Yokai: Shigeru Mizuki's Supernatural Parade - Hardcover

by Shigeru Mizuki (Author), Zack Davisson (Translator)

Manga titan Shigeru Mizuki brings Japan's most entertaining myths to the modern age

As travelers approach a lush, cedar forest--the soft floor and woodland scent palpable from Shigeru Mizuki's fecund drawing--something falls from the trees with a thud: a human head, twelve times average size. A dozen more heads follow, peering at the travelers with maniacal laughter, before retreating back into the woods. A hallucination? No, this is Tohoku No Tsurubeotoshi.

An earthworm, larger than a human, floats in the air, backlit from window lights ensconced by shadowy darkness. Sontsuru--majestic on the page in Shigeru Mizuki's delicate ink lines and bold colors--is no worm, but a yokai who haunts families across generations, wriggling between their skin and muscles.

And then there is Shirime, a city dwelling trickster who shouts, "A moment, sir!" only to then lift their kimono to reveal their unusual rump--a giant, glowing eyeball where one would otherwise expect a crack.

Indeed, not all the yokai in the pages of Yokai: Shigeru Mizuki's Supernatural Parade are there to cause fright. Like Mizuki himself, yokai often have a playful spirit, which Mizuki explores with joy in this stunning collection, which contains one hundred new, lavish, full page yokai illustrations, with biographies for each.

Yokai: Shigeru Mizuki's Supernatural Parade is the companion book to Yokai: The Art of Shigeru Mizuki, and includes supplementary writing by acclaimed Mizuki scholar and translator Zack Davisson.

Author Biography

Shigeru Mizuki (1922-2015) was one of Japan's most respected artists. A creative prodigy, he lost an arm in World War II. After the war, Mizuki became one of the founders of Japan's latest craze--manga. He invented the yokai genre with GeGeGe no Kitaro, his most famous character, who has been adapted for the screen several times, as anime, live action, and video games. In fact, a new anime series has been made every decade since 1968, capturing the imaginations of generations of Japanese children. A researcher of yokai and a real-life ghost hunter, Mizuki traveled to over sixty countries to engage in fieldwork based on spirit folklore. In his hometown of Sakaiminato, one can find Shigeru Mizuki Road, a street decorated with bronze statues of his Kitaro characters.