Introducing Yōkai: Echoes of the In-between

Imagine this: You’re walking along a slightly dark path at night, in the countryside.

It is eerily quiet, all you can hear are your footsteps on the gravelled road. One after the other, but wait, did you just hear another set of footsteps? You shake it off, you are alone, this is just your imagination.

You walk on, but again, clack clack, you hear the steps. You turn around quickly, but still there’s no one there. Strange, you think, you were so certain and you haste home, the steps always right behind you. 

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Or maybe you’re are at home, on your way to somewhere and you’re also just a little late, but you can’t seem to find that one very important thing, maybe it’s your key, or your phone, or your glasses. You run around, check any possible place only to find it right there, in front of you, in a very obvious place you could swear you had checked at least 10 times. Yet, it is there. How can you explain such a scenario? Maybe it’s just a case of temporary blindness due to stress, or maybe you were distracted. 

Or you get up one morning to get your newspaper and strangely enough find a block of tofu on a tray in front of your house, while in the distance you see a strangely dressed boy carrying even more tofu.

Or you run into a beautiful woman in a field at night, marry her and later she turns into a fox. 

Or your grandmother’s umbrella suddenly gains one single eyeball and jumps around your home to scare you. 

You might explain these things, maybe there is a new tofu shop running a special promotion, maybe your wife is just really into nature, and maybe the umbrella is simply done being an umbrella, these things happen. Or maybe you have found yourself in a world of yōkai. 

What is a Yōkai ?

Yōkai are a part of Japanese culture I can’t help but find fascinating. Growing up in Germany, I too was surrounded by creatures like the Kobold, Berggeister or dwarves. Some I met in contemporary series and movies, while others lived on the pages of my story books, the fairytales of the brothers’ Grimm. As a baptised Catholic the world was filled with saints, crosses and effigies of Jesus and church festivities. And so my childhood was filled with magic, hidden in the world around me. However, as it happens to most people, I grew up. With every centimeter I grew in height, another layer of magic was stripped away, until nothing but clear, straight-forward reality remained. 

In a way learning about yōkai always felt like coming back to my childhood in some way, giving me a renewed sense of wonder about the things that lay hidden in the in-between spaces, where nothing is as it seems. 

The Definiton

So, what is a yōkai? That question is not answered easily. But as always we can reference the Kanji of the word.

If you want to learn some more about the topic of Kanji: Why reading in Japan is hard

妖怪: 妖 (yō) meaning: attractive, bewitching, calamity and 怪 (kai) meaning: suspicious, mystery, apparition. So a bewitching apparition ? Or a suspicious calamity ? Or an attractive mystery?

If you search the meaning of yōkai in a Japanese dictionary you find the following explanation:

These definitions describes something that in the West has many names: Spectre, apparition, demon, ghost, monster, goblin. But the simplest and best term for its Japanese equivalent is still yōkai.

According to this dictionary the earliest mention of yōkai is this:

[初出の実例]「大祓。為三宮中頻有二妖恠一也」(出典：続日本紀‐宝亀八年（777）三月辛未)

Ōharae (literally great purification). In the three palaces/shrines, there have frequently been two 妖恠 (youkai)” (Source: 続日本紀‐宝亀八年（777）三月辛未 ).

While, as the dictionary suggests, the word yōkai is pretty old, they gained a lot of popularity during the so-called Edo Period, a time from 1603 to 1868. During this time they were heavily featured in artworks, especially so-called ukiyo-e. After the Meiji revolution, yōkai fell out of style and were later rediscovered. I get into this a bit more in my post on Shintō, if you want to know more about this.

A Side Note about 幽霊 Yūrei

There is a separate word for ghost, yūrei 幽霊. One could argue, while yōkai show up at any time of the day (but particularly at dusk), yūrei are only really active between 2:00 a.m. and 2:30 a.m., when yang is the weakest and yin the strongest.

I explained this concept in another post: Why you shouldn’t visit shrines at night (and other superstitions), so I’m not going to repeat myself too much.

To summarise, yin is associated with the dead and spirit-world, but also with the moon and darkness, so at night it naturally grows stronger, which in turns makes ghosts stronger. Yūrei are usually actual people that died, whereas yōkai aren’t necessarily. Komatsu Kazuhiko therefore proposes the idea that yūrei are a subcategory of yōkai. Considering both topics are very broad and ghosts have their own specific set of stories, behaviours and categories, I will mainly talk about yōkai in the non-ghostly sense.

The Thing about Kami 神 and Shintō 神道

Yōkai need to be understood through the background of Shintō, Japan’s indigenous religion.

Shintō is as much not a straight-forward concept as yōkai are. In Shintō, pretty much anything can possess a soul. It is what people call an animistic believe system. In folklore, Japan is filled with life, its trees and stones and mountains and rivers.

