The day is finally here! My Kickstarter project for The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons is officially launched as of NOW! (click here)

Click the image!

So what’s the story?

Today is August 1st (at least in Japan anyway — it might still be July for some of you in the States). Until the end of August, I am trying to raise $2000 for this project to cover the costs of publishing this book. That’s 31 days to get as many pledges from you guys as possible.

But the pledges aren’t charity! You get something for it, too!

• Every backer, even for a pledge of a mere $1, gets super top secret insider access to all the updates on this book as it progresses. This will be kind of like what I have been posting on my blog this past month, only much more informative! You’ll get to see all of the finished paintings as I make them, as well as the sketches and drafts that came before them. You’ll get insight into my process of making the images as well as more details about the paintings and why I chose this or that yokai. You’ll also get more previews of the text from the book to tide you over until the publish date.
• You can reserve yourself a copy (or two, or three) of the paperback book to be delivered when it is published, or an ebook version as well.
• You can also reserve signed, matted art prints (like the ones you can find in my Etsy store) of the paintings in the book — and these will only be available through the Kickstarter project, so don’t put it off until September!
• For really big yokai fans, I am also making a “collector’s edition” of this book — a 200+ page, full color hardcover edition of the book that is only available through this project. Full color hardcovers are ridiculously expensive to make, so you won’t be able to order this once the project is finished.
• And the “grand prize” pledge gives you the opportunity to contribute to the book and make every copy a little bit cooler, by choosing any yokai from Japanese folklore not already in the book and having me illustrate it and add it to the finished book! For each Yokai Preservation Society pledge, the book will be become 2 pages longer (one full-color illustration and one description)!

The Kickstarter patronage drive will end August 31st, but the project will continue on after that for a few more months. The paintings are scheduled to be finished in November, and I expect to have to book completed in its entirely by early December. Whether I can publish it at that time is up to Amazon’s CreateSpace service, but you can expect the book to be available either by the end of 2011 or in the beginning of 2012.

I’ll still be making occasional updates about the book here on my blog, but more of my attention will be focused on the updates for super top secret insider access — I want to make sure every backer gets their $1 dollar’s worth!

So head on over to the Kickstarter project page and have a look!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/osarusan/the-night-parade-of-one-hundred-demons

I hope you decide to support me! | 日本では「妖怪」と聞くと何か恐ろしい想像をしますが、実は妖怪は怖いものだけではないのです。かわいいものから面白いものまであり、それぞれが歴史的な背景やその土地の特色などを現していたりもして、いわば一つの日本文化といえるのではないでしょうか。

子供のときに見たり聞いたりした妖怪。秘密基地にひっそりと木霊がいたかもしれません。溜池にスイーっと河童がいたかもしれません。そうした子供時代の思い出を蘇らせてくれる、一つの懐かしい日本の風景である妖怪達。知っているようでよく知らない鳳凰や麒麟についてここで触れてみませんか？

今回はこの本のために１００種類もの妖怪を描き、それぞれ丁寧にそのキャラクターを説明しています。使われている英語表現は丁寧で、内容は日本の文化の紹介なので想像しやすいと思います。

クリック

こちらのウェブサイトで私が出版する本を先行予約できます。本は来年の１月前後に出版予定です。（出版会社の進捗状況によります）

この先行予約のプロジェクトは８月いっぱいまでで、９月以降はこちらから購入することはできなくなりますのでお早めに！

さて、このKICKSTARTERのサイトですが、リンク先に行って頂くと私のビデオを見ることができます。その右側にはBACK THIS PROJECT（BACKはサポートするの意味です）とあって、この下にある「PLEDGE＄１　OR MORE」とあるのが購入できる物の種類です。

「PLEDGE $1 OR MORE」は、１ドルで購入できます。私のビデオの上にある「UPDATES」で週に５回くらいされるアップデートを全て見ることができるようになります。こちらでは、毎回新しい妖怪画がみられますよ。

このアップデートはメールでもお知らせしますので、届いたメールから新しい妖怪画をチェックすることもできます。

「PLEDGE $5 OR MORE」は、５ドルで購入できます。こちらではe-book（電子書籍）が手に入ります！そして上記の「UPDATES」ももちろん見ることができます。

「PLEDGE $30 OR MORE」は３０ドルで購入できます。こちらではe-book（電子書籍）と紙の本（２００ページ）と、もちろん「UPDATES」がもらえます。電子書籍に慣れていない方にはこちらがお勧めです！

「PLEDGE $60 OR MORE」は６０ドルで購入できます。こちらでは、上記の「紙の本」・「e-book（電子書籍）」・「UPDATES」と、さらに！お好きな妖怪のプリント画がサインとマット付きでもらえます！（お好きな妖怪のご注文方法は、１００の妖怪アップデートが終わった際にもお伝えします）

