Namahage is a really well-known yokai, famous across Japan—which is strange when you consider that it is only a local yokai from the small, northern prefecture of Akita. For a prefecture that has barely over 1 million people, it has managed to leave its mark on the national consciousness of Japan.

Part of the reason namahage are so well known is because of the namahage festival which is televised nationally. Although many prefectures have yokai that behave similarly to namahage, Akita’s own yokai manages to have the most exciting way of celebrating. I have never seen the namahage in person, but watching them on tv is always fun.

During the festival, cameramen follow the namahage, local villagers dressed up in costume. The namahage act fierce but are actually quite nice. The most entertaining part of this festival is the way it doesn’t quite work the way it is expected to. What is supposed to happen is that the namahage will come up to the young children and menace them, waving knives and screaming “Any bad kids here???” and the kids are of course supposed to say, “No! We’re all good kids!” It’s like the boogeyman, really: they are meant to scare children into behaving. In reality, though, you end up seeing a bunch of people getting really into their costumes and going way over the top with their scary acting. The kids are so terrified they are unable to answer, and just scream and screeeeeeeeeeeeeam, tears and snot running down their face. They are never even able to answer “no,” they just scream and break down instantly. So the namahage move on to the next bunch of kids and try again.

The cameramen follow them the whole time, so what you get to see on TV is close up after close up of children screaming their brains out, one after another. And you catch glimpses of the moms and dads laughing their heads off at their helpless kids who are freaking out from the scary namahage. Watching it, you can’t help but laugh along. You feel slightly guilty and bad for the kids, but when you see it over and over, it’s just so hard not to start laughing.

Of course once the kids are a little older, they all come to love the namahage as all Akita residents do, and the tradition carries on. Sadly, as the number of people having children declines every year in Japan, some local areas are no longer able to carry out these festivals. There is no shortage of people willing to dress up and be the yokai, but there is a shortage of children to scare. For this reason, local variants of the namahage are in danger of disappearing altogether as small towns are absorbed into bigger cities and lose their local identities. In a way, you can say that these yokai are an endangered species.

At least for now, the namahage is not in any danger of disappearing, due to its immense national popularity.

You’ll find namahage and many more yokai in my latest book, The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits. Available from amazon.com in paperback and Kindle formats!