100 years ago, Tono Monogatari, a collection of Japanese folklore. Produced beautifully by Drawn & Quarterly. Originally written in 1910 by folklorists Kunio Yanagita and Kizen Sasaki, Tono Monogatari celebrates and archives legends from the Tono region. Mizuki inserts himself as a character into the story, mainly as a guide, with little serious commentary. Goofy cartoonish manga characters intermingled with some serious attention to ghost and monster stories. 3.5, maybe, rounded up because of the solid production and accompanying essays. Not his best work, but worth a look at it.

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the English translation of the graphic novel adaptation of very short Japanese folktales originally recorded and adapted by Kunio Yanagita from oral folklore related to him in the early 1900s by Kizen Sasaki, who heard it from various relatives and members of the community around Tono, Japan. So we're playing a pretty big game of telephone here.

Basically, it's Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, with Japanese peasants, hunters, and woodcutters minding their own business in the mountains, suddenly seeing an odd creature, spirit or ghost, yelling yikes, and either a) getting on with their day, b) gaining great fortune, or c) dying two days later. Most stories are only one or two pages, with a few getting an epic eight-page treatment.

Shigeru Mizuki inserts himself as a narrator, but instead of being, say, the Crypt-Keeper and playing up the creepiness, he's more like your old grandfather, just shaking his head and going, "Huh, how 'bout that." (He also brings along his Kitaro character for a cameo.)

Interesting for what it is, but mostly dull and repetitive.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a bit of a letdown. I love Shigeru Mizuki's work, and he would seem to be the perfect choice for adapting in manga form a classic Japanese literary work dealing with yokai. It would seem to play to his strengths as an artist.

But the result is sadly flat and lifeless. The artwork sparkles in all of the right places. But the pacing is dry, and so brief as to be almost unnoticeable. Incidents are recounted in a bare bones, matter-of-fact manner. I, for one, could have done with even the teensiest bit of embellishment, just to make them come alive. Given my previous experience with Mizuki's work, I can only conclude that this tonal problem is inherent in the source material. Because he is usually more interesting to read than this. A little less reverence for the original on his part could have made a sizeable difference.

Sadly, this does not rise above the novelty value, and is probably best left to Mizuki fans only. If you're new to his work, check out literally anything else first. And if you're curious about Tono Monogatari itself, you're probably better off with the prose version.

[Oriana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly this book was pretty much a bummer. A vast catalogue of snippets of stories about ancient Japanese yokai spirits and folklore, which were chronicled by a cultural observer more than a century ago, in an attempt to save them from obscurity as Japan modernized. The intro and interstitial mini-essays contextualizing the work were far more interesting than the stories themselves, which, as another book club member put it, were "baffling brutal and brief." The art was pretty excellent, but the stories themselves.... welp. Would not revisit.

[Stephanie Fleming · Rating 5 out of 5]

I visited Tono in 2008/9 and still own the other translated version of the original Yanagita collection. The style might put people off, as it's in the style of the four act observational stories, where there's no real climax or plot-things happen, then they stop, but they grow on you.

It's usually described as being like Grimm's fairytales, but other than the fact that the both the Grimms and Yanagita collected these stories as an academic study, there's not a lot of similarity. The stories from Tono don't have morals-there is no magical way to avoid having the mountain gods kill you or to get rich goods from a yokai house. If you're expecting anything like a formal Western-style narrative, you'll be disappointed - these are more like short observations rather than narratives. That's also what the original book is like as well.

Several of the stories are changed up to allow Mizuki to narrate them and he also added a few legends that aren't in the original book (probably because a lot of them wouldn't be interesting to the people that Yanagita collected the stories from, so he wouldn't have bothered to include them). I really appreciated that he added in the bits about the spring festival with the lion-dogs they use in Tono. The festival was coincidentally on when I visited and they are very cool looking-it's like a combination of deer and lion-dog. If you can visit the town then, it's very worth it! I wish they had a story of why they're different, but I'll have to live without knowing.

The art is in Mizuki's inimitable style. His landscapes and splash pages are really beautiful and remind me of my visit. The character designs are very cartoony, which kind of takes away from the scarier stories, but that's also his style-using a more realistic style wouldn't really be a comic by him. I'm in awe of the fact he had his dominant arm cut off and was still able to teach himself to paint and draw with his left hand.