「PLEDGE $100 OR MORE」は１００ドルで購入できます。こちらでは、上記の「e-book（電子書籍）」・「UPDATES」に加え、「hardcover book（ハードカバーブック」がもらえます。このハードカバーブックは特別なカバーを使った高級感のある装丁をしており、今回のKICKSTARTERプロジェクトでしか買うことはできません。8月末までの限定販売品となります！

「PLEDGE $500 OR MORE」は５００ドルで購入できます。こちらはなんと、上記の「紙の本」・「e-book（電子書籍）」・「UPDATES」・、「hardcover book（ハードカバーブック」に、あなたのリクエストするお好きな妖怪（本にない妖怪）を挿入することができる権利をもらえます！
そしてさらに、お好きな妖怪のプリント画がサインとマット付きでもらえ、おまけにあなたがリクエストした妖怪のプリントもサインとマット付きでお届けします。（挿入したい妖怪のリクエストはメールですぐに伺います）

☆最近の日米の経済状況によって、日本円は大変高くなっています（現在1ドルは70円台です！）日本のクレジットカードで購入されますと、大変安くなりますよ（＾－＾）

ご注文は、それぞれの場所 「PLEDGE $1～500 OR MORE」にある  マークをクリックする事でできます。

マークをクリックすると画面が変わり、＄1～＄500　の項目の間にあなたがクリックした項目があり、「you selected」の文字が見えますので確認してください。（このページで、購入する商品の変更も可能です）

確認されましたら、下にスクロールして、「CONTINUE TO NEXT STEP」をクリック

そして次のページでも「CONTINUE TO AMAZON」をクリック

次のページでは、アマゾンのアカウントを持っているかどうか尋ねる画面になります。アマゾンのアカウントをお持ちであれば、「I am a returning customer, and my password is:」に続いてパスワードを入力してください。

アマゾンのアカウントをお持ちでなければ、「I am a new customer」をクリック

後はお支払い方法画面に飛ぶか、新しくアマゾンに登録するかの画面にそれぞれ移行します。

それぞれお決まりの入力（名前やパスワード，クレジットカードナンバーなど）ですので、説明は省きますが、ご不明な点がございましたらなんでもこちらのお問い合わせフォームからお問い合わせいただければと思います。

注）説明にありました購入額は、送料込みの値段となっています。また、ご購入の際にはクレジットカードが必要となりますので、ご了承をよろしくお願いいたします。

“Yokai” is one of those words that is impossible to translate from Japanese into English, so generally “yokai” is considered acceptable today. But  years ago, authors and translators tried their best to translate every word into English instead of leaving some in their native Japanese (in old books you’ll see kimonos called “dresses,” sushi called “raw fish,” and weird titles like “duke” and “prince” attached to Japanese rulers’ names). Many of these attempts at translation have used “fairy,” “goblin,” “monster,” or “demon.” I actually have an old book of Japanese “fairy tales” which are anything but fairy tales! “Monster” isn’t too far off, and certainly some of them closely resemble demons, fairies, or goblins, but none of these truly fit as an all-encompassing definition.

Today’s preview is one that I’ve seen translated as “one-eyed goblin” and actually fairly accurately fits that translation. Hitotsume means “one eye,” and kozou literally means “little monk” but is a general nickname for young boys and children. In any case, this yokai certainly is the most goblin-y of of the ones we’ve seen so far.

Hitotsume Kozou

I’ve posted a number of yokai that were featured in my earlier A-Yokai-A-Day project, so their background is probably familiar to regular readers of my blog. But not all of the yokai in this book are repeats of yokai I’ve featured on my blog. Here is one that I haven’t posted about before: the Nozuchi, along with its text from the book.

Nozuchi

The Nozuchi is one of the earliest known yokai recorded in Japan histories. It is a powerful and ancient snake-like spirit of the fields known for its bizarre shape and habits.

Nozuchi are short, fat creatures shaped like mallets, about fifteen centimeters in diameter and just over one meter long. They have no eyes, nose, or any other facial features save for a large mouth located on the top of their head, pointing towards the sky. Their bodies are covered in a bristly fur, much like a hairy caterpillar. They make their homes inside of large trees, particularly on the tops of hills. They are slow movers, and move about by rolling and tumbling down slopes, then slowly inching their way back up. Nozuchi most often feed on wildlife: rats, rabbits, squirrels, and other small animals. They are able to eat things much larger than they are; particularly in Nara prefecture they are known to feed on deer, which they can devour in a single bite, pulling the whole animal into their small, stumpy frame. They are also known to attack humans who come near their nests, rolling downhill and snapping at their feet.

