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The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia
Everyone has heard of vampires and werewolves, but how many have heard of the rokuro-kubi, the tsuchinoki or the sagari? Japan has a wealth of ghosts and monsters, collectively called yokai, which are totally unknown in the West. The bizarre and wonderful folklore of Japan includes giant corpse-eating rabbits, flaming pigs that steal human genitals, perverse water goblins, blood sucking trees, a dragon that impregnates women, cats who animate dead bodies, a zombie whale and a huge flesh eating sea cucumber that grows from a pair of discarded knickers!
418 pages, Paperback
First published April 29, 2010
22 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Richard Freeman
27 books24 followersRichard Freeman is a cryptozoologist and the Zoological Director of the Centre for Fortean Zoology, the world's only full time organization dedicated to investigating mystery animals.
He has taken expeditions in search of creatures such as the giant anaconda, the yeti, the Tasmanian wolf, the Mongolian death worm, the orang-pendek, the naga, the almasty and the ninki-nanka.
He has written books on monsters and folklore and has recently branched out into horror fiction.
He has taken expeditions in search of creatures such as the giant anaconda, the yeti, the Tasmanian wolf, the Mongolian death worm, the orang-pendek, the naga, the almasty and the ninki-nanka.
He has written books on monsters and folklore and has recently branched out into horror fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
November 19, 2010
A well researched book, densely populated with weird and interesting entries. I discovered more yokai than I had imagined existed. The essays on the more popular Japanese spirit folk--kappa, kitsune, tengu, &c.--are delightfully lengthy, but just as interesting are the more obscure yokai listed here, such as a monk made of ash, a microscopic viral boar, or a giant sea cucumber born from a girl's discarded underclothes. This book is dense with legendary creatures, the entries including any relevant folklore whenever possible.
Although the amount of text is admirable (if not sometimes a little glib), the design of the book is a little disappointing. It's illustrated throughout, but often the works shown (most of them Edo period prints) are pixelated, as if they had been lifted off the web from a Wikipedia article. The original illustrations by Anthony Wallis are reproduced well, but his pictures sometimes pale next to those of Kuniyoshi and other Japanese printmakers. (Also--and I realize this is a huge nitpick--the designers used a title font in the book that does not include all of the glyphs used in yokai names, so occasionally an special character appears in the middle of a heading in a different typeface than the rest of the word. It looks sloppy.)
Still, I purchased this book hoping to learn more about yokai, especially the obscure ones I could not find in other books or the internet, and in that sense, this book really delivers. A solid reference for those interested in the weird critters and beings that inhabit Japan's folk tales.
Although the amount of text is admirable (if not sometimes a little glib), the design of the book is a little disappointing. It's illustrated throughout, but often the works shown (most of them Edo period prints) are pixelated, as if they had been lifted off the web from a Wikipedia article. The original illustrations by Anthony Wallis are reproduced well, but his pictures sometimes pale next to those of Kuniyoshi and other Japanese printmakers. (Also--and I realize this is a huge nitpick--the designers used a title font in the book that does not include all of the glyphs used in yokai names, so occasionally an special character appears in the middle of a heading in a different typeface than the rest of the word. It looks sloppy.)
Still, I purchased this book hoping to learn more about yokai, especially the obscure ones I could not find in other books or the internet, and in that sense, this book really delivers. A solid reference for those interested in the weird critters and beings that inhabit Japan's folk tales.
August 5, 2023
I got this book when I was much younger, and then I kind of read it without questioning anything about it then. I found it in my closet and I decided to flip through it just to see how it was, but now I'm genuinely unsure how this was ever published.
I kid you not, you can literally see the pixels on some of the images printed in this book.
There's also a ton of weird uses of punctuation! Tons of sentences end with an exclamation point for no reason!
Some yokai also get barely more then a sentence for a description, while others ramble on and add entire folk tales to the middle of the section. I do like that they're there, but it would be a lot better if the entries were more uniform or organized.
Also, there are so many random interjections that have nothing to do with the entries at hand.
Like, on one that only appears during times there are a wise government, the entry ends with a "This thing is sure lucky it doesn't live in Britain!", Which is another thing, the tone is very inconsistent.
Some of the sections also come off as vaguely horny for the yokai. I get that a lot of them have some sort of sexual theming behind them, but sometimes the word choice came off to me is intentional.
I had actually heard of the Center for Fortean Zoology, and was planning to check out a few things they put their name on. But after revisiting this, and seeing this standard of quality, I'm not sure if I will.
To its credit, it does have about a page worth of sources. Some of the sources listed are other yokai encyclopedias by different people. Maybe one of those might be better.
I kid you not, you can literally see the pixels on some of the images printed in this book.
There's also a ton of weird uses of punctuation! Tons of sentences end with an exclamation point for no reason!
Some yokai also get barely more then a sentence for a description, while others ramble on and add entire folk tales to the middle of the section. I do like that they're there, but it would be a lot better if the entries were more uniform or organized.
Also, there are so many random interjections that have nothing to do with the entries at hand.
Like, on one that only appears during times there are a wise government, the entry ends with a "This thing is sure lucky it doesn't live in Britain!", Which is another thing, the tone is very inconsistent.
Some of the sections also come off as vaguely horny for the yokai. I get that a lot of them have some sort of sexual theming behind them, but sometimes the word choice came off to me is intentional.
I had actually heard of the Center for Fortean Zoology, and was planning to check out a few things they put their name on. But after revisiting this, and seeing this standard of quality, I'm not sure if I will.
To its credit, it does have about a page worth of sources. Some of the sources listed are other yokai encyclopedias by different people. Maybe one of those might be better.
October 15, 2024
Exceptional , truly a masterpiece on the subject as it brings forth lesser known yokais , yurei and even cryptids ( UMAs as the Japanese would have them known) . Mr. Freeman has done an exceptional job at compiling this masterpiece.
December 26, 2023
Easy to read book for those who curious about yokai. Very fun tales to read. I saw some people were upset about the pictures, but it didn't bother me
May 6, 2017
hi all I
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews