A-Yokai-A-Day 2024 Index: Shokoku hyakumonogatari | MatthewMeyer.net
Thanks to all of my patrons for supporting this year's A-Yokai-A-Day project. All stories are from Shokoku hyakumonogatari. You can become a patron at my Patreon page. Here is the index of this year's entries: Stay tuned next year for more!
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Man From Saiki Village in Tanba Province Who Became an Oni While Still Living | MatthewMeyer.net
Happy Halloween! Today marks the end of A-Yokai-A-Day -- a day that is always both sad and a relief for me, as I enjoy doing this project so much, but it's also exhausting. If you've enjoyed A-Yokai-A-Day, I hope you'll consider becoming a patron (even for just $1!) to help me continue sharing new yokai
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Mankichi Tayū Became a Bakemono’s Master | MatthewMeyer.net
Tonight's story is wonderfully silly. And the yokai in this story is a rare one! Instead of a tanuki, yūrei, or a daija, as this book is fond of, we have something like a kodama. To be more specific, this is the spirit of an enoki mushroom, which for some reason or another, has decided
There's only 3 A-Yokai-A-Day left!
What would you do if you come back from a trip to find a new well dug in your yard, and also your maid was suspiciously missing?
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Read tonight's #ayokaiaday at https://matthewmeyer.net/blog/2024/10/29/a-yokai-a-day-the-jealousy-of-shibata-shumes-wife/ or for free on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/114934957
#japan #folklore #horror #ghost #well #art #illustration #halloween #yokai #yurei
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Jealousy of Shibata Shume’s Wife | MatthewMeyer.net
Jealousy once again rears its ugly head! It's a very common theme in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. In fact, tonight's story contains quite a few repeated themes that we've seen throughout this book. But what I find more interesting is what it doesn't say. For one, why did the wife murder Momiji? It seems quite extreme, even
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Woman Who Every Night Visited Usa Hachiman in Buzen Province | MatthewMeyer.net
Tonight's story depicts a legendary ritual known as "the shrine visit at the hour of the ox." This ritual is famous today for being a curse ritual. It is performed by jealous or jilted lovers who want revenge -- either against the former lover who betrayed them, or against the person who stole their lover
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Apparitions in Yoshida Sōtei’s House; or, The Power of Poetry | MatthewMeyer.net
I'm back from Kyoto's Uzumasa film studio. It was an exhausting event, but really fun! According to the studio, it was the greatest attendance the park has seen in 20 to 30 years! This just goes to show the international appeal of yokai, and how they've become a major tourism force in recent years, especially
A-Yokai-A-Day: Retribution for Kicking a Three Trunk Cedar | MatthewMeyer.net
Hey yokai lovers! I'll be at Toei Kyoto Studio Park all day tomorrow for the KaiKai Yokai Festival. This is Kyoto's greatest yokai festival of the year, and it's come to define Kyoto's Halloween celebrations in recent years. And it's set in Uzumasa's Edo period samurai film set, which puts the yokai right where they
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Wife of Matsumotoya Kyūbei of Wakayama, Kishū | MatthewMeyer.net
Tonight's story is rather short, but it is one of the more disturbing ones in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. The final sentence is an example of a feature I love in Japanese foklore, and a way of ending the story that pops up from time to time in this book. It's the way stories are presented generally
A-Yokai-A-Day: How Baba Kurōzu Defeated a Daija | MatthewMeyer.net
Tonight's yokai is another daija -- a word that covers serpentine creatures all the way from large snakes to dragons. I'm always torn over how to paint these -- more snake-like, or more dragon-like? The images in Shokoku hyakumonogatari tend to favor dragon-like depictions, as you can see in the original illustration for this story:
A-Yokai-A-Day: The Bakemono of Himeji Castle, Banshū | MatthewMeyer.net
Tonight's yokai is a famous one that has appeared not only on yokai.com and A-Yokai-A-Day before, but even in Shokoku hyakumonogatari. Although she is not referred to by name in this story, Osakabe hime is the spirit who inhabits the top floor of Himeji Castle's keep. According to legend, she appears to the lord of
Matthew Meyer (The Yokai Guy)