Great news! The ebook edition of Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide is finally here. It's available both on Amazon for both Kindle and iPad/iPhone, and also on Kobo for those of you who roll that way.
We'll always be partial to the paper edition, but the ebook really shines for the illustrations. Not only does it display Tatsuya Morino's awesome illustrations at a super huge, screen-filling size - like this "Nue" below - but it also allows you to zoom in to see them in all of their cross-hatched glory.
Yurei Attack! The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide has been available as an ebook since last year, and of course the paper editions of all three books in the Attack! trilogy are on sale too. (The ebook of Ninja Attack! will be sneaking into an ebook reader near you soon.)
A few months back, I gave a talk about yokai to a group of students visiting Tokyo from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. There are a lot of Norwegian folktales that resemble those from Japan - trolls and such - so they were a very receptive bunch.
A few weeks ago, one of the students, Stian Tranung, mailed me photos of this beautiful yokai stamp set he made by hand after reading Yokai Attack.
Very cool and I hope he considers mass producing them!
Some examples. Top left to right, Tengu, Kappa, Funa-Yurei. Bottom: Hitotsume Kozo, Nue, Tanuki.
A few weeks back, I prepared a 5-minute slideshow on How to Survive a Kappa Attack for hordes of drunken visitors to Pecha Kucha Night at the now-closed Heineken Star Bar in Harajuku. The trick with Pecha Kucha talks is their speed: speakers get only 20 slides of just 20 seconds duration each to make their point.
My point was how dangerous Japan's single most famous yokai can be - and how to save your butt (literally). Not only has Pecha Kucha made it available online, it's been selected as the Presentation of the Day. So bust out the cucumbers and take a look!
Attention Hong Kong readers! I will be presenting about yokai in both English and Japanese (with Cantonese simultaneous intepretation) at the Japan Media Arts Festival in Hong Kong on December 8, 2012. It's being held at Taikoo Plaza. For more details, check out the official website. See you in Hong Kong!
News flash! I'm going to be appearing on NHK regularly this summer as a yokai commentator! I've joined the ranks of the show Topics Eikaiwa, an educational series for students of English as a second language.
Every episode of Topics Eikaiwa contains an English-dubbed episode of the anime series Little Charo. This season is set in Tohoku, where Charo runs into all sorts of yokai, like Tengu, Kappa, Tanuki, and more. (You can see weekly previews of the Japanese version here.)
After every English episode comes my own little segment, called "Wonder Tohoku," where I describe the yokai and the associated folklore in English. I keep things short and simple because the targets are intermediate-level English students. If you live in Japan, starting on July 4, you can see Topics Eikawa every Wednesday at 6:00am and 10:00pm, all summer long. So sit tight... and don't let the yokai bite!
Yurei Attack! is the world's first English-language survival manual for Japanese ghosts. It gets you through encounters with Japan's angriest ghosts and sexy spectres. Guides you to haunted places in Tokyo and beyond. Teaches you traditional games of the occult and how to play them. It even gives you a guided tour of what awaits in the world of the dead.
Yurei is the Japanese word for "ghost." They are the souls of the dead unable - or unwilling - to shuffle off this mortal coil. They are driven by emotions so uncontrollably powerful that they have taken on a life of their own: rage. Sadness. Devotion. Revenge. Or even the simple belief that they are still alive. Many are considered dangerous even today.
Scary stuff to be sure. Equally terrifying are the illustrations by lovely lady manga artist Shinkichi, with layouts by the equally lovely Andrew Lee.
So how's this different from Yokai Attack? Glad you asked. Although they're often conflated, yurei and yokai are very different beasts. Yokai are a "something." Yurei are a "someone." Someone with an axe to grind... Usually right against your neck.
Hiroko and I spent years conducting field research in some of Japan's spookiest places, and we've compiled detailed illustrated dossiers on 39 of the most frightening spirits in Japan, along with real-life haunted spots, occult games like Kokkuri-san and Hyakumonogatari, and even an illustrated tour of the underworld itself. It is your complete guide to the Japanese occult and afterlife.
Trust us: it's the last guidebook to Japan you'll ever need. Just don't blame us if you have to sleep with the lights on for a while.
