I’ve been a bit late with a few recent yokai posts, so I thought I would put today’s up a bit early to make up for time!

There’s something really fun about the beautiful-young-women yokai that I think everyone enjoys. I’m not sure what it is, but perhaps the juxtaposition of beauty and horror. Even though it’s easy to look back at the older Japanese ghost stories, where women are regarded as untrustworthy and sinful, and accuse them of being horribly sexist and unbalanced (all very true, of course), we still seem enchanted by them today. Even horror movies seem to follow suit, with creepy nappy haired girls being a common trope these days. Whatever the cultural fascination with female ghosts is, it doesn’t seem to be going away at all…

I especially love tonight’s yokai, not just because it’s another cute girl yokai, but because of all the puns included with it. I’ve written about Toriyama Sekien’s puns many times before, and this is a prime example of a pun-filled yokai. Click the image for the full story and the explanation of the puns.

And remember, if you enjoy my yokai explanations and illustrations, pick up my book on Amazon.com, and stay tuned for my next book coming out this winter!