Today’s yokai continues the theme of angry beautiful women. While we looked at the general concept of “hannya” yesterday, today we look at a specific hannya—the most famous one, in fact.

Kiyo-hime is what is known as a honnari hannya. They are the most powerful kind. Not only did she grow scary horns and develop magical powers, she pretty much entirely turned into a dragon.

Kiyo-hime is actually pretty interesting because of how famous her story it. The legend was adapted into a noh play which became very famous. There are a number of very old scroll paintings depicting her story as well. One of my favorite ukiyoe artists, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, also did a fantastic print of her, which you can see on the Wikipedia entry for Kiyo-hime.

Anyway, here is my take on Kiyo-hime. Click for the story: