Comments on: Night Parade Preview: Hitotsume Kozou https://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2011/07/29/night-parade-preview-hitotsume-kozou/ illustrations, folklore, and blog Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:35:47 +0000 hourly 1 By: New Projects Are An Axe In Our Heads (In A Good Way) | ABC Art Gallery https://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2011/07/29/night-parade-preview-hitotsume-kozou/comment-page-1/#comment-8703 Tue, 02 Aug 2011 09:24:12 +0000 http://matthewmeyer.net/?p=6827#comment-8703 […] to feature these stories in English. And to be real? They look like they’re going to be really freaking cool. On a side note, I once made an illustrated book of imaginary creatures with my best friend when we […]

]]> By: Feniton Chick https://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2011/07/29/night-parade-preview-hitotsume-kozou/comment-page-1/#comment-8701 Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:52:05 +0000 http://matthewmeyer.net/?p=6827#comment-8701 brilliant pictures, poor cat!

LW

]]> By: Matt https://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2011/07/29/night-parade-preview-hitotsume-kozou/comment-page-1/#comment-8700 Sun, 31 Jul 2011 03:43:13 +0000 http://matthewmeyer.net/?p=6827#comment-8700 For a lot of yokai, yes. Many of them have a religious/spiritual background, and many of those beliefs were absorbed by the Buddhist church when it arrived in Japan (just as old pagan European beliefs were absorbed into Christianity when it arrived). Lots of yokai were once animistic gods and that were re-invented as demons, ghosts, or other supernatural entities under Buddhism.

On the other hand, a lot of their names simply reflect archaic speech patterns. Just like if you read very old English texts you can find references to “deer” and “corn” that are actually referring to different animals and different grains (“deer” being a catch-all term for game animals in olden times, and “corn” not coming to mean “maize” until long after it was introduced to Europe from Mexico).

Words like “bouzu” and “kozou” and “nyuudou” and so on show up in many yokai names, but each one is a different story. Some of them were indeed named after corrupt priests (such as the Hitotsume-nyuudou) as a sort of parable or allegory warning people to be good. Others were just named according to the proper parlance of the time.

In the case of Hitotsume Kozou, he was actually a Shinto mountain spirit in ancient times, and he eventually devolved into a god of bad luck and a messenger between earth and the gods of punishment and disaster. Finally he devolved into the degenerate and mischievous little yokai we know today.

]]> By: purple_phoenix https://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2011/07/29/night-parade-preview-hitotsume-kozou/comment-page-1/#comment-8699 Sun, 31 Jul 2011 03:31:18 +0000 http://matthewmeyer.net/?p=6827#comment-8699 I’ve noticed that a lot of Yokai have either monk in their names or in their back stories. Is this because in Japan monks and temples are so engrained in daily life?

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