If you aren't familiar with the style of traditional Japanese stories and are looking for something more like a narrative, you'll be disappointed in this. However, if you're familiar with the style and ok with open ended tales that don't really have a plot, climax, or moral, you'll enjoy it! (or if you're a big fan of the art) If you are in the Tohoku area of Japan and enjoy folklore or yokai stories, I'd recommend visiting Tono, especially if you can during a festival. If not, you can explore the town and area and hunt down all the kappa (statues)!

[Celia Burn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shigeru Mizuki's line work and art is imaginative and delightful as always, but more than half of the stories leave a lot to be desired. Reading more as snippets of folklore, yokai and supernatural sightings, many of these stories are less than a few panels, beginning abruptly and ending the same. There are few select tales which are enhanced by the section introductions expanding on cultural beliefs, history and Japanese traditions. Without Mizuki's art these chosen selections of Tono Monogatari are more akin to obligatory journal entries with little other meaning.

In older storytelling, especially shared through oral tales, there is often a more detailed introduction to set up a story, but with superfluous details that mean little else and do not foreshadow anything. Almost like 'setting the stage' in an incredibly short story while proceeding not to actually use any of the props/background specifically set out, but some people might argue the insignificant details make a story more fun.

For example, a specific mountain in Japan will be named in a specific village around Tono and tell of a farmer who lost their fortune and lives alone but clears a part of a forest which made his mountain home inaccessible before so a giant comes through and eats the farmer's freshly made mochi. The farmer suspects this will happen again the next day so he makes more mochi, but this time with rocks mixed in, so the following day the giant comes through, eats all the mochi and rocks mixed throughout and thus drops dead. You can sometimes glean from the stories a bit of ethics or moral of the story to be desired - similar to fairytales like Grimms - except in a much briefer form and convoluted telling, but majority felt simply meaningless and boring closing with "so that happened" or "huh, imagine that".

While there is some fun to be had in a few of the chosen story selections, without Mizuki's art many of these would be especially droll even for lovers of mysterious, inexplicable short stories rooted in folklore like me.

[Jim Reddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shigeru Mizuki, creator of GeGeGe no Kitaro, adapts Tono Monogatari, a famous book of folk legends. The legends were gathered from Tono, Iwate prefecture in Japan, by Kunio Yanagita.

The legends vary in length, some are quite short, just fragments, while others are a little longer.

There are also five essays by translator Zack Davisson spread throughout. They provide a lot of background information regarding the legends. I quite enjoyed reading them as they were informative and fun to read.

The essays cover the following topics:
Concerning Mountains
On Kami and Yokai
Animals and the Supernatural
The Warden of the North
On Foxes and Folk Tales

Characters are drawn in Mizuki’s usual cartoony style. The backgrounds which include mountains, forests, and thatched huts are drawn in a realistic style. The art is gorgeous and atmospheric.

Shigeru Mizuki worked on this later in his career after he retired from regular work. The stories are told in an autobiographical way, as if Mizuki were traveling through Tono late in his life.

This volume comes across as a labor of love. Highly recommended for anyone interested in folk legends.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tono Monogatari, by Shigeru Mizuki, is a graphic novel adaptation of a book by the same name, written by Kunio Yanagita and Kizen Sasaki in 1910. The book is a Grimm's Fairytale-esque collection of stories about Yokai and Kami in the Tono region of Japan. This book contains over 100 stories, each a short tale about a local interaction with Yokai and Kami throughout the region's history. These stories are filled with humour and superstition, as the author writes down the interesting mythologies of the Tono region. This book was highly entertaining, as it examines the myths and legends of a small, rural area. There are stories of foxes becoming human, interactions with mountain giants, strange rocks, mountain spirits, and so much more. This was certainly a blast to read. My only real gripe would be the illustrations. This may be manga blasphemy, as Shigeru Mizuki was a famous and well regarded manga artist of great renown. Even so, I did not enjoy the illustrations wholly, although their are moments of beauty, especially in the landscape scenes. Other than that, this is an excellent collection, and certainly worth a read for those interested in Japanese myth and legend.

[Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I sampled this and finally picked it up during a “spend 25 and get $6 credit” sale. It was alright. There is valuable history and myth here for someone new to Japanese culture. I’m relatively new to it, so it was worth checking out.

The stories are a bit disconnected, and more like happenings than actual stories. It’s the kind of stuff you might hear around campfires, and sometimes they aren’t even interesting stories you’d hear around a campfire. They’re more the ones you might space out during while staring at the fire.

