Today let’s look at another child yokai, though this one isn’t nearly as creepy as last night’s. This yokai is quite interesting because it fits a few different themes: 1) it is a child, 2) it is a fireball, and 3) it is related to oil.

All three of those are very common recurring themes in Japanese folklore. Children, because why not? Children can be creepy, and if there is one thing Japanese horror knows how to do it is creepy children. They have a charm that most people quickly fall for, so how would you know if a child were evil? It would be very difficult, because most people would just refuse to see it out of natural love for children.

Fireballs are another very common theme. Hi no tama is one of the broadest genre of yokai, containing a huge number of varieties. Perhaps this is because there are a lot of natural phenomena that are create eerie lights; bio-luminescence from fish, decaying plant matter, fireflies that blink on and off. And of course we notice these lights at night, when the shadows play tricks on us and our imaginations go wild.

Oil is not as common as the other two, but it is a recurring theme in yokai. We see it in abura sumashi, cats which drink oil and become bakeneko, rokurokubi which like to lick oil… Oil was a very precious commodity in old Japan. It had to be collected from fish or whales, or else pressed from plant seeds. It was very hard work, and with such a small amount of oil to be collected, it was extremely valuable. Many of the oil-related yokai were turned into monsters because they stole oil, or drank it up. The wasting of precious resources has long been frowned upon in Japanese culture, and oil is no exception.

Click below to read about the story behind today’s yokai. He comes from The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits, available on Amazon.com.

Abura akago