Today’s yokai is a really simple one! It’s one of the yokai that was clearly invented by Edo period illustrators; in this case, Toriyama Sekien.
Those of you familiar with Japanese will know that there are many many more onomatopoeia words in Japanese than in English. Many every day feelings and emotions are described in Japanese using onomatopoeia rather than adjectives, which adds quite a bit to the color of the language.
Fear, of course, is no exception to that rule. The “sound” of a chill that runs through your spine is “zo!” This is a word used frequently in connection with scary ghost stories. And the sound of the shivers that overtake your body when you feel scared is “buruburu.” Which of course is the name of today’s yokai!
I get a kick out of yokai names, onomatopoeic or otherwise.
Here’s a question? Do Japanese people ever find the names of these terrifying monsters funny themselves?
They absolutely do! With punny names like “buruburu” the idea of the monster is conveyed the instant the name is mentioned, without much need for description. The monsters that are silly have silly names, and it is sometimes pretty easy to tell upon first hear when a monster is a ridiculous one. Native speakers definitely appreciate that kind of humor.
In Mizuki’s “Gegege no Kitaro”, Buruburu is a type of ice ghost that had cause car crashes on a mountain ridge highway. And off-topic, it was hard for me to choose which episode storyline I like (from the five anime versions), I prefer the 1968 version of the “Buruburu” story.
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