The time has come! October is here, and it’s time for the grand launch of my second Kickstarter: The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits!
I’ve been talking it up for a while now, and it’s here. For one month — until midnight on Halloween — I will be raising funds to publish my second yokai book, entitled The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits.
The name comes from the Japanese word for twilight: oumagatoki. Oumagatoki is literally translated as either “the hour of meeting evil spirits” or “the hour of great calamity,” depending on the kanji used. In Japanese folklore, twilight is the time when yokai come out and are most active. Yokai are creatures that exist in borders — the borders between seasons, the border between life and death, and the border between night and day. This makes twilight one of the most dangerous times to be out and about — the time when you most need your wits about you.
This will be the main theme for my second book. While The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons revolved around the theme of one year, focusing on the cycle of the four seasons, The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits will focus on the cycle of one night. It will also feature a section on onmyoudou, the classical Japanese art of sorcery and black magic, which played an important part in Japanese high society 1000 years ago. On top of that, The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits will feature something that was greatly requested after Night Parade: more stories! The final section of this book will contain legends of some of Japanese folklore’s most famous demons, ghosts, and yokai.
Will this book keep you safe if you happen to be wandering around on a beautiful, cool Japanese evening? No guarantees, but it just might!
You can read about all of the details of this book and the backer rewards on the Kickstarter page. Don’t miss out on your chance to become a part of the process of creating this book! | 待ちに待った１０月がやってきました！そして私の妖怪本第２弾出版に向けてのキックスタータープロジェクト: The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits!もスタートしました！
これまでお知らせしてきたとおり、これから１か月間 ―ハロウィーンの日の真夜中まで― 妖怪本第二弾（The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits）を出版するためのプロジェクトをスタートさせます。
本のタイトルは英語のトワイライトにあたる言葉である逢魔時(大禍時）からつけたものです。逢魔時とは文字通り”魔:幽霊，妖怪など”が現れ活動を始める時間とされています。幽霊などの物の怪は境目に現れやすいとされている。。。―境界・・・季節の変わり目、生と死、闇と明など―
これは私の２冊目の本のメインテーマになります。「The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons：百鬼夜行」では１年を通した″四季″がテーマとなっていましたが。今回の本「The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits：逢魔時」は″夜″にフォーカスを当てています。また、今回の本では陰陽道に関連したセクションも登場させる予定です。
「The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits：逢魔時」では、前回の本「The Night parade:百鬼夜行」出版以降たくさんの方からリクエスト頂いている”ストーリー”も盛り込んでいきたいと思っています。終盤に近づくにつれて、日本でとても有名な幽霊や妖怪などにまつわる伝説を紹介していく予定です。
美しく幻想的な日本の黄昏時。ふらりと散歩してみようと思ったとき、きっとこの本はお役に立てるでしょう！
本の出版のサポートに関する詳しい情報はこちらのKickstarterページに載っています（英語）
１ドル（約１００円）でもサポートができます。メッセージでも質問を受け付けていますので、どうぞよろしくお願いいたします！
Speaking of yokai, 
Part of the reason for the theme is that I am doing a small focus on onmyoudou, or Japanese sorcery, in the book, and certain times of the night have an auspicious, magical nature to them. For example, dusk is known is oumagatoki, which can be translated a few ways, but one of them is “the hour of meeting evil spirits,” and another one is “the hour of great calamity.”
The hour of the ox lasted from 1-3 am, and was supposed to be the hour when yokai and other demons were most active. Another nickname for this time is kusaki mo nemuru ushi mittsu koku, meaning “the hour when even trees and shrubs are asleep, the third quarter of the hour of the ox” (or, if you like, quarter to rat?) — equivalent to 2 am. It’s the Japanese equivalent of the witching hour, and will serve as the central theme to this book.
Summer has come and gone, faster than I could have imagined! But I’m happy because now it is fall, my favorite time of year. And for me, one of the biggest fall events that I look forward to is 
The special is titled “I Wouldn’t Go In There” and covers a bunch of ghost stories from East Asia. The show’s website can be found here: 