Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of YokaiWater sprites, mountain goblins, shape-shifting animals, and the monsters known as yôkai have long haunted the Japanese cultural landscape. This history of the strange and mysterious in Japan seeks out these creatures in folklore, encyclopedias, literature, art, science, games, manga, magazines, and movies, exploring their meanings in the Japanese cultural imagination and offering an abundance of valuable and, until now, understudied material. Michael Dylan Foster tracks yôkai over three centuries, from their appearance in seventeenth-century natural histories to their starring role in twentieth-century popular media. Focusing on the intertwining of belief and commodification, fear and pleasure, horror and humor, he illuminates different conceptions of the "natural" and the "ordinary" and sheds light on broader social and historical paradigms—and ultimately on the construction of Japan as a nation. |
Contents
Introduction to the Weird | 1 |
Natural History of the Weird Encyclopedias Spooky Stories and the Bestiaries of Toriyama Sekiem | 30 |
Science of the Weird Inome Enryo Kokkuri and Human Electricity | 77 |
Museum of the Weird Modernity Minzokugaku and the Discovery of Yokai | 115 |
Media of the Weird Mizuki Shegeru and Kuchisakeonna | 160 |
Yokai Culture Past Present Future | 204 |
Notes | 217 |
| 259 | |
| 277 | |
Other editions - View all
Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai Michael Dylan Foster Limited preview - 2008 |
Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai Michael Dylan Foster Limited preview - 2009 |
Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai Michael Dylan Foster No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
academic animals appearance associated bakemono belief catalogs century characters Chinese context creatures cultural deity demon discourse Edo period electricity encyclopedic mode example experience explains Figal figure film folklore frightening fushigi Gazu hyakkiyagyō ghosts Gojira hakubutsugaku Hitotsume-kozō Honzō kōmoku human Hyakki hyaku-monogatari Ichiyanagi illustrated imagination Inoue Enryō Japan Japanese kaidan kappa kawatarō Kinmōzui Kitarō kitsune knowledge Kokkuri Komatsu Kazuhiko Kuchi-sake-onna landscape legend ludic manga Meiji Meiji period metaphors minzokugaku Mizuki Shigeru modern monogatari monsters mystic narrative narrator nation Natsume Sōseki natural Nihon Nonnonbā notes Õgai otherworld past phenomena play playful popular practice referential refers Ryōan Ryōkū Sakaiminato scholars scientific Seiyō Sekien's sense shape-shifting shū signifies Sōseki spirit story strange suggests supernatural table-turning tanuki Teihon tengu tenjō-name things tion Tokugawa period Tokyo Tōno Toriyama Sekien traditional tsuchinoko uncanny University Press urban Wakan sansaizue weird and mysterious woman word Yanagita Kunio yōkai yōkaigaku yūrei