Yokai of Edo

Ao-andon is a yokai of the printed page, formed where the blue-paper lantern used in Hyakumonogatari gatherings meets the strange figure Toriyama Sekien drew in his early modern collection of yokai images. Its earliest documented named appearance is in the middle volume, "Mist," of Hyakki Yagyō Shūi, prefaced in 1781. The title slip calls the work Konjaku Hyakki Shūi, while its preface title gives Hyakki Shūi; the same work has come down under more than one title. Ao-andon occupies the right-hand page of a double-page spread and is an independent entry, with its own heading and explanatory note, separate from the Ameonna on the left. The device of telling ghost stories beside a lantern covered in blue paper appears in literature before Sekien. Asai Ryōi’s Otogibōko, book 13, "To Tell of the Strange Is to Invite the Strange," was first published in 1666. In the text of an edition published in 1699, a single lantern is covered in blue paper and fitted with one hundred wicks; one wick is removed after each tale. Yet that gathering is interrupted by a strange occurrence before it reaches a hundred stories, and it features neither a horned figure nor the yokai name Ao-andon. It is prehistory for the apparatus of Hyakumonogatari, not the first appearance of Ao-andon itself. Sekien’s note relates that when a lamp seems about to go out, then brightens again, and its shadows tremble and darken, something called Ao-andon may appear. It goes on to explain that people who hold Hyakumonogatari gatherings have long covered their lanterns in blue paper, and cautions that telling of demons in the night invites the strange. It says nothing of a hundredth tale, a final wick, total darkness, or an appearance that is inevitable. Accounts of Hyakumonogatari include strange events around the ninety-ninth tale, events after all one hundred tales have been told, and even stories that turn to laughter when a supposed monster proves to be a dog’s or a person’s leg. Nor is there evidence of a universal rule requiring participants to stop at ninety-nine. The figure in the illustration has long hair, two hornlike projections on its head, and darkly rendered teeth. Inside the lantern, whose front frame has been removed, are an oil dish and wicks; on the floor lie a box, papers, and slender objects that may suggest combs or hairpins. Sekien’s note does not identify them as love letters or sewing tools, however, and it tells no story of a jealous wife, a husband’s betrayal, or a vengeful grudge. Its personality, purpose, victims, attacks, speech, weaknesses, and means of exorcism are unknown. Later yokai dictionaries and creative works have portrayed Ao-andon as a demon woman who stands at the culmination of Hyakumonogatari, gathers fear, or judges ghost stories. Those images are a rich reception history generated by Sekien’s spare single page, but they must be read apart from the Edo-period note itself. The repeated incorporation of early modern yokai imagery into modern creative work is one reason Ao-andon has acquired further layers in each era. The historical record does not identify a specific place of origin, sighting, shrine, or rite, and Edo is not treated as the location of a regional tradition.

A female yokai illustrated by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, depicted with countless eyes embedded along her arms. She is said to have been a woman with a habit of stealing coins; because she constantly pilfered holed copper cash (torime), the spirits of those coins manifested as eyes on her limbs. Sekien cites a source titled Kankangai-shi, but that work is unverified and likely a playful pseudobibliographic joke. The name Dodomeki may be a wordplay tied to old nicknames for copper coins and to place-name spellings.

Bone Woman is a skeletal female yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki. In his notes, Sekien cites otogizōshi-style ghost tales in which a woman bearing a peony-patterned lantern visits her lover, drawing on the female specter from Asai Ryōi’s Otogibōko story “Botan Dōrō.” The image embodies a beauty who approaches a man but is in truth bare bones—a visualization of the uncanny where desire and death intersect.

