Download or read book Supernatural and Mysterious Japan written by Catrien Ross and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since time immemorial, tales of the spooky, paranormal, and mysterious have been staples of folklore across the world. Japan is no exception, and its unique position as a melting pot for cultures from around Asia gives it a particularly rich heritage of supernatural legend and tradition. To write this book on Japan's ghosts and other freaky phenomena, author Catrien Ross collected accounts of the eerie and terrifying from around Japan. Along the way, she braved frightening locales including the unquiet grave of the beautiful, betrayed Oiwa, and sacred Mount Osore, a gateway for communicating with the dead. The result of her journeys is a glimpse into hidden aspects of the Japanese world of the paranormal: a world of blind, women shamans, trees that grow human hair, weeping rocks, and even a graveyard where Jesus is reputed to have been buried. Covering ancient and modern times, Supernatural and Mysterious Japan offers not only some good, old-fashioned scary stories, but some special insights into Japanese culture and psychology. It delivers terrific entertainment—and some good chills—for the Japanophile and the aficioniado of the supernatural, alike.
Download or read book Japanese Ghost Stories written by Catrien Ross and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A Best Book of 2009" —The Japan Times Japanese Ghost Stories, formerly published under the title Supernatural and Mysterious Japan, is a collection of the eerie and terrifying from around Japan. This book opens a window into the hidden aspects of the Japanese world of the paranormal, a place where trees grow human hair, rocks weep and there's even a graveyard where Jesus is reputed to have been buried. Covering ancient and modern times, Japanese Ghost Stories offers not only good, old-fashioned scary stories, but some special insights into Japanese culture and psychology. Japanese ghost stories include: In Search of the Supernatural Psychic Stirrings New Forays into the Mystic Strange but True Modern-Day Hauntings Scenes of Ghosts and Demons Edo-Era Tales
Download or read book Haunted Japan written by Catrien Ross and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A delightfully creepy telling of Japanese ghost stories. Japanese folklore is abundant with tales of ghostly creatures and the supernatural. In Haunted Japan, author Catrien Ross reveals the legends that have been passed down for generations and continue to terrify us today. To research this book on the country's ghosts, demons and paranormal phenomena, Ross collected accounts from across Japan including: Sacred Mount Osore, a Japanese gateway to the land of the dead, where people gather to contact those who have passed on The Tokyo grave of the samurai Taira no Masakado, where passersby regularly witnessed his ghost until prayers finally laid him to rest The mummified remains of the monk Tetsumonkai at the Churenji Temple on Mount Yudono--a place where bizarre happenings are common The ruins of Hachioji Castle in Tokyo, which was abandoned for many years because of its many hauntings The result is an unparalleled insight into the dark corners of the Japanese psyche--a world filled with horrifying creatures including Oni (demons with fierce and ghastly appearances), Yurei (Japanese ghosts who inhabit the world of the living), and Yokai (supernatural monsters). The book also includes several traditional Japanese legends, concluding with two of the most famous ghost stories--that of the wronged wife Oiwa and the tale of the Peony Lantern. This book is richly illustrated with 32 pages of full-color prints of frightening ghosts and legendary creatures from Japan's shadowy past. Haunted Japan is the ideal book for anyone interested in exploring the darker side of Japanese history.
Download or read book Onibi Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter written by Cecile Brun and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Winner Japan International Manga Award* *Honorable Mention for 2018 Freeman Book Awards for Children's and Young Adult's Literature on East and Southeast Asia* *Short-listed for the 2019 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids' Comics* Part fantasy, part travelogue--this graphic novel transports readers to the intersection of the natural and supernatural worlds. Onibi: Diary of a Yokai Ghost Hunter follows the adventures of two young foreigners as they travel to a remote and mysterious corner of Japan. Along the way, they purchase an old camera that has the unique ability to capture images of Japan's invisible spirit world. Armed with their magical camera, they explore the countryside and meet people who tell them about the forgotten ghosts, ghouls and demons who lie in wait ready to play tricks on them. These Yokai, or supernatural beings, are sometimes kind, sometimes mischievous, and sometimes downright dangerous! Readers young and old will enjoy following along on this journey of mystery and discovery. The comic book format will appeal to anime and manga fans, while introducing the ancient spirit world that is such an important part of Japanese culture. With the help of Atelier Sento's gorgeous watercolor and colored pencil artwork, you can't help but feel immersed in this fantasy.