Nozuchi bites are very dangerous to humans, resulting in terrible, mangled wounds which quickly lead to a high fever and death in most cases. In some cases, a person who is merely seen or touched by a tumbling Nozuchi can contract this fever and possibly die. Fortunately, Nozuchi attacks are easily avoided by sticking to high ground where they cannot tumble, or climbing a tree quickly if no other high ground is available.

Nozuchi can tranform into a humanoid shape, though they rarely are seen in this alternate form. They take the shape of a human priest, but with no eyes, nose, hair, or ears. The only feature on the head is a large gaping mouth pointing upwards towards the sky. Wicked monks who are banished from their temples to live in the wilds sometimes gradually turn into Nozuchi, and are more likely to maintain a humanoid form than a serpentine one. Care should be taken not to confuse a shape-changed Nozuchi with a Nopperabou, which has a similar appearance but poses a different threat.

Everybody’s favorite tree spirit is back today, with my illustration of Kodama from my upcoming book The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. You most probably know Kodama as the cute little forest sprites in Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke. The truth is, they go back much further than that movie. They are the souls of trees, and have been part of Japanese folklore for centuries.

Kodama share a resemblance with another yokai we’ve seen previously: the Yamabiko. As you may recall, Yamabiko are responsible for delayed echoes and strange noises in the mountains. Similarly, when your echo comes back delayed or distorted deep in the forest, it can be blamed on a Kodama.

The oldest and most sacred trees — ones most likely to have a Kodama living inside them — are often decorated with the famous Shinto rope, known as a shimenawa. Shimenawa are commonly seen decorating shrines, rocks, trees, and other sacred objects and places. Next time you’re in the forest, look for these glowing spirits fluttering about in the twilight. Or, when you get home, check your camera. They most commonly show up in the flash photos, as Google Image Search illustrates.

Kodama

While we had a couple of cool, cloudy, rainy days last week, today’s weather is bright, hot, and muggy. The quintessential midsummer day. So instead of a soft painting in subtle blues and cool colors, here is a bright, hot one.

Today’s preview is another yokai we’ve seen before. I did a Houou for last year’s A-Yokai-A-Day project. So I won’t go too much into the details of its story, as you can read about it back there. Needless to say, though, it is the king of all birds, and I hope this very colorful piece shows that.

A little bit about my upcoming Kickstarter project…

We’re now coming into the final week of July! Holy smokes! That means soon I will be launching my Kickstarter project, which will run for the month of August. I will be trying to raise $2000 to cover the costs of publishing, printing, and so on through Amazon’s CreateSpace, as well as recoup some of the costs of working on this since January. I will have a larger breakdown of the costs when I launch the project next week. The give you an idea of the patronage rewards, the lowest will be simply $1, and it will include previews of all of the paintings like you’ve been seeing on my blog, as well as additional previews (such as the concept artwork that leads to the paintings) and previews of the actual text that will be in the book next to each yokai. These detailed previews won’t be public on my blog, so you’ll have to become a patron to see the extra stuff. Higher levels of patronage will include ebooks and lower-priced physical books signed by me, and there will be an option to buy any of the yokai in the book as a large, beautiful, matted print. They won’t be available individually on my Etsy store, so the only way to get prints of these will be as a patron. Finally, there will be some more, very interesting, patronage options at higher levels than that, which I will reveal next week along with the project. Basically, if you are thinking of buying the book, it will be very worth it to become a patron. I hope the previews so far have been enough to catch your interest! 🙂

Houou

Today was another overcast, cool, and slightly rainy day. Such a welcome respite from the July heat! I hear back home in the States some places are hitting well over 100 degrees. Yikes. Stay cool!

To go with today’s weather, and to help cool down all of you back in the great heat wave over North America, here is a refreshing cool, watery yokai. It is called Onibi, or demon fire, and it is found near lakes and rivers, especially on misty summer mornings and evenings. Onibi is usually a ball of phantom blue fire — sometimes red or orange — which hovers over the water’s edge. They bob up and down and are very beautiful and mesmerizing. Folks who get close enough to Onibi find out that it isn’t even hot to the touch, and it seems like a fun plaything except for the fact that it sucks the life force out of any living creatures that come near it… So if you see an inviting glow at a Japanese watering hole, stay away!

There is a very large number of fireball-type yokai. You’ve already seen Hitodama earlier, and now Onibi. There is another one which will be featured in this book as well, and a great deal that I won’t cover just yet. Collectively they are known as Hinotama, or literally “fireballs.” Good name, eh?

I think it’s interesting how there are some yokai that are so similar to European monsters. The English Will o’ Wisp, for example, is a near exact analogy to many of these Hinotama phenomena. It makes you wonder if there really isn’t something real behind most of these monsters and yokai. Maybe not something supernatural, but at the very least a common human experience, explained to the best of our abilities. Little things like this make me realize how small the world really is, and how even on the complete opposite side of the planet, we are all still the same human beings, with the same hopes, fears, and experiences.

Onibi