This also means a lot of things can be a kami (deities), or yōkai. The ways of worship are varied and differentiated, because Japan’s, sometimes isolated, regions developed their own ideas.

While something might be considered a kami in one region, it might not be one at all in another. This is why some people argue a yōkai is a not worshipped kami and a kami is a worshipped yōkai.

Side note: There are some Buddhist (or Chinese) inspired yōkai as well, it’s not a concept exclusively linked to Shintō.

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This is important to point out, as it reflects the complicated manner in which these creatures exist in a grey zone of sorts. They can be terrifyingly dangerous, mischievous or just simply indifferent and sometimes they are many things all at the same time.

Shintō, as a belief system is deeply rooted in nature and the world around us. And nature is never good or evil, it is fluid. The duality we grow up with in the West, heaven and hell, good and bad, black and white, just doesn’t exist in the same way (even though there are creatures that are more “evil” in a classic sense like the oni 鬼).

A Little Discussion about Studio Ghibli

A series of movies that reflects this aspect well are the Studio Ghibli movies. In most of them there isn’t a real villain, only an antagonist. But instead of portraying this antagonist as a demon-like, black entity, that needs to be destroyed like in Disney movies, Studio Ghibli’s antagonists are more often than not just that: antagonists. They might have different goals compared to the main character, but that is barely ever judged. It is just a simple fact.

Little spoiler alert for Princess Mononoke! This is exemplified by arguably one of the best animated movies ever, Princess Mononoke. In the movie there are various people who could be seen as antagonists. One would be Lady Eboshi, who destroys the forest. In a lot of kids movies, this would clearly make her the villain, destroying nature is bad after all. Not necessarily for this movie though: While the destruction of the forest she is responsible for is negative, she isn’t a bad person either, she protects lepers and prostitutes and is a hero for her people.

The spirits of the forest, too, can be seen as antagonistic, as they can be cruel and deadly, all the while fighting to protect their forest, a thing we would usually see as a noble cause.

Jigo, while being greedy and power-hungry, and therefore probably the most straight-forward villain of the story, is also portrayed as a comical character, making it difficult to see him as the true “ultimate villain” of the movie.

This represents an undecided conclusion for the movie, no one is simply evil, or good, rather it makes the observation that nature and humanity are at odds.

In a way, this links back to yōkai, because, like the spirits of the forest in Princess Mononoke, they are simply there, following their own, sometimes difficult to determine, goals.

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I would argue Miyazaki’s movies tell of the deep relationship with nature of the past, the disconnect of the present and the pessimistic hope of a new future. But there’s probably way more to say on that.

Little Magic

Living in Japan, I can’t help but feel it is an incredibly magical place. It seems magic is somehow woven into Japan’s very fabric, as if it was build on it.

Walking and finding an old, worn-down shrine, or a little o-jisō at the side of a road. The rituals steeped in history and the lights and the sound of furin during summer nights, a teru teru bōzu hanging from a roof or a window. Seeing the depths of mountains and forests. It seems entirely possible that there is a hidden world that somehow flows next to ours.

So if there is one place in the world I have to believe is filled with supernatural beings, it is Japan.

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To give you a sense of what makes a yōkai a yōkai and their many forms and adventures, I’ll try to introduce you to a few of the more famous ones. However, please note that there are thousands of yōkai that roam the lands of Japan, which are fascinating to explore and you can find both Japanese resources and English resources on them.

狐 Kitsune

The one yōkai most people will probably know is a kitsune 狐, meaning any fox, both natural and supernatural.

The more I learn about yōkai, the more I find there is no such thing as a strict border between worlds, a fox can be just that, a fox. However the very same animal might as well be a magical, mischievous and or powerful creature. Same goes for the beloved, similarly magical Tanuki, the Japanese racoon dog or the Mujina. 

And while there are specific names and categories for magical foxes, there really doesn’t seem to be a difference between the two. This reflects the fluidity mentioned above, and I would argue it is what makes Japan so magical.

Kitsune are creatures that have various appearances in animation, comics, video games and so on and are therefore highly recognisable for western audiences, too.

Where Are They From?

While kitsune are mostly associated with Japanese media in the West, the concept exists in both China and Korea. This is why some scholars suggest the legend of the kitsune actually originated in China (the axis China, Korea, Japan is actually both culturally and historically important), but considering there are also Ainu (an indigenous group in Japan) legends about kitsune, both good and bad, the belief might be native to Japan as well. This seems plausibel, as this is by no means a belief only existent in East Asia, legends about cunning foxes are well-known in other cultures as well.

There are various types of foxes: Heavenly and spirit foxes, dark and white foxes, good and bad ones. The most important distinction is probably between the mischievous yako and the zenko, messengers of the God Inari.