It carries a fairly heavy price tag too.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Manga-ization of a collection of folktales from mountainous rural Japan. Most stories are only 2 pages long ("One time I heard a weird sound in the next room and sniffing at the door! It must have been spirits!" "Or...a raccoon...?") but a few are more story-length and reminiscent of campfire-stories. A lot of them raise some concerning questions ("I saw a woman washing her hair in the woods so I shot her & cut off her hair as a trophy." "A-...As...one does...?!?") ("A lot of women disappear around here never to be seen again, they must have been kidnapped by yama-otoko!" "Guys...guys, you have serial killers.")
Scattered throughout are a few pages of explanation of cultural background, which was interesting. The art style has some lovely backgrounds and landscapes, but people are drawn very caricature-style, with the exception of the occasional beautiful woman (who is usually bad news).
As a glimpse into places and times past, you might enjoy this collection, but if you're looking for strong stories or memorable characters, this might not be your cup of tea.

[Mackenzie Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

As intended, This book is truly for people living in foreign countries and serves as a great introduction to yokai. Chapters begin with wonderful pages of text providing historical and cultural context to the short folklore tales so that the reader has better opportunities to understand their significance. The introductory paragraphs are not needed to enjoy the spooky and humorous comics, however, I greatly appreciated them as a guide.

[Victoria Van Vliet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tono Monogatari is a collection of short folklore stories from the Tono region of Japan. The narrator has inserted himself into each story. At times it is a funny and welcome addition. Other times it is tiresome and distracting. The few references to individuals leaving to poop, distracted from the narrative. Another hindrance to my enjoyment of this graphic novel was the repetition within the stories that were selected to be in the book. They all seemed to be based around minding your own business in the woods, and you will be left alone.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection of short Japanese fairy tales. I read this for work as I am conducting a piece featuring four of these tales.

Drawn well. SOOOO many of the stories are the same.

[Tobi ﾄﾋﾞ · Rating 3 out of 5]

not my sort of thing but it was rlly cool

[Heidi Goehmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 - I appreciated the significance of the folk tales within the creative presentation and was oddly confused by the placement of the supportive essays and narration structurally.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

The key figure who spans the entire volume is the narrator and folklorist Shigeru Mizuki, but the primary characters around whom the stories center in the Japanese city of Tono and its surrounding mountains are the yokai, kami, and other supernatural beings and spirits that seem to emerge from the Shinto worldview, magic, and superstition of an enspirited physical world. The illustrations are a curious blend of almost-static scenes in traditional form and cartoon characters, both humans and spirits, that feel more contemporary but also spare in their style--maybe all this helps articulate the merging of the physical and spirit worlds. Some of the tales are, like ghost stories, pretty creepy or stretching credulity, but might make anyone think twice about walking alone in a mountainous forest. The best part of the book were the intervening essays by Zach Davisson that describe the background for the book as it was originally written and the stories accumulated from local residents. Since this is an English translation of the original, it is a great effect to have the book read from right to left, beginning at what Western readers would call the end.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume, written towards the end of Mizuki's life, feels like its as much an ode to folklore as it is an exploration of the original work he's adapting. It's haunting in its apparent simplicity, and fans of Mizuki's work and of folklore in general (although Japanese folklore in specific) really ought to pick this up.

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sensei Shigeru Mizuki’s adaptation of Japan’s beloved classic literature Tono Monogotari, the source of many supernatural snippets emanating from the mystical town of Tono and it legend imbued surroundings.

[Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in 2015, I visited the rural Japanese town of Tono in Iwate prefecture, known as the “City of Folklore,” just a few years after the hundredth anniversary of the publication of the influential Japanese folklorist Kunio Yanagita’s 1910 masterwork Tono Monogatari, a slim, fascinating collection of 119 short vignettes told to him by local citizen Sasaki Kizen. At the same time, I noted that the acclaimed manga artist Shigeru Mizuki had published a comic adaption of the work to celebrate this anniversary, so when I noticed that it had been recently been translated into English, I was eager to read it. Mizuki takes Yanagita’s spare records of the valley's local stories, and crafts a thoughtful comic as the elderly manga artist depicts himself tramping across the Tono valley in the footsteps of Yanagita and Sasaki, making me feel like I was also visiting again.

