Nurikabe
Nurikabe is the invisible or suddenly appearing wall that blocks night travelers, especially in western Japanese folklore. It transforms lost…
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Culture or Region: Japanese traditions
Satori
Satori is the mind-reading mountain yōkai that speaks a person’s thought before it can be voiced. The being turns privacy…
Read entryYamabiko
Yamabiko is the mountain echo understood as a responding presence rather than empty acoustics. In illustrated yōkai traditions it becomes…
Read entryYamauba
Yamauba is the mountain woman whose hut stands beyond cultivated land. She can feed, shelter, devour, initiate, raise heroes or…
Read entryAmabie
Amabie is the prophetic sea being recorded in 1846, said to predict abundant harvest followed by epidemic and to instruct…
Read entryAmikiri
Amikiri is the net-cutting yōkai depicted by Toriyama Sekien with a crustacean-like or serpentlike body and sharp claws. Its surviving…
Read entryBake-kujira
Bake-kujira is the spectral whale skeleton said to move through coastal waters accompanied by strange birds and fish. The legend…
Read entryIso-onna
Iso-onna is the woman of the rocky shore, a coastal yōkai associated with wet hair, seduction, blood loss and the…
Read entryIsonade
Isonade is the immense sea creature whose barbed tail sweeps sailors and shoreline travelers into the water. Toriyama Sekien’s encyclopedic…
Read entryNure-onna
Nure-onna is the wet-haired woman with a serpentine lower body who appears beside shorelines and rivers carrying a bundled object.…
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