Review: JAPANDEMONIUM ILLUSTRATED
I've always been interested in folklore. I remember falling in love with Greek mythology while watching Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess as a kid, and this passion steadily grew throughout my teens. I'm especially fond of mythical creatures, and have been for as long as I can remember. Many of my favourite mythical creatures are yōkai. If you're into Japanese entertainment, then you've almost certainly seen at least some. You probably know what a kappa is, or you've heard the term "oni" before, or you know that racoons (or "tanuki") keep shape-shifting in video games and anime. Those are all yōkai, and there are many more that the average westerner has never heard of. This passion brought me to the works of Toriyama Sekien, an 18th-century Japanese artist and writer who is best known today for his illustrations of yōkai. Many of the creatures he drew were taken from Japanese folklore, but he'd also made up his ow...