As the creator of the seminal manga GeGeGe no Kitaro, Mizuki himself also had a significant role in popularizing the yokai and mystery of Japanese folklore both in Japan and across the world, making him an ideal conduit to explore this standard in Japanese folklore study. Along with background information provided by translator and folklorist Zack Davisson on the Shinto meanings behind these lore, the tales lend themselves to Mizuki’s comical yet grounded style. Both eerie and oddly prosaic, the tales reflect the everyday life and concerns of the people of this remote place, both their fears and their desires. Including legends of the kappa, the tengu, snow women, and other supernatural entities, other tales discuss local landmarks and eccentric townspeople while aspects of daily life like farming and hunting continue throughout. Mizuki’s sympathetic yet questioning musings are an ideal medium for revisiting Yanagita’s work and the integral place it has in Japanese folklore study.

I discuss other works recently published in English on Japanese folklore at Harris’ Tome Corner- Narrating the Strange: Kaidan of Yokai and Yurei in Japanese Folklore.

[Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a fun read, perfect for fans of Mizuki's yokai research and comics, or if you're a nerd who just likes reading about folk tales and regional religious practices in your free time. The stories are fragments are based on Kunio Yanagita's Tono Monogatari, which are collected stories and legends from Tono and published in 1912.

This is the second Mizuki book I've read (I read NonNonBa six years ago in one afternoon, so it is a little hazy) and I did not at all know about who Yanagita was until reading this. I couldn't help but compare the fragments and stories to the 1812 edition of the Brother's Grimm (Jack Zipes has a lovely English translation) which are also fragmentary and surprisingly mostly just dark village gossip (compare the Tono Monogatari stories of murder and madness to stories like "How Some Children Played at Slaughtering"). A key difference however, is that the Tono Monogatari contains the stories and beliefs held by farmers and working people in the country about other people working in the country, where as much of the Grimm's tales are sourced from their aristocratic friends and often deal with the hierarchies of kings and queens.

One of my favorite parts of this book is in final chapter where Tono Monogatari discusses the parade of the Gongesama masks in Tono. In this section Mizuki chooses to illustrate the procession dancers as the protagonists of the previous chapters of stories. I liked this choice to repeat faces because however cartoonishly stylized Mizuki's caricatures are, it reminds you that the people who live inside and alongside these stories, legends, warnings, and gossip, are/were/are the ancestors/descendants of people who hold these very real processions and ceremonies. However outlandish some of these stories may sound to an outsider, and however embellished they may be by Yanagita or Mizuki across a century, these stories are real because the people who wear the masks and keep the shrines and tell the stories again make it real and while I myself have never been religious in any strong capacity, I think that might be what it means "to live alongside" something like belief.

[Mauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bumped it up to three stars from two because Mizuki’s landscapes were so achingly reminiscent of the real thing.

A comic version of the 1910 collection of supernatural stories, The Legends of Tono, Tono being a small city in northeastern Honshu, the main island of Japan, famous for its folklore and rice production.

Mizuki labels each part of the comic with the corresponding number from the original Legends, so I went ahead and read along with my translated copy. He remains quite faithful to the source material, though he occasionally inserts himself as a traveler in the area or a minor character. (He also sprinkles in his typical amount of poop jokes.) Mizuki visited Tono quite a lot and the landscapes and depictions of local culture are all based on what he saw himself or was able to research.

The book itself is high quality - larger than the usual size - and includes several useful essays by the translator on relevant Japanese history and folklore. The included map of the area is more detailed than one included in the 100th Anniversary Edition of the The Legends of Tono.

One of the things that struck me the first time I read The Legends of Tono is that while it’s described as “folklore,” Grimm’s fairy tales it is not. There are ghost stories and stories of spooky happenings, but a good number are “yep, wolves will eat horses” and “it sounds like a serial killer was kidnapping young women” or “hmm, I think this is an explanation for infanticide.” Mizuki, however, takes it all at face value and depicts the weird-looking babies as kappa and the mountain men as giant, hairy cavemen.

Contains depictions of dead people and animals, violent killings of people and animals, bestiality, and infant exposure.

[Valérie Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Il est intéressant de voir que les adaptations en manga peuvent parfois nous faire découvrir des oeuvres anciennes, comme cette recension par des scientifiques de l'ère Taishô (autour de 1910), des légendes d'une ville des montagnes (Tôno), dans le nord du pays. Je n'ai pas lu la version originale des récits de Tôno, mais je connais bien ce type de recension auprès d'une collectivité: les récits devaient parfois être brefs, partiels, répétitifs d'une personne à l'autre, avec des variations. Pour adapter une telle forme en manga, un grand ménage a dû être fait.

