Today’s yokai is another request, and a good one at that! I’ve been painting a lot of cursed women, so it’s a fresh change to paint a cursed man.

This is Wanyudo, a horrible being from Hell, said to be the soul of a tyrant daimyo who was known for drawing them on an oxcart. Now he roams the road between Earth and Hell, stealing the souls of anyone unfortunate to get too close and dragging them back to hell. The wheel is a pretty important symbol in Buddhism, which may also carry other connotations about this demon’s eternal punishment.

I like this yokai because it’s so Dante-eqsue. I guess the image of Hell where tormented souls are forced to relive their own crimes is not just a Western thing. Very cool monster!

Wanyudo

A few people have asked me if I’ll be selling prints of these. The answer is most definitely yes! Not until November though… October is far too busy with painting yokai every day to make up prints of these, but some time in early- to mid-November, I’ll start putting prints up on my Etsy store. Thanks for your support!

Bgwak! There’s really not much to say about today’s yokai. The basan is a ghost-fire breathing chicken. There’s no mention of what this actually does, being ghost-fire, other than looking pretty dang spooky.

I think this is one yokai I was required to paint. It fits right in with the Chickens of the World series, so it would almost be wrong not to mention it. Plus, I really like the idea of a ghost-fire breathing chicken. It’s similar to another one of my favorite monsters, the English cockatrice, a chicken with a deadly gaze that can kill people in an instant, or turn them to stone. Seriously, who comes up with this stuff??

Basan

Like many of the fokloric animals in Japan, the jorogumo is a real kind of spider which became part of mythology and superstition. According to legends, when a spider reaches 400 years of age, she gains magical powers, including the ability to appear as a very beautiful woman. The stories of encounters with jorogumo are plentiful, and differ from town to town, but they’re all pretty fascinating.

In one story, a traveling samurai is invited by a beautiful woman into a shack to hear her play the biwa. As he listened to the music, she bound him up in her webs and then ate him.

In another story, a woodcutter was chopping wood near a waterfall inhabited by a jorogumo. He accidentally dropped his axe in the water, a beautiful woman appeared and returned it to him. She made him promise never to tell anyone that he saw her, and he kept the secret for a long time. However, one day he got drunk and told the story of what happened by the waterfall — he never woke up the next morning.

In yet another story, a jorogumo became a guardian of a pool in the woods, rescuing people from drowning. The locals erected a small shrine there and worship her as a goddess.

In any case, whether she’s good or evil — or neither — she certainly makes an awesome Halloween monster!

Jorogumo

I like Noppera-bo because it isn’t one of those monsters that is so grotesque and scary that it turns you off right away. It’s a much slower, much deeper psychological horror that doesn’t really sink in until you think about the scenario. It’s got a real Twilight Zone kind of feel to it, one of isolation and terror that can really only be felt by putting yourself into the victim’s shoes.

Usually the way this story goes, a merchant travels to another town with his goods. Along the journey, he encounters a young, weeping woman, but when he approaches her to ask what’s wrong, she wipes off her face, leaving a blank visage void of any features. The man panics, unsure of what he’s seen, and flees, deciding not to stop until he can get to safety. He travels all night and finally reaches the next town. Exhausted, he stops for a rest at an soba shop and describes the horrible, featureless face he saw to the shopkeeper. Then the shopkeeper pauses, turns around, and says, “You mean like this??” as he wipes the features off of his own face. The poor merchant flees again and runs to a police station, but as soon as he rushes in, he sees that all of the men have blank, featureless faces. The man is so scared he leaves his merchandise and runs from the village, and doesn’t stop until he reaches his hometown. He slams his door shut, locking it behind him, and he hears his wife calling, “What’s wrong, honey?” He collapses, telling her what he’s seen, and she replies, “You mean like this??“…

In another variant, the man phones for help, only to realize that he, too, has become a noppera-bo.

But isn’t that an amazingly creepy story?

Noppera-bo

It looks like Pink Tentacle picked up my paintings! What a surprise. 🙂 Take a look!

Anyone who’s played Japanese video games should be familiar with this fellow. He’s been a regular in many of the Castlevania series (including my favorite, Symphony of the Night) as well as many other console games. And if you haven’t played any games in your whole life, surely you can recognize a very. big. skeleton!

This is Gashadokuro, an enormous monstrosity formed from a mass of bones of those who have starved to death. If a gashadokuro sees a human, it will grab it and bite off its head. The only way to detect a gashadokuro is by noticing a humming in your ears just before it appears. This poor guy probably didn’t notice…

Gashadokuro

Today’s yokai is a pretty frightening sight. Ohaguro-bettari is said to appear at twilight. She wears a beautiful kimono, sometimes a wedding dress, and often hides her face, turning away so that she appears to be a beautiful young woman. When a young man approaches close enough to see her, she turns, revealing her split-open face with a mouthful of blackened teeth — and no other features — and screams at them.

Blackened teeth were once a very fashionable thing, and you can do a quick image search to find old photos of people with blackened teeth from all over the world, and especially East Asia — not just Japan. It’s a pretty creepy fashion by itself, let alone if the person doesn’t have a face. So remember, stay away from beautiful women at night!

Ohaguro-bettari

By the way, Pink Tentacle has an article about a Hyakki Yako scroll for sale on eBay (if you can afford it — $15,000!). This scroll — “The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons” — is a very famous illustrative source of yokai. Take a look!

Anyone who is zombie crazy like I am will love today’s yokai, Dorotabo.

Long ago, somewhere west of where Tokyo is today, a poor but hard-working farmer managed to till a piece of uncultivated land into a productive rice field, and eked out a good living for himself. But alas the man took sick and died, and his son, a lazy and dishonest person unlike his father, spent his days drinking and left the fertile land neglected. Eventually the property was sold to a new owner.

But the old man’s spirit could not rest, seeing his farm in ruins and his toil amounting to nothing, and one night his ghostly torso rose up out of the mud, crying for his field to be returned. From then on, every moonlit evening the dead farmer could be heard wailing in the distance, demanding the return of his property.

Zombie! Although there’s nothing mentioned about him eating brains, or even being able to climb out of the ground beyond his torso, this is one yokai I could really learn to like. Who knows, if Japanese zombies don’t actually climb fully out of the ground, this may be the safest place yet when the zombiepocalypse comes. Don’t kid yourself: it is coming. Take care, and don’t forgot to stock a flashlight, first aid kid, clean water, and a machete.

Dorotabo