Nurarihyon is a yokai known in Edo-period imagery by his name and the figure of an old man with an enlarged, bald head. The name now often suggests an elusive arch-yokai, yet the earliest sources offer less a detailed history than a striking name and silhouette. The named humanoid figure in Sawaki Sūshi’s Hyakkai Zukan (1737) ranks among the oldest surviving depictions whose date can be established. Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, first published in 1776, also helped circulate this image of an old man. These images say little about Nurarihyon’s origins or actions. Their silences invited invention: a “ringleader of monsters” in modern writing, an old man who enters a busy household in a children’s encyclopedia, and a leader of a faction in manga and animation. The journey from a silent image to a story’s central figure is itself one of Nurarihyon’s great fascinations. The history of the name is no simpler. The Seisenban Nihon Kokugo Daijiten cites a 1679 adverbial use of nurarihyon in Saikaku Gohyakuin, and a use as the name of a creature in Rigen Shūran from around 1797. A regional record from Akita names it as a member of a hyakki yagyō procession, while the Bisan Strait has a report of a differently shaped marine apparition. Across images, regional records, and modern reception, the same name has taken on a rich succession of forms.

A yokai appearing as a flaming ox-cart wheel with the face of a giant monk-like ogre set in its hub. Said to steal the souls of onlookers. It can be warded off by posting a paper on the doorway reading “This is the village of Katsumo.” Illustrated by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, it is a key example in the lineage of wheel-yokai tales and is often discussed alongside Katawaguruma, with a common origin widely proposed.

A yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. Countless eyes appear across the paper screen doors of a dilapidated house, staring back at intruders. Sekien’s note suggests a go player’s obsession spread from the board to the entire house, framing it as a haunt residing in the shoji itself. Later encyclopedias call it a literary creation, yet it endures as an emblem of the eerie patterns and dim light cast through shoji screens.

A smoke-born yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. The “ra” in its name refers to a thin gauze, evoking a spirit of smoke that drifts like sheer fabric. Rooted in the age-old sense of presence within hearth and stove smoke, it appears as a formless, drifting entity. In sources, Sekien’s illustration is the primary standard; no specific harm or blessing is defined, and it’s understood as the very essence of smoke made animate.

Ceiling Licker is a yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in his Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro: a creature that extends an unnaturally long tongue to lick ceilings. Sekien hints that it brings winter chill and dim light, quoting a line from Essays in Idleness (section 55) in his gloss. The image draws on Muromachi-era Night Parade scrolls showing a figure lying on its back with a protruding tongue. In later times, stains and discolorations on ceilings or pillars were often explained as its lick marks.

A house-dwelling yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki: an ugly old woman with disheveled hair hanging upside down from the ceiling. She appears late at night, startling people but generally causing no direct harm. Some see her as a liminal being moving through the boundary of the ceiling; others view her as Sekien’s wordplay, riffing on the period phrase “to show the ceiling.”

Mino-waraji is a tsukumogami—an animated household object—depicted by the Edo-period artist Toriyama Sekien in Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. It appears as a composite creature with a straw raincoat (mino) for a torso and straw sandals (waraji) for legs, shouldering a hoe and emerging in a snow-laden bamboo grove. Rooted in the belief that old tools and rain gear can gain spirits over time, the image blends earlier portrayals of mino and waraji yokai found in Hyakki Yagyō picture scrolls and Tsukumogami emaki. Little is recorded about its behavior; it survives mainly as a symbolic figure.

A yokai depicted by the Edo-period artist Toriyama Sekien in his Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. It appears as a female badger (mujina) carrying a night-duty bag, but given the book’s focus on tool-spirits, many read the bag itself as the true body. The design satirizes the saying “ana no mujina no nao o suru,” which warns that judging what you haven’t seen is difficult, and likely reworks a court-lady figure carrying a bag found in earlier night-parade scrolls.

Karakasa-kozou is a pop icon representing Japanese yokai and is synonymous with tsukumogami (object yokai). Its most famous appearance is hopping around on one leg wearing a geta (wooden clog), with one large eye wide open and a long tongue hanging out. However, this iconic imagery did not naturally emerge from folklore; it was artificially shaped by the publishing culture and toys of the early modern Edo period. Umbrella yokai are depicted in the Muromachi period's *Hyakki Yagyo Emaki* (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons Scroll), but there they take the form of humanoid demons wearing closed umbrellas on their heads, differing from the one-legged figure we know today. It was during the late Edo period that the "one-eyed, one-legged" characteristics became fixed through kusazoushi (illustrated storybooks), toy prints, monster playing cards, and kabuki stage props, making it widely loved by the public as a charming and comical monster.

