The books were written by Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda, a husband and wife team who run AltJapan, a localization company that translates books, movies, and video games between Japanese and English. You might also recognize Matt from his contributions to Néojaponisme, including his taste-testing efforts on the Oh! Sake! series.

Their Attack! books are all about demons, ghosts, and monsters in Japan. Given all that, who better to talk to with for Halloween? I chatted with Matt and Hiroko about their new book, difference between ghosts in Japan and the west, haunted real estate, and more.

It’s a little ironic that you two have this reputation for writing books about the supernatural, considering you started out with Hello, Please!, a book about kawaii characters. How did you discover your mutual love of the supernatural?
Matt: It’s even more ironic when you consider my interest in Japan came mainly through robots! The Shogun Warriors, Mazinger Z, Chogokin, the Transformers, Macross, Evangelion . . . you name it. I even helped run a Japanese robot toy site called ToyboxDX for many years. I’ve always loved giant monsters like Godzilla too, though, and there’s some definite cross-over with supernatural monsters there. But I really owe my interest to Hiroko.

Hiroko: I’ve always loved yokai stories and ghost stories. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved them. So Yurei Attack! feels like something I’d always wanted to write.

Hello, Please! is all about anthropomorphic mascot characters. When we were writing it, we wanted to go deeper than just running a bunch of cute pictures for laughs. It’s so easy to pick things from Japan and say “oh isn’t this weird?” But we wanted to ask: “why? Why are there so many mascot characters in Japan?”

Japan isn’t like the West; we have a polytheistic, animistic belief system, not the monotheistic one of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Polytheism and animism fueled the concept of the yokai. Many yokai are anthropomorphic objects, everyday things with faces and arms and legs, just like many mascots are. So there was a natural connection.

The subtitle of your book is “The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide,” but yurei are a little different from ghosts in the way that we understand them in the west. What sets yurei apart?
Matt: The core concept is almost identical: the soul of a dead person who for whatever reason decides to stick around here instead of going to the hereafter. That much is the same. But you’re right in that the stereotypes of what Japanese consider a yurei are very different from what Westerners associate with ghosts.

In the West, the guy-under-a-sheet is for whatever reason the dominant image of a ghost. But in Japan, there’s a more specific array of characteristics: long, unkempt hair; dangling, limp hands; and most importantly, a lack of feet.

Hiroko: My impression, looking from outside the USA, is that ghosts in the West have more physicality to them. They’re “there,” flesh and muscle and bone, like you can almost touch them.

But ghosts are much more ambiguous here in Japan. I don’t feel like they have any “density,” it’s way more subtle than that. Like a wind that passes by and then disappears, leaving only a feeling behind. Japanese ghosts are almost poetic. That’s what attracts me to them. They tend not to be “in your face” like portrayals of Western ghosts. Well, the angry ones are in your face, I guess, but the point isn’t their presence — it’s the fear.

Matt, you mentioned in an interview that some realtors in Japan actually play up the history of wake-ari bukken, or “troubled homes.” How else are people in Japan today embracing yurei?
Matt: Yes, “wake-ari bukken”: real estate listings with problems. Most of the time realtors try to play things like suicides and murders down for obvious reasons, but they are required by law to disclose them. We found one or two places that play it up, openly disclosing that their listings have troubled histories and that you can save money by renting them — if you dare.

Hiroko: There are actually a whole list of problems that realtors are required by law to disclose, and one of them is the presence of an old, sealed-up well on the property. Kind of like The Ring!

I guess my timing for this interview is pretty bad — I’ve seen you two mention in several places that summer is the season for yurei in Japan. Are there any yurei that are active in the fall?
Hiroko: Summer is definitely ghost season in Japan. That’s when Obon, the festival of the dead, when people welcome the souls of their relatives back to visit. But when the lid of the underworld lifts off to let them out, lots of other creepy things slip out too. So they say.

But there’s no rule or anything. Just because summer is yurei season doesn’t mean they aren’t around at all during the other months. For instance, the Futon of Tottori is an old legend about a bed haunted by two children who died in the cold of winter, and that’s when they appear.

I really love the illustrations in Yurei Attack!, especially the giant, gory collage of hell. They’re all done by Shinkichi, a doujin artist. How did you end up working with Shinkichi?
Hiroko: Shinkichi is an old friend of ours. We met at an art exhibition dedicated to a yokai called the kappa. A bunch of our friends always contributed pieces of kappa-related art to the show and we were invited to join too. So that’s how we became friends.

