Yokai Monsters: By the Great Masters of Japanese Woodblock Printing

This exquisitely produced volume with a silk cover, colored edges, Swiss and Japanese tube binding, and ribbon ties explores Japan’s most haunting monsters through the eyes of its greatest printmakers.

Japanese folklore teems with strange and spectral beings-- yōkai that slither from wells, creep through forests, or inhabit forgotten household objects. These creatures have long reflected deep cultural anxieties and obsessions. Their influence endures today, pulsing through manga, anime, and horror cinema like walking nightmares haunting our daily lives.

In follow up to his bestselling Yōkai Ghosts, Charlier examines these beings through their myths, habitats, and behaviors, uncovering the human fears and desires they embody. With the voice of a storyteller and the insight of a scholar, he traces how these spirits emerged from a world lit only by lanterns, when shadow and silence gave rise to the imagination’s most haunting macabre inventions.

Organized thematically, the book’s chapters focus on particular types of yōkai--animal spirits, haunted objects, female demons, and more--placing them in their cultural and historical context while revealing their continued relevance. More than a hundred woodblock prints by artists such as Hokusai, Kuniyoshi, Yoshitoshi, Kunisada, and Yoshimori bring these monsters vividly to life. Their dramatic and often humorous depictions helped shape how yōkai were seen and understood in the nineteenth century--and laid the foundation for visual traditions that continue today.

Beautifully produced with a special Japanese binding, colored edges and closing straps, this volume will appeal to readers fascinated by Japanese folklore, printmaking, horror, and the art of the uncanny.

PHILIPPE CHARLIER heads the Anthropology, Archaeology and Biology Laboratory at UVSQ, Paris-Saclay University. He has written more than thirty books on funerary anthropology, ghosts, zombies and vampires including Yōkai Ghosts, published by Prestel.