On a réuni les histoires par thème, les courts essais du traducteur Zack Davisson sont également fort utiles pour permettre de comprendre les contextes historique et régional de ces récits. J'ai bien apprécié également les commentaires du mangaka de Mizuki Shigeru qui se met directement en scène dans les histoires.

Les récits débutent violemment et cruellement: dès les premières pages, la vue d'une femme nue qui se brosse les cheveux dans la montagne amène l'homme qui parcourt les sentiers à l'abattre d'un coup de balle parce qu'elle était une "yamaonna" (femme des montagnes) et à lui voler ses cheveux. C'est brusque pour débuter, et surtout sans le contexte qui viendra par la suite et permettra de mieux saisir l'ensemble. Cela rappelle aussi la cruauté humaine, et les buts divers de ces contes narrés entre villageois: pour empêcher les femmes de marcher seules dans les montagnes (peuplée de déesses qui pourraient les jalouser), et aux humains de ne pas sous-estimer les forces de la nature (tempêtes, glissements de terrain, etc.)

Un ouvrage qui sera intéressant surtout pour les curieux des traditions japonaises à travers les époques.

[Chels Patterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tono Nogatari by Shigeru Mizuki. As always Mizuki can write and illustrate anything and I will adore it. Tono Nogatari is the latest Post-posthumously English Publication of Mizuki’s work, and unlike Showa and Onward to our noble deaths, this book is full of short SHORT stories about various spirits and forlklod. But like the other non-fiction books it is portrayed in a logical and documentary style interviews. You flip for the narrator interviewing people in their 80s talking about spirits they encountered as children.

The story that most sticks out for me was a daughter that fell in love and married her father’s horse. Married in the biblical sense, they were caught by the father one night. The father hanged the horse, but still the daughter went to the horse and hugged him crying out for her husband. The father then chopped of the horse head, the daughter then climb on the the horse neck and it flew into the ski with her on it.

None of these folklore stories I have ever heard, they are somewhat regional. Except for ones from Mizuki’s war stories where they contribute odd things to spirits. It was nice to hear the orgins of it.

The only real fault, and it’s not a fault, is that some of the stories are short. 2 or 3 pages. And they are just so interesting that you want a resolution or to know more. But because they are foolklore or boogie man stories they aren’t meant to have rich back stories or concolusions. It’s more “she was taken into the wood and never seen from again.”

It’s diffentjallt a fun and interesting read for any lover of comics and a must if you love the late great Mizuki!

[Fluffyroundabout · Rating 4 out of 5]

## Key takeaways
- Really insightful collection of Japanese folklore and the everyday routine of countryfolk.

- 80% of Japan is mountainous and so terrace farming is prominent (steps of farms up a mountain).

- Such mountainous landscape gave inspiration for myths and legends. Women were banned from climbing mountains as they incite the jealousy of the Mountain Goddesses. To this day, women are banned from climbing Mt Omine.

- Learnt of the Shugendo religion and those who follow it, the yamabushi (one who bows down in the mountains). An ascetic religion dating back to the 7th century.

- I love the movie Spirited Away by Studio Ghibli and here I found out abductions by spirits are called Kamikakuzhi, meaning ‘Spirited Away’.

- The Yamabito were "descendants of a real, separate aboriginal race of people who were long ago forced into the mountains by the Japanese who then populated the plains" during the Jōmon period.

- It is a delight to have these tales passed down through the generations now captured forever in the west with this manga. Folklore is history and imagination joining forces. It helps us understand our ancestors and how they dealt with the seasons and their natural emotions. It is a relic to cherish.