Matt: She’s also a very active dojinshi artist and so I would visit her table at Comic Market and other places. She asked us to contribute to one of her comic compilations, and so there was this history of collaborating together. We have a lot of manga artist and anime industry people in our circle of friends, so these collaborations tend to happen pretty organically. Yokai Attack’s Morino-san and Ninja Attack’s Kondo-san were friends of ours long before we worked together.

This is probably an impossible question for you two to answer, but what yurei story is your favorite?
Hiroko: The one I have the most respect for is the tale of Oiwa, from the Horror of Yotsuya. The story is centuries old, but she’s just as well known and feared today as she was when she died. Both seriously, and as an inspiration for entertainment like horror movies (she’s a direct inspiration for Sadako, for example.) That is really amazing. You have to respect that kind of longevity.

Matt: Definitely — supernatural “mindshare!” For similar reasons I am fascinated by Masakado, the ghost of one of Japan’s first samurai. His head is buried in a little plot in the middle of downtown Tokyo that remains a shrine to this very day. Nobody will disturb it, even though it represents some of the most expensive real estate in the country, maybe even in the world. Nobody will disturb it because they fear and respect the curse of Masakado — and that’s really saying something in a country as advanced and scientifically oriented as Japan. So in a very real way, ancient ghosts do affect the way people go about their lives in the modern day too.

Are you working on any new books right now? What can we expect out of AltJapan in the future?
Matt: Actually, the books are sort of a hobby for us. We make our living in localization: producing the English versions of Japanese video games and manga. That’s our main gig. We translate, handle recording of voice actors, things like that. So you can expect to see a lot more translated games, comics, television shows, and things like that from us.

Hiroko: Over the last few years we’ve branched out into doing European languages as well. We’re working on several great titles for the PlayStation 3 right now that we can’t announce just yet but are really looking forward to being able to talk about in the next few months.

Is this the end of the Attack! series, or can we expect more supernatural beings attacking us?
Matt: Well I can tell you that we are prepping ebook versions of all three titles in the series, which is what we’re focusing on right now. They should be available in a few months.

Hiroko: We’d love to do more books in the series! We don’t have anything we can announce just yet, but we’re always looking for a new excuse to tangle with yokai, yurei, and other things!

You can find more from Hiroko and Matt on AltJapan.

Obake (お化け) is a blanket term for the shapeshifters of Japanese folklore, with shapeshifting being a common trait. Other than that, though, anything goes: besides the animal-like obake, there’s also a plethora of shapeshifting housewares, namely the tsukumogami (付喪神).

I can make out an obake cane and umbrella… I think that straw-like thing is a zouri sandal… and I have no idea what that orange thing is.

Bakeneko (化け猫) literally means “transforming cat,” and like its fellow obake, it is also a shapeshifter. Older cats can become bakeneko, although an “old” cat can be anywhere from 7-13 years old or older depending on which prefecture you’re in. Like the kitsune, a bakeneko usually transforms into a beautiful woman, and it can maintain its human form indefinitely. (This means it can deceive men for years – which probably led to neko becoming another name for the coy, bewitching geisha.)

There are many stories that portray bakeneko as bloodthirsty monsters; some even eat and then impersonate their owners. However there are also accounts of bakeneko just engaging in simple tomfoolery.

According to one story, there was once a soy sauce shop that kept losing hand towels. The shop owner heard loud music one night and decided to investigate – and lo and behold, there was a clowder of cats having a grand old time, and in the midst of it all was his pet cat, apparently a bakeneko, dancing on its hind legs and wearing a towel on its head.

Bakeneko 101

As expected for a legendary beast, there are heaps of theories on the origins of bakeneko, what their defining traits are and so on.

One common feature is the bakeneko’s ability to stand (and dance if it wants to) on its hind legs, like a human. There’s an easy explanation for this one: in the past, paper-enclosed andon (行灯) lanterns were lit using cheap fish oils. The Japanese at the time were largely vegetarians, and therefore so were the cats that were fed on table scraps. These protein- and fat-starved kitties naturally gravitated toward the andon lanterns, where the only way to get at the fish oil was to stand on their hind legs and reach in through the open top.

Another defining feature is the bakeneko’s ability to speak human words. I think we can all agree this is just a product of a healthy imagination and any cat that has more than just nyaa~ in its vocabulary. Theo, the star of the following video, greets his owner with “okaeri,” and even chides “bakayarou” when his owner gets home late one night.

The more fantastical traits of a bakeneko are not as easy to explain, though. I mean, shapeshifting? Manipulating corpses? Placing curses on humans? Well, I guess it makes for a better story.

