It’s almost October, which means that it’s almost time for A-Yokai-A-Day!

I started this project in 2009 as a personal challenge in honor of Halloween, and I’ve continued it every year since then. And I think it’s fair to say that there are more than a few readers who look forward to it every year. That anticipation is part of the drive that keeps me coming back to this project, as difficult as it is. This year I will be translating more stories from Mimibukuro, continuing from last year.

The tales I am choosing mostly come from Mimibukuro no kai from Kadokawa Shoten, a modern Japanese translation select stories from the original 10 books of Mimibukuro. Some come from other transcriptions of Mimibukuro, including Blog鬼火～日々の迷走, whose author has done an excellent job transcribing the Edo period handwritten text of the books into typed characters. Scans of old copies of Mimibukuro can also be viewed online, for example here at the National Institute of Japanese Literature’s database.

As always, I invite everyone to participate in A-Yokai-A-Day in your own way! Draw/paint/doodle yokai every day, share your favorite yokai stories, invent new yokai, whatever pleases you! This is a great time to enjoy and share this chilling part of Japanese culture.