The *Tofu-kozo* (Tofu Boy) is a *yokai* that appears on rainy evenings in the guise of a child wearing a large sedge hat, holding a tray with a block of tofu stamped with a maple leaf design. However, it neither attacks nor bewitches people; it simply stands there holding the tofu. This un-*yokai*-like, goofy charm is its main feature, making it beloved by the people of the late Edo period. What is noteworthy is that its origin does not lie in ancient folklore, but in the publishing culture of Edo itself. During the Anei era (1770s), it suddenly appeared as a character in illustrated entertainment books such as *kibyoshi* and *kusazoshi*. Its first appearance is said to be in the *kibyoshi* *Yokai Shiuchi Hyobanki*. Yokai researchers such as Natsuhiko Kyogoku and Katsumi Tada position the Tofu-kozo as an early example of a 'character yokai' artificially created as a commercial product. In other words, the Tofu-kozo is not a monster that crawled out of the darkness of the countryside, but an Edo-born yokai spawned by the urban industry of publishing.

Rokurokubi is known as a yōkai whose neck stretches unnaturally long at night. Read older books in chronological order, however, and no single form emerges. Under the same name gather figures close to the nukekubi, whose heads separate completely and fly; people who experience the event only as a dream; bodies and heads that appear linked by a thin line; and figures able to lengthen a long neck at will. The earliest currently identifiable candidate for the name is "rokurokubi" in volume two of the haikai anthology *Takatsukuba*, listed by the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* as an example from 1638. Yet surviving bibliographic records also date the book to 1642, so the original must be checked again before calling it an absolute first appearance. The name "Rokurokubi" appears in *Seishō Senku* in 1648, and the title "Rokurokubi of Fuchū in Echizen Province" appears in *Shokoku Hyaku Monogatari* in 1677. These early examples show that the name was spreading from the middle to late seventeenth century. In *Sorori Monogatari*, set in Echizen, a man meets a woman's head on a night road and follows it; when the head flies into a house, the sleeping woman says she has dreamed the frightening dream of being pursued by him. Ashamed of her own deluded thoughts, she enters Buddhist practice, but the story does not say she became a monster through jealousy. The strange event is one in which a person's mind or soul seems to have left the sleeping body. China's *Soushen ji* includes a woman of the Luotou people whose head flies by night and returns to her body at dawn. In the *Youyang zazu*, the Feitou Liaozi develop a ringlike red mark on the neck, sprout wings from the head, and eat crabs and earthworms. These closely resemble Japanese detached-head forms, but they do not prove that Chinese tradition simply became a Japanese yōkai. In Japan, knowledge from Chinese texts, ghost stories, illustrated books, and comic kibyōshi overlapped to shape several images of the rokurokubi. The 1737 *Hyakkai Zukan* depicts a nukekubi, while Toriyama Sekien's *Gazu Hyakki Yagyō*, first published in 1776, presents Hitōban (飛頭蛮) with the reading "rokurokubi". In Sekien's image, a sleeping woman's body and floating head are joined by a slender line. One study argues that such lines were later represented as elongated necks. In *Kyōgen Suehirogari* (1788), the neck of a woman in love stretches from Edo to Kamigata, producing laughter rather than fear. Lafcadio Hearn's "Rokuro-Kubi," included in *Kwaidan* in 1904, is not about a beautiful woman with a long neck. Kwairyō, a samurai turned monk, meets five headless bodies and five heads flying through woods in the mountains of Kai; he moves one body to prevent a head's return and fights the attacking head. Its direct source story is an episode in volume four of Jippensha Ikku's *Kaibutsu Yoron*. The red writing, the tactic of moving the body, and power limited until dawn belong to this particular line of tales.

A shaggy, seldom-seen yokai sketched by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. Sekien glosses its name as “Keu-kemi” (written 希有希見, “rarely seen”), underscoring its elusiveness. He likens its form to a hair-covered “hair-woman,” yet offers little on its nature or habits. Later writers proposed it lurks in damp corners of houses, but Edo-period sources do not confirm this.