Katsushige Nabeshima, a daimyo during the early Edo period, was once targeted by a seven-tailed bakeneko. The bakeneko shapeshifted into the daimyo’s concubine, but a retainer saw through its disguise and foiled the attempt. For his troubles, the retainer was cursed, and no male heirs were born in his family again.

The Bakeneko’s Legacy

Bakeneko seem quite popular as far as obake go, and there are several bakeneko-related landmarks around Japan. That towel-stealing, dancing scallywag I mentioned earlier? The alleged scene of debauchery is now where Odoriba-eki (踊場駅), or “Dancing Place” Station is located. Another example would be Syuurinji (秀林寺) in the town of Shiroishi, where that murderous, seven-tailed bakeneko is supposedly enshrined.

Bakeneko is also quite common in Japanese pop culture. There’s an upcoming bakeneko parade, for instance, and it frequently appears in manga and anime. My personal favorite is the bakeneko in the manga “Mononoke” (モノノ怪) by Yaeko Ninagawa, which was born of the grudge poured into a kitten by a woman that was kidnapped, raped, imprisoned, and finally discarded in a well like trash. Needless to say this particular bakeneko was a badass and terrorized the wrongdoers mercilessly.

Bakeneko isn’t the only member of Japan’s mythical cat family: there’s also the bakeneko prostitute (化け猫遊女 or bakeneko yuujo), and the nekobake (猫化け), an old witch that transforms into a cat and ingratiates itself as a family pet, only to steal and eat the children at the earliest opportunity.

Sometimes the two-tailed nekomata (猫又) and the maneki neko (招き猫) or “beckoning cat” are considered types of bakeneko, but I’d hesitate to call them that as they don’t actually shapeshift.

In any case, do you have a favourite obake? Tell us about it!

Header image by Kuniyoshi Utagawa

What’s Obake?

If you need a reminder, obake are mystical shapeshifters in Japanese folklore. There are lots of different obake, from well-endowed racoon-dogs to the cat-like bakeneko. Today, though, we’ll be focusing on the fox-like kitsune.

Kitsune aren’t your normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill foxes. They’re a type of mystical being that can change their shape, are really wise, and have long lifespans. You can also tell kitsune apart from ordinary foxes because of their multiple tails; a kitsune can have up to nine tails depending on how old and wise it is. Some say that kitsune only gets its first extra tail after it turns 100 years old.

Different Types of Kitsune

There are tons of different kinds of kitsune too, that range from faithful servants to tricksters to just plain jerks who want to cause trouble.

The biggest role that kitsune play are servants to Inari, the Shinto god of rice, fertility and agriculture. Inari’s kitsune servants are supposedly all pure white, and run messages between Inari and the mortal world. Some people even speculate that Inari itself is a kitsune in disguise. A little over a third of the Shinto shrines in Japan are dedicated to Inari, making it one of the most popular gods in Japan.

Inari even has a type of sushi named after it the inarizushi, which is rice inside of a fried tofu pouch. The symbolism is twofold because not only is Inari the god of rice and agriculture, but fried tofu is supposed to be the favorite food of kitsune. Inarizushi even has pointed corners, like little fox ears. (If you squint, they kind of look like foxes, right?)

Most kitsune aren’t lucky enough to be servants to a god. In fact, kitsune are probably most commonly depicted as tricksters. As you might imagine, the ability to change shape makes the kitsune a pretty tricky creature. If you’ve read Koichi’s post about what “moshi moshi” means, then you know that supposedly one of the reasons people say “moshi moshi” when answering the phone is that kitsune can’t say “moshi moshi.” You don’t want a kitsune prank-calling you, right? It’s kind of like an ancient Japanese Turing Test. Why can’t kitsune say “moshi moshi?” Who knows. Maybe their little fox mouths can’t quite articulate the words all the way.

Bad Romance

It’s a trap!

Lots of Japanese folklore talks about kitsune that take the shape of a beautiful woman to seduce and marry Japanese men. Awkward? A little bit. Effective? Apparently so. Most of the time though, the men figure out that they’ve accidentally married a mystical being (the tails were probably a giveaway), and leave their kitsune-wives out of shame. In some cases though, the unholy union of man and fox-spirit literally gives birth to weird kitsune-children who are endowed with special powers. They also probably get picked on all the time at school, but that’s not really talked about as much.

In Pop Culture

Kitsune show up all over the place in Japanese pop culture . If you played any Legend of Zelda video game in the last 10 years or so, you’ve probably run into a kitsune, whether or not you knew it. The multi-tailed foxes show up in the series as creatures called Keatons who are – unsurprisingly – mystical beings.

