Happy Halloween! It’s my favorite day of the year, and also one of the reasons I ever got into yokai in the first place. A-Yokai-A-Day was started as a Halloween celebration, so it’s always a little bittersweet when I post the last yokai of the month. But I’m excited to share with you tonight’s awesome story!

Towards the end of the month, I like to focus on the scarier end of the yokai spectrum, which is why we’ve seen a few creepier entries over the past couple of days. Something that is requested a lot, and which I am always happy to cover, is urban legends—toshi densetsu in Japanese. I’m often asked if urban legends like Hanako-san and Kashima Reiko (and even urban legends with older roots, like Kuchisake onna) qualify as yokai. My answer is always a resounding YES! In fact, I think urban legends are the perfect analogy to yokai in the modern day.

Yokai started out as explanations for the unknown, and were gradually explained away by science—sort of a god-of-the-gaps (or in this case maybe ghost-of-the-gaps works better). Over time, though, they changed from being just-so-storie, morality tales, and genuine superstitions into stories made for entertainment. Certainly some superstition still existed; part of their attraction is that they have that air of believability. And isn’t that exactly what an urban legend is today? We shake our heads and laugh that you might wind up in a bathtub full of ice, missing a kidney, but there’s that nagging spot in the back of our minds that thinks, “Well… it’s not like it couldn’t happen…” That feeling right there is the source and essence of what it means for something to be “yokai.”

Urban legends and even creepypasta aren’t just like yokai. They are modern day yokai, moreso than anime or manga, video games, Pokemon, Yokai Watch, and any other pop culture property. Urban legends are true folklore, because they are adapted to fit every locale they pop up in, and they really can’t be traced to any one source, and even when there is historical precedent, the stories are larger than their humble origins. They are rumors that have grown a life of their own and spread beyond their original parameters, becoming something much bigger than they were. It’s the modern day expression of whatever part of human nature caused us to invent ghosts and goblins back in days of yore.

So on to today’s yokai. Along with the ones I listed above, Aka manto is one of the most well known and highly requested urban legend. It seems like every one has heard of it or a version of it from their own school, or at least from a friend’s or a cousin’s school, and so on like that. Even as a non-Japanese, it feels so familiar and so believable that it wouldn’t be out of place in an American elementary school. It might be the location (along with Hanako, there are a few other memorable yokai that live in bathrooms, like kanbari nyudo and kurote); it might be the fact that it relies on a riddle (and the riddle is different from version to version); it might be the fact that the true shape of the killer is unknown; but there is a special charm to the story that makes it universal and gives it real staying power.

Click below to read about this most famous of bathroom monsters:

Aka manto

There’s only one more day until Halloween, which means that after tonight, there is only one more day of A-Yokai-A-Day left, and only one more yokai after this one.

Tonight’s yokai was requested on Patreon earlier this year. Kyokotsu was invented by Toriyama Sekien, as many many yokai were. I think it’s an interested creation, because most of his puns were cute or bizarre, while this one is genuinely pretty creepy looking. The original illustration by Toriyama Sekien is hard to be when it comes to disturbing illustrations!

In the illustration, the kyokotsu is seen rising out of a well. Wells have been a staple of Japanese horror for centuries. When talking about Japanese ghosts in wells, it’s hard to ignore the most famous well-ghost of all, Okiku. A number of other less-known well stories exist, though, like the ghost of the violet well, and even some taka onna stories, in which a man sees his wife fall down a well and easily hop back out again. And of course, today probably the most well-known (no pun intended) famous well-ghost is found in Sadako of The Ring.

Click below to read more about kyokotsu, and stay tuned tomorrow for the last A-Yokai-A-Day of 2016!

Kyokotsu

Today I gave another yokai presentation at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden. Tonight, instead of a yokai lecture like last night, I was able to hold a modern-day hyakumonogatari kaidankai, or ghost-story-telling party. I picked a handful of my favorite yokai and ghost stories, and told them as the sun set and night overtook the sky. The 17th century Japanese teahouse was lit by LED tea lights, which were the perfect safe alternative to lighting 100 candles and snuffing them out after each story. Thanks to everyone who came out and helped make the event awesome!

Earlier this week we looked at a tree-yokai called the ninmenju. A few other tree-based yokai have been featured on A-Yokai-A-Day in the past, including jubokko and sagari. Today I’m featuring another tree yokai, one that is slightly creepier than ninmenju.

There’s something special about this yokai that isn’t obvious on first look. Akateko actually successfully straddles the realms of old yokai and contemporary urban legend. While it does have its roots as an old yokai in the Edo period, it still remains popular today as a schoolyard rumor. Not many yokai have that staying power, but akateko does. It think part of it is the simplistic nature of the story. It’s easy to understand, yet avoids specific details that make it feel connected to any particular era.

To read more about this really cool half-old half-modern yokai, click below.

Akateko

Today was a fun night for yokai. I gave a lecture at Shofuso Japanese House and Garden in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The combination of cool fall air and the twilight sky, with the fall colors every, and the 17th-century Japanese tea house and garden made the perfect atmosphere for talking about yokai.

Thanks to everyone who came out and took part in my lecture! Tomorrow night I’ll be at the same place, telling a bunch of ghost stories in a mini hyakumonogatari kaidankai!

Tonight still needs a yokai, though, and I have a great one. It fits the punny theme we’ve been looking at this week.

Donotsura is another one of those yokai with no description, just a name and an image. But it’s not terribly difficult to guess where he comes from. It’s a great play on words, and very pun-tastic. I’ll let you click on the link below to read about it, as I go into the meaning of his name on the yokai.com page.

Donotsura