There are also various phenomena associated with kitsune such as fox-wedding’s, fox-possesion or fox-fires, the Japanese version of will-o’-the-whisps. 

According to folklore foxes posses the capability to transform themselves, most famously into beautiful women. However, there are so many stories worth telling about kitsune that I decided to do a separate post on them, anything else wouldn’t do them justice, I’m afraid. 

九尾の狐 Kyubinokitsune

There’s another type of kitsune that reflects an important aspect of the world of yōkai. This type of fox is called 九尾の狐 (kyubinokitsune) or 九尾狐 (kyubiko). The story goes as follows: The older a fox gets, the more magical power it gains. The fox’s age is reflected by the amount of tails it has, one for each hundred years. So, reaching nine tails means the fox is a thousand years old. In some stories only after the fox has gained a certain amount of tails is the fox able to transform itself into a human. The age of something is actually incredibly important in Japanese folklore. As soon as something turns 100 years old, it can gain a soul, and if it had been mistreated before, it can even hold a grudge. This is what is called a 付喪神 tsukumogami.

付喪神 Tsukumogami

Tsukumogami are mostly household goods like umbrellas, lanterns, jars, dolls, sandals, instruments etc., who are over 100 years old and gained a soul. Once they become sentient they are usually not straight-up malicious, they are rather mischievous creatures, maybe making noise, or scaring people. They are a reminder to treat things with respect and to discard of them correctly as well (i.e. at your local shrine).

This is what is called a 供養 kuyō for specific goods. Like a 針供養 Harikuyō for needles or 名刺感謝祭 meishi kanshasai for buisness cards. (A kuyo is generally defined as a memorial service for the deceased, ancestors or for the Buddha, so it literally is a memorial service for household goods.) Holding a service for well-used things is done to appease them and make sure they don’t turn into yōkai, move to the mountains and descend onto the streets to join the 百鬼夜行 (hyakki yagyō) to cause chaos at night. 

As funny as that sounds, there was a real belief that there would be parades (or riots) of demons at night, so it was better to stay inside, because there was always the danger of being spirited away by them. There are also a lot of portrayals of theses hyakki yagyō in art, as you can see above.

一反木綿 Ittan momen

One tsukumogami I want to mention is the 一反木綿 (ittan momen). Mainly because it is featured in the anime Gegege no Kitaro, a show that contributed heavily to the continued popularity of yōkai in Japan. The ittan momen is a piece of cloth that flies around at night, wrapping itself around people to either obstruct their view or suffocate them.

In the anime, the ittan momen is a friend to the main character Kitaro on his quest to defeat evil yōkai, that haunt the world.

In the shows intro you can find all sorts of yōkai and some other tsukumogami, like Kitaro’s sandals.

If you look close enough, you can spot another classic yōkai in this intro: the 河童 kappa.

河童 Kappa

A kappa is a green (or red)water creature the size of a younger child. It has a bowl of water on its head that always needs to be filled with water, if the bowl is emptied the kappa will loose its power or die. It is usually portrayed as having a shell and it might be covered in hair, resembling a monkey.

As the name suggest (kappa literally means river child) kappa live in rivers, ponds, wetlands and lakes, and as such they are amazing swimmers, they’re also incredibly strong. And like farts. Do with that what you will.

The Dangerous and The Not So Dangerous

Kappa use this strength to pull people underwater, drowning them in the process. Kappa love human liver and they are known for removing the shirikodama (a fictitious, magical organ in the anus) to get to the liver of their victims. An explanation for such a belief would be the state in which drowning victims were found in, but I am by no means an expert on that.

While they are also a danger to horses and cows, they are capable of good deeds, especially when the bowl on their head is empty. In such a case they are said to share their knowledge of medicine, promise to never assault anyone in the vicinity again, or help fishermen with fishing. Kappa are also known to love cucumbers and pumpkins, which is why cucumber sushi is usually called 河童巻き (kappa maki).

Their favourite hobby is sumo, so they go around challenging people to a match, funnily enough there’s another yōkai who apparently randomly challenges people to sumo wrestling, the ヒルマボウズ. Normally, no one would be able to beat a kappa in a sumo match, due to its incredible strength. However, there are rules to follow, and kappa are surprisingly polite when it comes to them. If you bow before the match, a kappa will naturally bow back, leading it to spill out all the water in its bowl. Also the kappa dislikes iron, deer antlers and monkeys.

Origin of Kappa

They share their dislike of iron with some dragons, as well. Michael Dylan Forster, a scholar of yōkai, suggests that kappa actually developed from an ancient myth in the Nihon Shoki, where a sort-of river serpent/dragon is mentioned, sharing similarities with the Kappa. Kappa could, in a sense, be their descendants. Other scholars argue kappa are the remnants of all sorts of river-spirits demanding sacrifices. So, in a way kappa could have been deities that were forgotten over time and the stories surrounding them then turned them into “river children”. Which links back to the idea that yōkai are non-worshipped kami.

