Okamoto Kidō: Master of the Uncanny

by Kidō Okamoto, Nancy H. Ross (translator)

Born just after Japan transitioned from the Shogunate to Meiji, Kidō grew up in a samurai-oriented world being transformed by the West in many ways. As a reporter he covered domestic development and overseas wars, while also marrying a traditional geisha, eventually becoming a playwright and author. In addition to a number of well-received plays, he also penned more than fifty horror stories over a roughly ten-year period starting in the mid-1920s. Just prior to this period, the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923 destroyed almost everything in Tokyo that remained from the Edo era, and Japanese horror itself was transitioning from the traditional uncanny stories to more modern horror structures.

While many of Kidō’s stories are retellings of tales from China and other nations, he also drew on a diverse range of traditions, including the heritage of Edo-era storytellers such as Ueda Akinari and Asai Ryōi, to produce a dazzling array of work covering the entire spectrum from time-honored ghost tropes to modern horror. The majority of his stories were collected in four volumes: Seiadō kidan (1926), Kindai iyō hen (1926), Iyō hen (1933), and Kaijū (1936).

Kidō remains popular for his elegant, low-key style, subtly introducing the “other” into the background, and raising the specter of the uncanny indirectly and often indistinctly. His fiction spans an enormous range of material, much of it dealing with the uncanny, and as a pioneer in the field his work formed the foundation for the new generation of Japanese authors emerging in post-Restoration literature.

This selection presents a dozen of his best stories: pieces which remain in print almost a century later, and continue to enchant readers—and writers—today. Finally, English-reading audiences can enjoy his strange visions as well.

Contents

The Kiso Traveler (木曽の旅人)
The Green Frog God (青蛙神)
Tone Crossing (利根の渡)
The Monkey’s Eyes (猿の眼)
The Snake Spirit (蛇精)
The Clear-Water Well (清水の井)
Crabs (蟹)
The One-Legged Woman (一本足の女)
Here Lies a Flute (笛塚)
The Shadow-Stepping Game (影を踏まれた女)
The White-Haired Demon (白髪鬼)
The Man Cursed by an Eel (鰻に呪われた男)

Genres: Short Stories, Horror, Japanese Literature, Fiction, Ghosts, Japan

168 pages, Paperback

Published October 10, 2020

Reviews

[Alwynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okamoto Kido was a prolific writer in early 20th-century Japan, with a career in theatre and journalism and well-known for his popular detective series set in feudal times and inspired by his fascination with Sherlock Holmes. He also wrote a number of uncanny tales, a sample of which are included here, these draw on diverse sources from Japan’s history in particularly its samurai culture (his father had briefly been part of this tradition), Japanese and Chinese myth and legend. The pieces gathered here mostly date from the 1920s and 30s but are frequently set in the past, they’re eerie rather than horrific, often structured as recollections passed on or down to others, something familiar in many Western forms of supernatural fiction from the same era. The workings of fate and whether or not we can trust the people around us are recurring themes. Is a wife who appears to possess a strange prescient ability woman or demon? Is a visiting traveller friendly or perhaps a shape-shifting, trickster-like etemono? Is this person taken into our home benign or evil? But alongside these, somewhat unusual, individual dilemmas, Okamato often combines his representations of the inexplicable or folkloric with detailed historical references, painting a picture of a changing Japan caught between ancient communities of superstitious belief and periods of rapid modernisation, something that’s particularly explicit in entries like the wonderfully atmospheric “The Monkey’s Eyes”, “The Shadow-Stepping Game” and the macabre “The Clear-Water Well.” I’m not sure how memorable these are likely to be but I enjoyed them far more than I expected, despite a tendency for frustratingly enigmatic endings. In the most successful of these Okamoto’s particularly adept at conjuring up a sense of time and place, his settings are carefully established, and there’s a pleasing subtlety in his approach to unsettling topics even when he’s dealing with bizarre material as in “The Man Cursed by an Eel.” The collection's ably translated by Nancy H. Ross.

[David Agranoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the last couple of years, the growth of the Bizarro fiction as a community has been fun to watch. It really started with a few authors marketing themselves together. At one of the first bizarro cons author, John Skipp and I were having a conversation with one of the younger authors in the community about the centuries-long tradition of weird fiction. While Surrealism is credited to the 1920s the truth is Homer wrote weird fiction, and we know weird stories have always existed.

What I am learning the plenty of cultures have writers like Okamoto Kido who are a part of this tradition. I really need to thank Edward Lippset of Kurodahan Press for sending me this book. I am very familiar with The Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling written in the 17th century. That book is filled with weird fiction but it is one of the most loved, taught, and read works of Chinese fiction even centuries later.

It is also clear that Pu Slongling is a massive influence on Okamoto Kido whose stories are filled with many of the same ghosts, white-haired demons, weird animals, and haunted objects. It is interesting to think about the fact that these stories were written in the same decades that Weird Tales were publishing Lovecraft.