If you’ve ever played, watched, or read Pokemon, then you’ve also probably seen the series’ kitsune-themed creatures, complete with multiple tails and trickyness. One of the kitsune-themed Pokemon is even called “Ninetails.”

So next time you bust out the old Nintendo 64 to play Zelda, or when you go to a sushi restaurant and have a craving for some fried tofu, or answer the phone with a “moshi moshi,” keep the kitsune in mind and make sure that you don’t get tricked by their wily fox skills.

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Tanuki are: A) Badgers, B) Raccoons, C) Wolverines, D) Raccoon dogs

Here’s a tanuki macro to help you out:

The word tanuki is often mistranslated as “raccoon” or “badger”. By looking at them, though, you can tell that’s clearly not what they are. I’ve wondered what the actual translation was for years now but have been too lazy to look it up until just recently. So, for those of you who knew enough to choose D, congratulations! Raccoon dogs, or tanuki (狸), show up all the time in Japanese folklore and fairy tales, and are fairly unique in that they’re one of the only “real” yōkai. I mean, you’ll probably never see a kappa or a bake-zōri, but a tanuki sighting isn’t quite so far-fetched. To begin with, let’s start with stereotypical tanuki image:

Tanuki Anatomy 101

So what does this diagram tell us? Basically, that the mythological tanuki is a binge-drinking, happy little creature with massive magic testicles and tremendous freedom with money.

Now, I know that the tanuki‘s comically distended scrotum is distracting, but let’s focus first on the booze and debt. It’s said that tanuki love rice wine and women, buying both whenever possible with leaves transformed (their main power is shape-shifting) to look like money. After all, due to their almost constant drunkenness, tanuki are generally unable to hold down a job for any substantial amount of time and are, therefore, poor. Our yōkai friend up there may look financially responsible with his bankbook in hand, but it’s all an act. That bum.

With that out of the way, I’m now free to discuss the balls—not because I want to, but because I have to. I can call them kintama (金玉 or “golden spheres”) if it makes you more comfortable. Now, you may be thinking, “Oh gosh, there goes Erin again. Always with the genetalia talk”.

50 Uses For Kintama

Honestly though, you can’t talk about tanuki without talking about kintama as well. They’re an “integral part of the tanuki folklore”, as illustrated in old Japanese paintings and, more recently, the Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko (平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ or , Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko). Symbolizing good fortune rather than anything sexual, they’re actually a fairly benign subject, don’t you think?

Depictions of tanuki will often show them with their kintama being put to various uses. For example, they could be flung over their shoulder, spread out beneath them, used as drums (pon-poko-pon) or bludgeons or nets, etc. Kintama are, you could say, the swiss army knife of tanuki body parts. There are times, of course, where they’re just kind of lying about, but that’s not nearly as interesting.

Tanuki in Real Life

Believe it or not, tanuki aren’t normally a hot topic in Japan. Recently, though, Chibu (知夫里島 or Chiburishima) in Shimane has been in the news for its tanuki infestation problem. No joke. Raccoon dogs were introduced to the uber-rural island (think no traffic lights or conbini) 66 years ago, when the mayor received some as a present for something or other. You can imagine what happened when the little scamps realized they had no natural predators in Chibu to worry about.

As of this year, the tanuki population (2000匹) is nearly three times that of the human population (700人). The humans aren’t pleased with this arrangement, to say the least, but since 40% of the population is elderly, I don’t see them closing the population gap anytime soon. On top of the huge bills the tanuki rack up at local taverns, they also destroy crops and bother the local cattle.

Apparently the inhabitants of the island have had enough–the tanuki aren’t even afraid of them anymore. This month they’re holding a poll to determine exactly what should be done. I’ll update later as to what they decide. On a related note, I wonder how raccoon dog tastes…

Suggested Tanuki Reading

If you want to know more about tanuki, I would suggest finding a copy of Bun-Buku Chagama (ぶんぶく茶釜 or “The Bubbling Kettle”) or Kachi-Kachi Yama (かちかち山 or “Click-Clack Mountain”). Don’t quote me on those English title translations, though–onomatopoeia is hard to translate.

Note From Erin

I hope you all enjoyed this article. Sorry for not writing lately; this semester has been especially tough. Next semester promises to be an easy one, though, so hopefully I can make up for it then.

これからも、よろしくお願いします～

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq8xuVnB-Pk']

Chibu News: Yahoo News via random Japanese blog
Image Source: MorgueFile, The Kuniyoshi Project, and PomPoko

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