There are various explanations for kappa, ranging from them being a real cryptid, a Japanese giant salamander, to them coming from China or them being created through a doll made by the famous magician Abe no Seimei (because apparently if you pull on one arm of the kappa the other arm shrinks, like a straw dolls).

Nowadays, they are often portrayed in a cute way, even being used as mascots for water-related companies or cities, or as signs reminding people to keep waters clean.

This showcases how yōkai also change with time. In case of the kappa, one could explain they exist because of the very real danger of drowning, maybe as a way of explaining drownings, but also as a warning to stay clear of water in general. A lot of yōkai seem to contain such warnings of the unknown, to not venture too far beyond the known home and to pay attention at night etc.

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In a day and age where most people can swim (in case of the kappa) and a lot of phenomena can be explained by science the unknown shrinks, an explanation like yōkai is not necessarily needed anymore. So, the kappa changes from a dangerous, not exactly beautiful creature to a cute mascot. How much credibility and respect these stories hold for people to this day depends entirely on the region and person. However, similarly to the West, there does seem to be an overall idea of things you just don’t do and spaces you should better respect.

Yōkai are also featured in sayings (like becoming a tengu etc.), here are some related to kappa that I particularly like:

河童の木登り: Kappa climbing a tree; Someone out of their element.
河童の屁: Kappa’s fart; Something is easy.
河童に水練: Teaching a Kappa how to swim; Trying to teach someone something they know well.

Some More Yōkai

There are many, many, many different yōkai. Some have a lot of stories related to them and some don’t. Japan is a country of many regional differences and of course yōkai can be regional, too. Here are two more “random” yōkai.

のっぺらぼう (Nopperabo): a yōkai without a face, that otherwise looks fairly normal, which is mostly know to scare people.

塗壁 (nurikabe): A literal invisible wall that blocks people’s paths, because why not.

So when and how do you meet a yōkai?

If you did ever want to meet a yōkai, or, on the opposite, avoid them at all costs, there are certain places and times of the day to be mindful about.

The Hour You Meet Demons

Dusk is the time called 逢魔時(oumagatoki), meaning literally 逢: meeting, tryst, date, rendezvous; 魔: witch, demon, evil spirit and 時: time, hour. So, the time you meet demons.

Yōkai exist in liminal spaces, in-between worlds you might say. In Japanese folklore the lines between worlds is very blurry, as seen by how the kitsune is both a literal fox and a magical being. Twilight is the time when like our view, the borders of worlds get blurred. In contrast to yūrei, you can always meet yōkai, but particularly at this ominously named time.

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There are also some specific places where yōkai like to hang out. They thrive in in-between spaces: Bridges, the outside of a village, on mountain paths、辻 (where roads crossed, the path where people come and go) etc. This is also why some scholars suggest that yōkai also represent a stranger, like something, or someone, coming in from the outside and causing disruption. 

Conclusion

I only wrote about some of the most popular yōkai, but I am planning to expand on them some more in later posts. There really are so many.

To end this post, I want to stress once more, how through these stories, through the fluidity between worlds, both the magic and mundane interlink in a special way in Japan. These stories keep on thriving, with new ones arising from time to time, differing from region to region. From Toriyama Sekien to Gegege no Kitaro, these stories show us things about life in Japan in a way that barely anything else can. They reflect how on this island things seem to melt into each other, like Shintō and Buddhism, like new and old, like the biggest cities and the most silent villages.

A lot of people seem to want to define what makes Japan fascinating. But I think it’s exactly that. It’s the in-betweens of life, the infinite greyness of our existence. Japan doesn’t fight the paradox, instead it blurs the lines and that is the beauty of it all.

Yōkai I’m referring to in the introduction:

べとべとさん (Betobeto-San), really so many yōkai could do that, 豆腐小僧(tōfu kozō), 狐 (kitsune) and 付喪神 (tsukumogami).

Thanks for reading!

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Sources

https://www.mbs.jp/kyoto-chishin/kyotocolumn/walk/87115.shtml

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/幽霊

https://kotobank.jp/word/妖怪-145561

https://www.nichibun.ac.jp/YoukaiDB3/ikai

The Book of Yōkai by Michael Dylan Forster

Images

Toriyama Sekien (鳥山石燕, Japanese, *1712, †1788), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“Spirited Away” (2001), directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli. Still image. IMDb, www.imdb.com. Accessed 3 August 2025. https://www.imdb.com/de/title/tt0245429/mediaviewer/rm1868226048

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kappa_jap_myth.jpg

https://pixabay.com/de/photos/sushi-maki-gurke-reis-alge-5425605

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:8hosomak8.jpg