A water-born anomaly said to haunt the moats and canals around Edo’s Honjo. When anglers tried to take home their catch, a voice rose from the water—“Leave it behind!”—and the fish in their creels vanished or were stolen. Counted among the Seven Wonders of Honjo, the tale appears in rakugo and picture books. Explanations vary: kappa, tanuki, mujina, otters, or softshell turtles. Sites named include Kinshi-bori, Sendai-bori, and the area near Genmori Bridge. The phrase oitekebori (“left behind”) is sometimes linked to this legend.

One of the Honjo Seven Wonders told in Edo. A giant, bristly foot bursts through a hatamoto mansion’s ceiling as a voice commands, “Wash the foot.” If obeyed, the foot withdraws quietly; if ignored, it stomps through the ceiling in a violent rampage. Its identity is unknown. In some versions the haunting ceases when the mansion changes owners; in others, only a woman’s washing can appease it. Besides causing harm, it is also said to have restrained thieves, giving it a protective aspect.

One of the “Seven Wonders of Honjo” from Edo. After a certain incident, the reeds growing along the canal were said to sprout only a single blade, a strange botanical sign taken as proof of a curse or lingering grudge. Some versions name a culprit or victim, but details vary by period and source, and the cause is usually left unexplained.

A nocturnal sound phenomenon: flutes, drums, and festival music seem to rise from nowhere. When pursued, the music recedes, making its source impossible to pin down. In Edo’s Honjo district it was called the “Fool’s Festival Music” and counted among the Seven Wonders of Honjo. Often blamed on mischievous tanuki, though no physical cause was confirmed. Some attributed it to windborne echoes and overlapping festival music. The name survives in the legend and children’s song of Shōjōji Temple in Chiba.

A will-o’-the-wisp-like light that appears before travelers without a lantern on night roads, gliding ahead as if to lead them on. When approached it snuffs out; when distance grows it reappears, always just out of reach. Counted among the Seven Wonders of Honjo in Edo, it’s akin to the “Guiding Clappers” and to Odawara lanterns that mislead people, and is related to the trickster lantern spirit known as Chōchin Kozō. It seldom harms; its nature is to toy with people and throw their journey into confusion.

One of the “Seven Mysteries of Honjo” told around Edo’s Honjo district. When night watchmen struck their wooden clappers (hyōshigi) while calling “Beware of fire,” the same cadence would continue behind them even after they stopped, as if an unseen presence were escorting them. Some say it was simple echoing in the quiet streets, but accounts tell of the sound on rainy nights even without clappers being struck, so the tale endured as a mystery.

A haunt linked to a “ni-hachi” soba night stall said to appear near Minami-Warigesui in Edo’s Honjo district. The proprietor never showed himself, and the shop’s andon lantern stayed dark—yet anyone who lit it was later struck by misfortune. In other tellings the oil never ran out and the lantern burned all night. Rumored to be a tanuki’s trick, it survives as one of the Seven Wonders of Honjo.

In the Edo period, a venerable chinquapin/oak tree in the garden of the Matsuura clan’s upper residence at Hirado Shinden, Honjo, was said never to drop a single leaf throughout the year. Counted among the “Seven Wonders of Honjo,” it was viewed as ominous because even evergreens shed leaves. Household members kept their distance, feeling it foretold misfortune. Accounts differ on the exact site and the identity of the actual tree, and details remain uncertain.

A curious tale from the fire watchtower of the Tsugaru Etchū-no-kami residence in Edo’s Honjo district: instead of the standard wooden clapper used to signal fires, a drum was hung and struck. The reason was never recorded. Another version claims that even when the clapper was hit, a drum’s booming sounded. Sometimes counted among the Seven Wonders of Honjo, it is occasionally omitted due to its faintly supernatural nature.

