Yokai Revealed

KappaKAH-pah

A color reveal of a crouching kappa reaching with both webbed hands. Its shoji clue preserves the same action through a natural cast-shadow projection.

BasanBAH-sahn

The 1841 Ehon Hyaku monogatari describes Basan as a bird born in deep thickets, breathing fire and flying night after night. Following Takehara Shunsensai’s print, this reveal keeps one huge lobed red comb, a rooster-like body, verdigris wings, a long tail, and two legs. It flies left with one wing high, one low, and one continuous three-tongued ghost-fire plume from its beak. The bamboo scenery is omitted so the complete bird remains clear on transparency.

Kiyohimeきよひめ

The color reveal of Kiyohime, transformed into a serpent woman by love, shame, and fury. One continuous snake body grows from her still-human upper form and coils twice around the bell of Dōjōji. With both arms braced against the bronze and one connected stream of fire leaving her mouth, the image holds together her human grief and the obsession that turns a refuge into a furnace.

Nure-onnanure-onna

Nure-onna, the waterside woman apparition, gathers her long wet hair in both hands. A blue-green serpent body extending from her kosode-clad waist forms a great S, recalling the woman-faced snake image handed down through Edo picture scrolls.

Tōdaiki (Human Candelabrum)toh-dai-kee

Tōdai-ki walks in Tang-style robes with one open hand lowered and a single candle fixed above his head. The legend preserved in Sekien's Konjaku Hyakki Shūi is not of a born demon, but of the envoy Karu no Ōtodo, robbed of speech and forced to serve as a human lampstand in a foreign court.

Kataashi-pinzaKataashi-pinza

A goat majimun said to appear at deserted crossroads on Miyako Island at night. With its two forelegs held wide apart and its one rear leg extending from the center of the hindquarters, it cries out and clears a passerby's head in a single bound. The two-front, one-rear anatomy is the creature's defining form, not a fourth leg hidden by the pose.

Ushi-oniushi-oni

Ushioni is revealed with a fierce ox head joined directly to a spider body and a single bold wave crest across its rounded abdomen. Four legs spread from each side—eight in all—with every root, joint, and hooked claw visible in broad fields of soot black, oxidized indigo, muted ochre, and iron red.

Nekomataneh-koh-MAH-tah

An aged calico cat ties a tenugui around its head, rises on its hind legs, and gives itself over to a nocturnal dance. Two tails springing from one base sweep into opposing arcs, unmistakably revealing the nekomata.

Cat MaidenNEH-koh-moo-SOO-meh

In early modern sideshow notices and eyewitness-style accounts, Neko-musume was not a cat-eared, tailed transformation but a woman whose appetites and movements seemed feline. Soot-black hair tied low, a faded-indigo kosode, ochre obi, and one whole fish held in her mouth accompany a diagonal climbing crouch. The reveal keeps her wholly human while recalling reports that she crossed walls and roofs, pursued mice, and favored fish offal.

Sarutahiko-no-Mikotoさるたひこのみこと

With one extraordinary nose projecting from a red face, a white beard, and kariginu-like robes, Sarutahiko no Mikoto strides right while raising a single purification staff. The procession gesture of clearing the road presents the earthly deity who guided the heavenly descent at the crossroads of Ame-no-Yachimata.

Baku (Dream Eater)ba-ku

The Baku, guardian of sleep and dispeller of nightmares, strides forward with its long elephant trunk curled high. This composite beast from the Chinese classics joins a bear-like body, four tiger-striped legs, and an ox tail ending in a tuft.

Genbu (Black Tortoise)Genbu

Genbu, northern guardian among the Four Symbols, appears as the canonical intertwined tortoise and snake. The four-footed tortoise advances left with its short tail visible; one snake circles the shell and raises an S-shaped neck to face it. Black-indigo shell, charcoal-green flesh, and bone-grey snake underside evoke the seven northern lunar mansions, winter, water, and black. This is the Japanese directional guardian, distinct from the personified Xuantian Shangdi.

Kotofurunushikoh-toh-koh-roo-NOO-shee

A forsaken Tsukushi koto awakens as a tsukumogami: its long dragon-shaped body ends in two staring eyes and a broad toothed mouth. Two curled feet step diagonally forward while its broken strings stream behind it like wild hair.

Biwa BokubokuBEE-wah BOH-koo-BOH-koo

With an old biwa itself for a head, Biwa-bokuboku walks in the robes of a blind monk, guided by a staff beneath four strings and four pegs. Closed eyes rest on the soundboard, revealing a long-played instrument that has acquired a human form as a tsukumogami.

Hyōtan Kozō (Gourd Boy)HYOH-tahn koh-ZOH

An old bottle gourd has awakened as a child-shaped tsukumogami. Its huge double-lobed head sways as it lifts one knee high and creeps forward to startle travelers at night.