More good news! Tuttle is also releasing new revised editions of Yokai Attack! and Ninja Attack! with all-color pages and additional new profiles. Stay tuned for more info!
From toad wrestling to Teenage Mutant Ninja Frogs? It might sound like a leap of logic, but it's absolutely true: today's ninja susperstars have some decidedly slimy origins.
Hiroko and I were conducting research in the Sackler Gallery archives for an upcoming project when we stumbled across a cache of 18th century frog and toad related prints.
They weren't the first we'd ever seen, but they reminded us of the love-hate relationship Japan has enjoyed with the creatures over the ages. Sure, they're warty and bumpy and hang out in slimy dark places, but there's something about those beady little eyes that demands a certain amount of affection.
The Japanese actually have a word for this type of cognitive dissonance: it's called kimo-kawaii: cute and gross, all at the same time. It's something Japanese designers have a real knack for; you can see it in so many mascots and characters today that it can be easy to mistake for a recent trend. It isn't.
Long before Japanese had a word for it, frogs and toads were the ORIGINAL "kimo-kawaii."
In spite of being totally common sorts of animals (you can even find them in the midst of the Tokyo metropolis today, if you know where to look), they're often portrayed in decidedly uncommon circumstances: marching alongside yokai, acting as familiars to ninja sorcerers, even cutting loose and staging impromptu wrestling matches when pesky humans aren't lurking about.
Ohara Koson
Now here's where things get interesting.
The following prints show Tenjiku Tokubei (1612- 1692), a real-life adventurer who traveled extensively in Southeast Asia at a time when very few Japanese were allowed to leave their country.
His name translates into "Tokubei of India" -- I guess you could call him a sort of Japanese "Lawrence of Arabia."
After his death, his legend continued to grow. In 1804, Tokubei became the subject of a kabuki play called Tenjiku Tokubei Kokubanashi. It portrayed the adventurer as a wizard-like master of magic gleaned from the Asian continent.
His secret superpower involved casting spells on the large stones used to make pickled vegetables, transforming them into... giant toads. Which would then attack his enemies. (Yeah, toads. C'mon. When you think about it, is this really that much stranger than the powers the X-Men and other modern superheroes are supposed to possess?)
In an amusing twist, the kabuki play's producer promoted his show by fueling rumors that the actors used "Christian magic" to effect their super-quick dress changes during the show. Perhaps one could say frogliness is next to Godliness?
Toyohara Kunichika, 1883.
Utagawa Toyokuni, 1809.
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
As the sheer number of pieces of art produced for it attest, the play was a huge hit -- the contemporary equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster.
They influenced a writer by the name of Kanwatei Onitake, who borrowed (some might say "swiped") Tokubei's signature attack and fused it with tales of a legendary Chinese burglar to create Jiraiya, who is widely considered to be the very first ninja character in Japanese pop culture.
Jiraiya (who not coincidentally gets a big profile in Ninja Attack!) first appeared in an 1806 illustrated book that could be called the ancestor of the graphic novel. He's a thief with a heart of gold and the ability to conjure up giant phantom frogs. Where Tokubei's powers were said to come from foreign lands, Jiraiya's were good old-fashioned Japanese ninjutsu.
The tweak to the story seems to have hit home, because Jiraiya is far more well known than his predecessor today. In fact, he's a positive superstar among a certain set. He lives on as one of the main characters in the Naruto anime series.
Kanwatei Onitake's Jiraiya
Update 02/2012! You can see the 1921 silent film "Jiraiya," considered the ancestor of both ninja cinema and tokusatsu (special-effects) films in Japan, here on YouTube! The frog-versus-samurai battle at 12 minutes in is a must-see.
You heard it here first: there are some serious mutations going on down in Koenji.
For no apparent reason other than sheer awesomeness, a kappa and tengu appeared in the midst of Koenji Fest 2011, which continues through this weekend in (wait for it) the Koenji neighborhood of Tokyo.
Where else but Tokyo can you stumble across a kappa getting into a fistfight with a super-kawaii mascot? Nowhere. And fortunately for you, I caught it on camera. (Click the "YouTube" logo at bottom right to display them at full size).
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