Oiwa is the protagonist of Japan's most widely known ghost story, renowned as a female ghost who was betrayed and poisoned by her husband, dying with a disfigured face and returning as a terrifying, vengeful spirit. However, this image is almost entirely a theatrical fabrication. In the kabuki play "Tokaido Yotsuya Kaidan" (written by Tsuruya Nanboku IV and premiered at the Edo Nakamura-za in 1825), the role of Oiwa was played by Onoe Kikugoro III. The iconic scenes—where she dies while combing her hair with half her face terribly swollen and decaying, washes ashore nailed to a wooden door, and later emerges from a burning lantern to torment her husband—established the archetype of the vengeful ghost Oiwa. Importantly, the real woman behind the legend was said to be the exact opposite. Oiwa (Tamiya Iwa), the wife of the Tamiya samurai family living in Samoncho, Yotsuya, was known as a devoted and faithful wife with a deeply loving marriage. She devoutly worshipped the family's Inari shrine and successfully restored her family's declining fortunes, making her an auspicious figure. The Oiwa Inari (Tamiya Inari) shrine dedicated to her was originally visited as a "god of luck that brings family prosperity." The name Oiwa stands upon the immense contrast between the historical virtuous wife and the vengeful spirit crafted by Nanboku two centuries later.

Okiku is the vengeful ghost of a woman who was drowned in a well over the suspected loss of a single heirloom plate, returning every night to the bottom of the well to count plates: "One... Two..." She features in two major lineages of legends: the *Banshu Sarayashiki* tradition set in Harima (Himeji), and the *Bancho Sarayashiki* tradition set in Bancho, Edo. Alongside Kasane and Oiwa, she is considered one of the most representative female vengeful spirits of early modern Japanese ghost stories. In the Banshu lineage, amid Aoyama Tetsuzan's conspiracy to usurp the Kodera (Hosokawa) clan during the Muromachi period, his retainer Machitsubo Danshiro hides one of ten heirloom Chinese plates, pins the blame on the maid Okiku, tortures her to death, and throws her into a well. In the Bancho lineage, Okiku is a maid in the mansion of the hatamoto Aoyama Shuzen who breaks a plate—or refuses her master's unwanted advances—and is slain and cast into a well. Both versions share the core motif of a cyclical haunting where she counts the incomplete set of plates, climaxing in an agonizing shriek when she reaches the missing piece. The Okiku Well still exists beneath the main keep of Himeji Castle, and the legend has taken deep root even in local place names, shrines, and the names of insects.

A yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki: an old woman who blows out lights. She is said to snuff lanterns, andon lamps, and candle flames from a distance with a single puff, interpreted as an ominous, yin presence that abhors the cheerful, yang nature of fire. Oral accounts are scarce, and scholars often view the figure as largely Sekien’s invention. Later books and picture chapbooks show name variants (“Fukkeshi Baba,” “Fukikeshi Baba”) and link her to tales of lamps going out at parties or on night roads.

Kuro-bōzu, literally “black monk,” is a catch-all name for yokai that appear as a dark-robed priest. Accounts vary widely by region: in Meiji-era Tokyo it visited bedrooms to sip women’s breath; in the mountains of Kumano it grew to colossal height; in Kaga it showed up by rivers as a fleeing shadow. The term sometimes overlaps with giants like Ōnyūdō or sea spirits like Umibōzu, so no single fixed form exists.

Mugidono Daimyōjin is a deified guardian venerated in the Edo period as a protector who repels measles. He appears frequently in measles talismans and prints, typically shown trampling a demon that embodies the disease. Such images were posted in homes as protective charms. Prints circulated with prayers for warding off illness alongside convalescence advice and dietary taboos, offering reassurance against a feared epidemic. No specific shrine lineage is certain, and depictions vary by publisher.

A spectral creature depicted in Edo-period yokai picture scrolls. It wears garments, spreads its forelegs wide, and has a horse’s face with bulging, upward-thrust eyes and cloven deer-like hooves. Identical images appear in late-18th-century works such as the Hyakumonogatari Kae Emaki, Oda Gyochō’s Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, and Bakemono-zukushi emaki. No period captions explain its behavior or origin. The imagery likely plays on the word baka (“fool”), but its function—harmful or helpful—remains unknown in the sources.

A monk-shaped yokai tied to toilet taboos. In Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki it is shown spewing a bird from its mouth, with the note that chanting “Gambari Nyūdō, hototogisu” on New Year’s Eve keeps it away. The belief links ominous cuckoo calls heard in the privy to the characters for kokkō (cuckoo) and the Chinese latrine deity Guo Deng. Local versions vary in name and behavior.