## Notes
- Ikiaigami - Divine spirit that cause disaster when it crosses your path
- Torii gate - a barrier between the natural and supernatural world
- Kami - dual spirited, good and bad energy
- Yokai - demon like, only bad
- Sighting of white deer - divine presence
- Wolves - okami

[Christian Marques · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic work by Shigeru Mizuki, a mangaka who became known for his work with manga about yōkai (the famous supernatural entities of Japanese animist folklore) where he covered, in an almost ethnographic and sometimes autobiographical way, the importance derived from traditional Japanese culture, manifesting his concern with the fact that the industrialization and digitalization of Japanese society could put an end to these rural legends and stories. This Tono Monogatari reports on the folklore of the mountainous region of Tono, based directly on the ethnographic work of Kunio Yanagita, a famous ethnographer and writer who brought together the various legends and myths of the region in a compendium. The artistic style of this book follows Shigeru Mizuki's signature, with a lot of humour but with the occasional landscape detail or peculiar representation of yōkai, common with NonNonBa and other works of the same genre by Mizuki. While the narrative style might not appeal to everyone - I see these snippets more like the style of Zen koans, short stories without an obvious moral end - they are enlightening in understanding how Japanese animist beliefs are structured and what kind of legends and myths were part of this Japanese medieval society, passed on until the 20th century (and probably even nowadays). Highly recommended if you like manga, Japanese culture and the supernatural.

[Stephanie Tournas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The folkloric tales in this collection were originally collected in the early 20th century, and here they are given new life in the hands of master mangaka Shigeru Mizuki. In fact, Mizuki’s bespectacled face appears, in a sweetly meta touch, quite frequently to interview villagers about the many yokai characters in the tales. Some passages are short, just a page or two, and some are a bit longer, but each contains what feels like an eyewitness account of supernatural beings interacting with villagers in Japan’s Tono region. Beginning with a map of Tono and a long essay on the history of the tales, this collection feels like an exhaustive survey of of the gentle (kami) or rough (yokai) gods, spirits and monsters that existed in the imagination of pre-industrial Japan. Some are funny, like a farting old man, some are scary, like a bug eyed ghost, and some are just weird!

Occasional chapter head essays about the type of creatures featured in the upcoming chapter, written by the translator, also a Mizuki scholar, add historical details. In addition, there are occasional pages in stunning color that really amplify the gorgeous details of Mizuki’s art.

[Vanessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Grazie a canicola edizioni abbiamo la possibilità di leggere la trasposizione manga di gran parte delle storie presenti nell'omonimo libro di Kunio Yanagita, disegnata e interpretata da Shigeru Mizuki, suo grandissimo estimatore.

Quest'opera è un susseguirsi di storie popolari molto brevi in cui il soprannaturale è parte della vita quotidiana delle persone. I mostri, gli spiriti, le divinità coesistono insieme all'uomo, accettati come una realtà tangibile. Gli scherzi di una volpe, l'ira di una divinità della montagna, il fuggi fuggi generale all'arrivo di una donna delle nevi, case disabitate che donano fortuna a chi valica l'uscio della porta: nulla di tutto questo deve destare troppa incredulità negli occhi di chi vive tali esperienze. Sono eventi che accadono, come l'arrivo improvviso di un temporale estivo o come i fiori che sbocciano con l'arrivo della primavera.

Kunio Yanagita e Shigeru Mizuki hanno raccolto, attraverso la scrittura e l'arte visiva, tutte quelle storie tramandate oralmente per secoli che affondano le loro radici nelle tradizioni autoctone giapponesi più autentiche e pure. Un must have imprescindibile per gli amanti del folklore giapponese.

[Philip McCarty · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm giving this book a 5 star review because of how much fun I had reading it while out camping in the woods. The stories in it are fascinating glimpses of folklore and superstitions in the Tono region of Japan. I loved how robust and imaginative the tales were and the ways they brought the forests and mountains alive. Mizuki's artwork perfectly captured the mystery and profoundness of the forests while also offering his goofy style of levity. This collection of stories was also rather powerful in that they were collected as an attempt at preserving the quickly vanishing beliefs of people living in small villages tucked away from modernization in the early 1900s. Some of the standout ones to me were the stories about the gods worshipped in the houses and the giant people living in the forests.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Manga legend Shigeru Mizuki illustrates a collection of classic Japanese folktales. The art is beautiful, blending fun, cartoonish characters and monsters with the occasional breathtaking, hyper-detailed landscape. Mizuki himself makes appearances, offering interest and comic relief as he hears the tales from other elderly storytellers.

The stories themselves, though, aren't very engaging. What Mizuki shares here is a blend of an index of stories and the stories themselves. Many of the tales get just a page or two, and there's little narrative arc or tension. Instead, we get a pretty bland summary, like someone remembering a movie they watched once. This apparently matches the format of the source material, but it doesn't make for riveting reading.