When viewed as the bell-keeper of a ruined temple, the Nodera-bo is a yokai that dwells in a "place where sound should not ring." The temple bell was a voice that carved out the time of the community and announced Buddhist services and mourning. However, in Sekien's illustration, the bell tower is covered in grass and ivy, and the temple has slipped from human hands. The monk-like figure standing there is neither striking the bell nor chanting sutras. He simply exists beside the bell. In a place that has lost its function, it looks as if only the duty remains. This stillness is the terror of the Nodera-bo.

The "Nodera-bo"^[1] in the "Yō" section of the first volume of "Gazu Hyakki Yagyo" does not close its meaning with an explanatory text. Sekien combined the thin monk shape, torn robes, the bell tower, ivy, and wild grass, leaving just enough clues for the reader to intuit, "This is something that appears in a ruined temple." As a yokai illustration, it boasts an extremely strong composition, with most of the frame approaching negative space. Rather than the true identity of the anomaly, the wind blowing at the temple's edge, the untended woodwork, and the time of the plants entwining the bell linger in the eye. The Nodera-bo preserves the sensation of having "seen something" before the yokai is explained away in words.

It is easy to conclude that this yokai is the ghost of a monk, but such a reading is too narrow. The Nodera-bo does not possess a clear name from its lifetime like the vengeful monk spirits Tesso or Raigo. Nor does it have an origin story of destroying Buddhist law like the Teratsutsuki. While possessing the eeriness of a monk-like form akin to the Aobozo or Nurobotoke, the Nodera-bo leans even closer to its location. In other words, the subject of the anomaly is not just the "monk" but also the "wild temple." A temple without people still requires the shadow of a monk. Read in this way, the Nodera-bo approaches the personification of the ruined temple itself.

As Kenji Murakami's "Yokai Jiten" indicates, the Nodera-bo is not a dense folk tale told in a specific region, but a yokai whose later explanations were constructed from Sekien's imagery[2]. With this type of yokai, it is necessary not to hide the scarcity of source material as a weakness, but to look at what that scarcity birthed. Because there is only a name and a picture, the reader imagines the sound of the bell. Why is the monk there? For whom is he guarding the bell? Why did the temple fall into ruin? The lack of answers overlaps with the negative space of the ruined temple.

Yokai encyclopedias post-Shigeru Mizuki bridged this negative space to modern readers. By entering the Mizuki-lineage yokai directories^[3], the Nodera-bo became a name known not only to those who read Sekien, but to readers flipping through yokai encyclopedias. However, even with modern characterization, the core of the Nodera-bo is not flashy abilities. The ruined temple, the bell, the black robes, the grass, the silence. When these five are present, the yokai rises up even without a story.

The Nodera-bo is a yokai for reading the unseen presence left in a space of faith abandoned by people. When a temple is alive, the bell makes a sound. When a temple falls into ruin, the bell falls silent. Yet, if a thin monk were standing beside the silent bell, that place would no longer be a complete ruin. Someone is still keeping watch. Or perhaps, only the thing keeping watch remains. The Nodera-bo is a yokai that locked that sense of unease into a single illustration.