Download or read book The Book of Yokai written by Michael Dylan Foster and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-01-14 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monsters, ghosts, fantastic beings, and supernatural phenomena of all sorts haunt the folklore and popular culture of Japan. Broadly labeled yokai, these creatures come in infinite shapes and sizes, from tengu mountain goblins and kappa water spirits to shape-shifting foxes and long-tongued ceiling-lickers. Currently popular in anime, manga, film, and computer games, many yokai originated in local legends, folktales, and regional ghost stories. Drawing on years of research in Japan, Michael Dylan Foster unpacks the history and cultural context of yokai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages. In this delightful and accessible narrative, readers will explore the roles played by these mysterious beings within Japanese culture and will also learn of their abundance and variety through detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. The Book of Yokai provides a lively excursion into Japanese folklore and its ever-expanding influence on global popular culture. It also invites readers to examine how people create, transmit, and collect folklore, and how they make sense of the mysteries in the world around them. By exploring yokai as a concept, we can better understand broader processes of tradition, innovation, storytelling, and individual and communal creativity. Ê
Download or read book Strange Tales from Japan written by and published by Tuttle Publishing. This book was released on 2021-08-10 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prepare to be spooked by these chilling Japanese short stories! Strange Tales from Japan presents 99 spine-tingling tales of ghosts, yokai, demons, shapeshifters and trickster animals who inhabit remote reaches of the Japanese countryside. 32 pages of traditional full-color images of these creatures, who have inhabited the Japanese imagination for centuries, bring the stories to life. The captivating tales in this volume include: The Vengeance of Oiwa--The terrifying spirit of a woman murdered by her husband who seeks retribution from beyond the grave The Curse of Okiku--A servant girl is murdered by her master and curses his family, with gruesome results The Snow Woman--A man is saved by a mysterious woman who swears him to secrecy Tales of the Kappa--Strange human-like sprites with green, scaly skin who live in water and are known to pull children and animals to their deaths And many, many more! Renowned translator William Scott Wilson explains the role these stories play in local Japanese culture and folklore, and their importance to understanding the Japanese psyche. Readers will learn which particular region, city, mountain or temple the stories originate from--in case you're brave enough to visit these haunts yourself!
Download or read book Morphologies of Mystery written by Michael Dylan Foster and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 752 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Ghosts of the Tsunami written by Richard Lloyd Parry and published by MCD. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named one of the best books of 2017 by The Guardian, NPR, GQ, The Economist, Bookforum, Amazon, and Lit Hub The definitive account of what happened, why, and above all how it felt, when catastrophe hit Japan—by the Japan correspondent of The Times (London) and author of People Who Eat Darkness On March 11, 2011, a powerful earthquake sent a 120-foot-high tsunami smashing into the coast of northeast Japan. By the time the sea retreated, more than eighteen thousand people had been crushed, burned to death, or drowned. It was Japan’s greatest single loss of life since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. It set off a national crisis and the meltdown of a nuclear power plant. And even after the immediate emergency had abated, the trauma of the disaster continued to express itself in bizarre and mysterious ways. Richard Lloyd Parry, an award-winning foreign correspondent, lived through the earthquake in Tokyo and spent six years reporting from the disaster zone. There he encountered stories of ghosts and hauntings, and met a priest who exorcised the spirits of the dead. And he found himself drawn back again and again to a village that had suffered the greatest loss of all, a community tormented by unbearable mysteries of its own. What really happened to the local children as they waited in the schoolyard in the moments before the tsunami? Why did their teachers not evacuate them to safety? And why was the unbearable truth being so stubbornly covered up? Ghosts of the Tsunami is a soon-to-be classic intimate account of an epic tragedy, told through the accounts of those who lived through it. It tells the story of how a nation faced a catastrophe, and the struggle to find consolation in the ruins.
Download or read book Yurei written by Zack Davisson and published by Chin Music Press Inc.. This book was released on 2015-07-13 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I lived in a haunted apartment." Zack Davisson opens this definitive work on Japan's ghosts, or yurei, with a personal tale about the spirit world. Eerie red marks on the apartment's ceiling kept Zack and his wife on edge. The landlord warned them not to open a door in the apartment that led to nowhere. "Our Japanese visitors had no problem putting a name to it . . . they would sense the vibes of the place, look around a bit and inevitably say 'Ahhh . . . yurei ga deteru.' There is a yurei here." Combining his lifelong interest in Japanese tradition and his personal experiences with these vengeful spirits, Davisson launches an investigation into the origin, popularization, and continued existence of yurei in Japan. Juxtaposing historical documents and legends against contemporary yurei-based horror films such as The Ring, Davisson explores the persistence of this paranormal phenomenon in modern day Japan and its continued spread throughout the West. Zack Davisson is a translator, writer, and scholar of Japanese folklore and ghosts. He is the translator of Mizuki Shigeru's Showa 1926–1939: A History of Japan and a translator and contributor to Kitaro. He also worked as a researcher and on-screen talent for National Geographic's TV special Japan: Lost Souls of Okinawa. He writes extensively about Japanese ghost stories at his website, hyakumonogatari.com.