Shirōnerishee-ROH-neh-ree

An old cleaning cloth takes on the profile of a dragon-serpent and billows in one broad S-shaped body. It has no limbs: the open jaws, long cloth neck, four sweeping bends, and single three-tab hem all remain part of one unbroken fabric.

MokumokurenMOH-koo-moh-koo-REN

Mokumokuren appears in Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi as innumerable eyes staring back from the shoji of a ruined house. Here one broken fragment becomes a single host-body: sixteen eyes watch in different directions while the long, narrow lattice twists as one apparition.

Isonadeisonade

The shark-like Isonade coils its long tail high. A blunt great mouth, two pectoral fins, crescent caudal fin, and twenty-four hooked spines reveal the sea monster feared off Hizen after the guess.

Jinja-himejinja-hime

Jinja-hime, messenger from the Dragon Palace, raises two horns and one warning hand as her red-bellied fish body bends in an arc. Her tail divides clearly into three sword-shaped blades, revealing the prophetic being said to announce harvests and epidemic disease.

Kuda-gitsunekuda-gitsune

A fox spirit small enough to fit inside a bamboo tube springs upward to the right, clear of the opening. Two pointed ears, a narrow muzzle, four short legs, and one long tail appear in calm fields of bone, faded indigo, and iron red; below trails a single tube with two bamboo nodes. Around Shinano, this possessing familiar was said to serve practitioners and carry either wealth or illness. The reveal catches it leaving its hiding place.

Kyōrinrin (Scripture Spirit)KYOH-reen-reen

Discarded sutra scrolls awaken as a tsukumogami with a long birdlike beak. Three rolls are bound above its head as one paper arm points skyward and two curling scroll tails sweep outward.

JorōgumoJorōgumo

A beautiful woman’s upper body opens into a blue-black spider form, its eight legs spread in a four-and-four fan. One silk strand runs from her fingertips to the spinneret, while water-grass robes and broad ochre-red markings reveal the boundary of her disguise.

Net-CutterAH-mee-kee-ree

In Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, Amikiri appears under the name Amikiri written 網剪: an image-born yokai with a long segmented body and two scissor foreclaws. The birdlike beak, paired open pincers and single tail are organized into a clear outline. Cutting nets or mosquito curtains is a later reading, so no damaged net or victim is shown.

舌長姥したながうば

A crone of about seventy sheds the guise of a kindly host and extends one tongue said to measure five shaku. Half-kneeling and hunched, she reaches one hand and the long curved tongue toward an unseen sleeper beyond the frame.

HannyaHannya

A female oni dances with two horns, golden eyes and teeth, a white Hannya face, streaming black hair, and the layered robes of a noblewoman. Bone white, faded indigo, iron red, and muted gold reveal Rokujō no Miyasudokoro's love and jealousy, with grief still visible beneath the rage.

The Kettle of Morinjimoh-RIN-jee no KAH-mah

A tanuki head peers from a round iron tea cauldron, framed by two ears, one high bail, two open suspension rings, a foot ring, and a broad tail rising to the right. Following the Toriyama Sekien lineage of this transformed vessel, the reveal keeps the cauldron itself as one composed body and omits later tightrope and four-legged variants.

Ibaraki-dōjiee-bah-RAH-kee DOH-jee

Ibaraki Doji is famed as Shuten Doji’s lieutenant and was later identified with the oni whose arm Watanabe no Tsuna severed. With two horns and pale hair streaming, the oni leaps forward, extending the five claws of the surviving right hand while the empty left sleeve flies behind.

Straw-Raincoat SandalsMEE-noh WAH-rah-jee

Mino-waraji, with an old straw rain cape for a body and waraji for feet, steps forward carrying one hoe across its shoulders. Its faceless straw cowl, two bundled arms, and two great sandals reveal a tsukumogami assembled from farm and rain gear that walks by night.

Raised-Collar Robeeh-ree-TAH-teh-goh-ROH-moh

Sekien's Eritategoromo sits as an empty clerical vestment: its tall collar folds forward into a beak-like face, hollow sleeves carry one open chukei fan and one rosary, and its great rear hem curls outward. It has no human head, hands, or feet; the hand brazier, tatami dais, and pine-and-cloud screen belong only to the setting.

Horned Washbasin HanzōTSOO-noh-HAHN-zoh

Tsuno-hanzou reveals a face made from the closed washbasin itself, with two vessel handles above the crown and two beneath the chin. Its hands and feet disappear inside layered court robes, while three broad locks of impossibly long, water-wave hair stream right and gather into one great spiral. Following Sekien’s image, the card adds no basin water, writing, paper, or reflected woman.