Okamoto Kido is an interesting dude and the title calls him a Master of the Uncanny I can’t disagree. His history is interesting as the stories themselves. Edward of Kurodahan gives us a good introduction. Born in the late 19th century his father was actually a Samurai. He lived through the Meiji Restoration – the time often credited as the modernization of Japanese society. That said he was well-read in multiple languages and worked for years as an English translator.

He was mostly known for writing plays, but it is his stories that we have here. I can’t tell if all his stories were weird, but they are all delightfully strange here. That may be a choice of the translator or publisher to highlight stories of this style. According to the introduction in Japanese, there is four collections worth of his stories.

This book has twelve stories all of which contain something worth reading. Interesting characters including 19th-century Japanese drifters, Samurai, and blind swordsmen. Even some of the relationships are fascinating as an American reader in the 21st-century stories like The Kiso Traveler. This opening tale has a ghost drifter but the relationship of the father and son in the Meiji Restoration era is what fascinated me.

The stories with haunted flutes and phantom monkey eyes that mysteriously watch the characters are creepy. The Monkey’s eyes will remind serious horror short story readers of The Monkey the cover story of Stephen King’s collection Skeleton Crew. The stories all work well and are great examples of fear of being a universal language. The story that I thought was the best was the Shadow Stepping game.

The Stepping Game is a super paranoid tale of a woman O-Seki who becomes scared that if something happens to her shadow it will happen to her body. She becomes worried to even cast a shadow. This was my favorite story in the collection and one that would make a great episode of Something like Creepshow, or a Night Galley type horror anthology show.

I think this book and Tales from a Chinese Studio are must-reads for readers serious about experimental, surreal, and bizarro fiction. I also think if you are serious about horror fiction in the short form this book should be a part of your education. I thought this was both an education and an entertainment experience. Big thumbs up.

[Rachel Cordasco]

Review at SF in Translation

[Vultural · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kidō, Okamoto - Master Of The Uncanny

Not Horror per se, but strange tales, generally unexplained. Often relating to animals or (not so) ordinary objects. Perhaps best for those who enjoy FLIT.

The stranger appears at the doorstep of the woodcutter. His son, usually sociable, is terrified. “The Kiso Traveler” is polite enough, yet his presence makes others uneasy.

It was an ugly little antique. A carved monkey with glittering eyes that seemed to watch. “The Monkey’s Eyes” is one of possessing, watching.

“The Snake Spirit” involves the snake catcher. Most villages know of one nearby. Pythons can grow quite large, with appetites to match. The catcher has techniques, but one specific snake seems immune to all human snares and wiles.

Masuemon loved “Crabs”. Not to play with, nor merely regard, but as the dinner course. Except, when it appears they may be poisoned, and a friend prophesies more may be tainted. But why?

“The White Haired Demon” distracts the aspiring time and again during his bar examination. To the point he has failed time and again. He does not understand why it haunts him, although when he finally tells his father, the older man urges him to give up that ambition, return home and find a new career. This is a meandering tale that takes several turns.

This is not a collection or horrors, none are action oriented. Many have ambiguous conclusions, but all show and elegant charm. Kidō’s style is understated. Characters not always fully fleshed, yet the scenes and scenery are always well described and atmospheric.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

19 Century Spooks to Watch for…

It’s usually bad luck to step on someone’s shadow even deliberately. Having a carved mask of a monkey in your room is not a good idea nor in anybody else’s. One should think twice about having crabs for dinner. Otherwise there will be serious consequences. One guy was studying to be a lawyer, but had difficulty passing grade. That’s cuz he was spooked by a white haired lady staring back at him. Very good translation for the ghost stories of Kido Okamoto. There’s more stories than what’s listed in the TOC. One would wish for more translations of those weird tales he wrote. Still, good spooky ones in this book. Recommended.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

VERDICT: Definitely an uncanny world described here by Okamoto. Excellent selction of short stories by the master in the genre.

This is a wonderful collection of slightly spooky stories inspired by old legends –we even meet a few samurai.
There are ghosts, or possible evocation of ghosts, and possible elements of horror, but it’s all done with subtlety and even poetry. They are sometimes gloomy, but not hair raising scary. So I think the title given to the collection as Okamoto Kido: Master of the Uncanny is very well said.

My full review is here:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2023/02/08/...

[T P Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of tales of the uncanny. These are weird rather than supernatural. Good fun - the paperback edition is quite limited though.

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful collection of 12 strange tales, originally published between 1897 and 1931. They are very much in the tradition of Pu Songling, the 17th Century Chinese writer of strange tales, only slightly more modern. I found the stories at the tail end of this collection more engaging, but all of them are well written, and several are cleverly framed. My favorites are “The One-Legged Woman,” “Here Lies a Flute,” and “The Man Cursed by an Eel.” The translation from the Japanese by Nancy H. Ross is excellent.