In some of their earliest iterations, they were considered to be responsible for natural disasters or destructive forces like thunder and lightning. In other tales, they appear as grotesque, loincloth ...

Researchers have discovered three new species of luminescent Polycirrus worms that emit blue-purple light. They named two of them after glowing creatures in Japanese folklore, and the other after the ...

"Stop the infection from spreading!" The words appear to come straight from the beak of a creature with a bird's head, human hair and a fish's scaly body, in a recent public service announcement from ...

Yokai (Japanese spirits) and mythical creatures of Japanese lore have inspired artists, writers and poets for millennia. However, as the Japanese culture has changed, so have depictions of the ...

While working as a top government bureaucrat, Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962) conducted research and dedicated himself to establishing folklore studies as a new academic field in Japan, writing many books.

Japan’s folkloristic landscape is densely populated. Yōkai alone can take plenty of different forms depending on the features these supernatural creatures assume. Some are well received by people (for ...

"Revised and expanded, this second edition of The Book of Yōkai features an all new yōkai picture gallery-with dozens of stunning color images-tracing the visual history of yōkai across centuries.

A research group from Nagoya University in central Japan has discovered three new species of bioluminescent polycirrus worms from different parts of Japan. Usually found in shallow water, polycirrus ...