Download or read book Strange Light Afar written by Rui Umezawa and published by Groundwood Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-08-31 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bitterly jealous brother, a samurai who makes the ultimate sacrifice, a cold-hearted husband, a monk who mistakes desire for piety, a fraudulent merchant who meets his match in a supernatural river otter — the motives underlying these traditional Japanese folktale characters are explored with haunting results. Prompted by the sometimes illogical and perplexing actions of folktale characters (Why doesn’t the wolf kill Little Red Riding Hood right away?), master storyteller Rui Umezawa revisits eight popular Japanese folktales, delving beneath their sometimes baffling plot lines to highlight the psychological motivations behind the characters’ actions. In “Betrayal,” a treacherous husband poisons his wife so he can marry another woman. In “Paradise,” a young man saves the life of a sea turtle, who takes him to a luxurious underwater palace, where his every whim is fulfilled. A brother in “Rage” is consumed by jealousy when his brother’s dog digs up a cache of gold. In “Honor,” a samurai kills himself to keep a promise made to his blood brother. Tales of addiction, bravery, sex, greed, abuse and control — these stories take their inspiration from the great Japanese storytelling traditions, as well as from Noh and Kabuki. Sometimes laced with ironic humor, sometimes truly horrifying, these stories of the strange and supernatural will appeal to readers of all ages, but they particularly speak to teenagers. Evocative and haunting illustrations by the stunningly talented Mikiko Fujita add to the eerie beauty of this collection. A detailed afterword outlines the author’s storytelling approach and provides source material for each tale.
Download or read book In Ghostly Japan written by Lafcadio Hearn and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-09-16 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "In Ghostly Japan" by Lafcadio Hearn. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.
Download or read book Japanese Ghost Stories written by Lafcadio Hearn and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brilliantly entertaining and eerie ghost stories, regarded as major classics in Japan, by the Irish writer and Japanophile Lafcadio Hearn—whose life inspired bestselling writer Monique Truong's novel The Sweetest Fruits A Penguin Classic In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living, and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: "rokuro-kubi," whose heads separate from their bodies at night; "jikininki," or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless "mujina" who haunt lonely neighborhoods. Lafcadio Hearn, a master storyteller, drew on traditional Japanese folklore, infused with memories of his own haunted childhood in Ireland, to create the chilling tales in Japanese Ghost Stories. They are today regarded in Japan as classics in their own right.
Download or read book Daughter of the Sword written by Steve Bein and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the only female detective in Tokyo's most elite police unit, Mariko Oshiro has to fight for every ounce of respect, especially from her new boss. But when he gives her the least promising case possible, the attempted theft of an old samurai sword, it proves more dangerous than anyone on the force could have imagined. Mariko's investigation has put her on a collision course with a curse centuries old and as bloodthirsty as ever. She is only the latest in a long line of warriors and soldiers to confront this power, and even the sword she wields could turn against her.
Download or read book Japanese Ghosts Demons written by Stephen Addiss and published by George Braziller. This book was released on 1985 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the supernatural folklore of Japan through art, legends, stories and artworks which best
Download or read book Japanese Ghost in America written by Daniel O'Brien and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jimmy, an introspective and world-traveled social studies teacher, lives a quiet life working in a Minnesota high school. Having lived in Japan for several decades—a country that he considers his second home—he is caught off-guard by the ancient and unfinished legacy that has followed him back across the Pacific. As the sun sets, Jimmy begins to see strange events in his home: a disembodied hand in the moonlight, then the full apparition of a Japanese woman in traditional kimono. Despite being separated by the boundaries of time and space, life and death, Jimmy and the mysterious woman discover a karmic connection. Together, they search for the root of her eternal restlessness in the hopes of attaining her redemption. Jimmy must unravel her past to discover how their destinies are intertwined, and how they might heal one another.
Download or read book Japan Supernatural written by Melanie Eastburn and published by Art Gallery of New South Wales. This book was released on 2020-01-30 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the pioneering work of eighteenth-century painter Toriyama Sekien to contemporary superstar Takashi Murakami, Japan Supernatural presents wildly imaginative works by Japanese artists past and present and takes readers on a journey of discovery through the astonishing array of yōkai culture and yūrei (ghosts)--phenomenal beings from fiendish goblins to mischievous shapeshifters--that have inhabited Japanese culture for centuries. Once a means of explaining the unexplainable, they have been kept alive in stories and artworks. Evolving into a form of entertainment ranging from horror to the comical, they have maintained an ongoing presence in Japanese novels, films, anime, manga, and games. Drawn from around the world, the artworks illustrated in Japan Supernatural date from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century and include fantastically detailed ukiyo-e woodblock prints, miniature netsuke, wall-sized scrolls, and large-scale contemporary photographs, paintings, and installations. Some of the greatest Japanese artists of the past, including Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, and Kawanabe Kyosai, are featured alongside contemporary artists such as Chiho Aoshima, Miwa Yanagi, and Takahashi Murakami, who update the tradition for the present.
Download or read book Kaibyo the Supernatural Cats of Japan written by Zack Davisson and published by Mercuria Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Woodblock prints, essays, and translations scratch to light the secret lives of Japan's mythological felines.
