Japanese Supernatural Tales: Encounters with Yokai, Ghosts, Demons, and Other Strange Phenomena, from the Kojiki and The Tale of Genji to Dazai and Murakami
Michael Dylan Foster
Oct 2026 · Sold by Penguin
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About this ebook
A haunting gathering of classic Japanese tales of monsters and demons, yōkai and oni and yūrei, that live on in popular manga, anime, J-horror films, and video games
A Penguin Classic
Flesh-eating oni demons, kappa water sprites, shapeshifting kitsune foxes, vengeful yūrei ghosts, and other monsters and magical creatures have long lurked in the shadows of Japanese culture, appearing as divine beings in eighth-century myths, dangerous demons in medieval literature, troublesome tricksters in local legends, and sinister predators in modern fiction. With dozens of stories, including twenty-four that have never been published in English, this volume showcases an incomparable range of the supernatural—from the beautiful ghost that seduces a widowed samurai, to the jorōgumo spiders that transform into women to ensnare their human prey, to the sentient reflection that unnerves a night watchman in Haruki Murakami’s “The Mirror”—inviting you into a realm of frightening otherness from a rich, thousand-year tradition recognizable to fans of manga like Naruto, Uzumaki, Inuyasha, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dandadan, GeGeGe no Kitarō, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, anime like Mononoke, and Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away.
Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A Penguin Classic
Flesh-eating oni demons, kappa water sprites, shapeshifting kitsune foxes, vengeful yūrei ghosts, and other monsters and magical creatures have long lurked in the shadows of Japanese culture, appearing as divine beings in eighth-century myths, dangerous demons in medieval literature, troublesome tricksters in local legends, and sinister predators in modern fiction. With dozens of stories, including twenty-four that have never been published in English, this volume showcases an incomparable range of the supernatural—from the beautiful ghost that seduces a widowed samurai, to the jorōgumo spiders that transform into women to ensnare their human prey, to the sentient reflection that unnerves a night watchman in Haruki Murakami’s “The Mirror”—inviting you into a realm of frightening otherness from a rich, thousand-year tradition recognizable to fans of manga like Naruto, Uzumaki, Inuyasha, Jujutsu Kaisen, Dandadan, GeGeGe no Kitarō, and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, anime like Mononoke, and Studio Ghibli films like Spirited Away.
Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
A haunting gathering of classic Japanese tales of monsters and demons, yōkai and oni and yūrei, that live on in popular manga, anime, J-horror films, and video games
A Penguin Classic
Flesh-eating oni demons, kappa water sprites, shapeshifting kitsune foxes, vengeful yūrei ghosts, and other mon...
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About the author
Michael Dylan Foster (editor) is the author of The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore and Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai. A professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Davis, he has been the “Yōkai Navigator” since 2022 for the NHK World documentary television series YOKAI: Exploring Hidden Japanese Folklore.
Michael Dylan Foster (editor) is the author of The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore and Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yōkai. A professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Davis, he has bee...
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