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 own--some of which, such as the many-eyed Mokumokuren, are still a part of Japanese culture. His drawings were often accompanied by text, and his descriptions of yōkai were often satirical and heavy on wordplay.

These works of art were collected in a series of books. To my knowledge, they've been translated into English only once, by Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda, who released the whole set under the name Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yōkai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien. I've had it on my shelf for a few years now, but I recently decided to move beyond merely flipping through the pages and read them cover-to-cover. I'm glad I did.

I already knew a bit about yōkai before I got this book, so there was a lot of familiar territory, but I did notice some surprises. For example, one of my personal favourite--the kasa-obaka, or umbrella demon--appears only as a damaged umbrella known as the Honekarakasa (which the book translates as "Bonebrella"). The kitsune (fox) does not have its own entry, but Tamamo-no-Mae (a specific kitsune) does. 

I've also learned a lot about creatures that I had not known about before. I learned that the Kawauso (river otter) is considered a shape-shifter, like the kitsune and the tanuki (raccoon). I learned of Dodomeki, a thief with a hundred eyes in her long arms, and suzuri-no-tamashii, an inkstone that summons miniaturized characters from books. There's the kanedama, a creature of gold, and yamabiko, a creator of echoes. I found myself making a mental note of the most interesting yokai, knowing that I may decide to research them further in the future.

The downside is that the book's puns don't work in translation. Even so, this book includes plenty of annotations to make sure that every nuance and reference is understood, if not fully appreciated. My time with this book was educational, if not funny.

Who would I recommend this book to? People who are like me--interested in folklore, or enjoy drawings of fantastic creatures. It's also worth reading for anyone interested in anime or manga (or video games, visual novels, tokusatsu, ect.) since these monsters (and this book of monsters) have had a large impact on Japanese popular culture.

I still remember a time when I was fascinated by yōkai, and wanted a good source of information about them. Now I have one. It's not complete, but, historically, it's probably one of the most important books on the subject ever made. If you're interested in mythical Japanese creatures, then you'll thank yourself for reading this masterpiece.