Perceiving the Weird fileImagine you are a peasant living in the capital of Japan in the 16th century. Tonight is Tonight is a special night in which one hundred demons will march

Perceiving the Weird Remediation & Self-Orientalization in Depictions of

the Yōkai

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(…) they are most often denoted by the word yōkai, variously translated as

monster, spirit, goblin, ghost, demon, phantom specter, fantastic being, lower-

order deity, or more amorphously, as any unexplainable experience or

numinous occurrence. Foster 2009: 2

Introduction

Imagine you are a peasant living in the capital of Japan in the 16th century. Tonight is

a special night in which one hundred demons will march through the streets. They are

called the Hyakki Yagyō (picture 1), literally translated ‘Night Parade of One Hundred

Demons’. You will die if you run into them; you will never tell the tale of seeing

them. Are they evil demons? No. Are they benevolent deities? No. They are Yōkai.

They are spirits and mysterious creatures that are part of our daily peasant lives and

live in the same world we do, they are just not always visible. Books and oral stories

inform us they can be dangerous and should be handled with much care.

Picture 1. Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.

Now imagine you are in the 18th century; it is the Edo period and the

Tokugawa shogunate has placed importance in the development of a written national

historical encyclopedia. The encyclopedia is made to classify all the known yōkai in

order to portray them and their characteristics, their weaknesses and their strengths.

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Classifying the incomprehensible becomes important, because they are dangerous and

have to be understood so that they could be dealt with. Yōkai are also a popular

subject to write about and illustrate in Japanese literature and art. Particular

characteristics are assigned to different kind of yōkai, such as the Kappa (the green

creature on the cover). Kappa has become an icon of comic relief. Yōkai became a

culmination of the encyclopedic and the ludic.

Let us take a look at Japan in the mid 19th century. Japan is now in the Meiji

era. The Meiji era is a time of modernization for Japan. Japanese scholars are making

an effort to discredit superstitious beliefs such as yōkai. Rationality becomes the norm

and characteristics that yōkai have, from the encyclopedia, are seen as physically

impossible. Yōkai have to be eliminated from the minds of the Japanese people so

that they can become rational and modern so they could compete with the West.

Viewing yōkai as a superstition that has to be eliminated eventually fades from

scholarly thought. Yōkai becomes part of Japanese culture. It eventually becomes a

symbol for a pre-modern Japan that is greatly desired. Yōkai become icons for a

nation that is searching for an identity of a historical self. A new encyclopedic book is

made in which Yōkai are made up from scratch and edited and reinserted in a

‘nostalgic’ Japanese culture.

Yōkai have, through the latter half of the 20th century and beyond, been

further iconized by mangaka (manga author) Shigeru Mizuki who has ‘revitalized the

image of yōkai in the cultural imagination’ (Foster 2009: 164). Mizuki has created

new yōkai and has illustrated old yōkai, linking them with a nostalgic Japan, thus

making them authentically Japanese. Mizuki changes the discourse of yōkai to a

discourse that is based on nostalgia that has a deep political and social context. He is

seen as, and even refers himself as, the link between the normal world and the

yōkai/supernatural world (Foster 2008:12,24). All contemporary media such as manga

or anime has his influence ingrained in their visual style, ‘yōkai characteristics’ and/or

(political) message.

The point of this paper is to answer the following question ‘How does the

historical development of the perception of yōkai contribute to the self-orientalizing

role that yōkai have in being a symbol of a nostalgic and authentic Japan, while being

remediated through the technological development of media?’. We have been able to

read, through my brief historical introduction of the yōkai, that the concept of yōkai

has been influenced by socio-economic and political change. They are the

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‘embodiment of a certain cultural moment (…) to reflect the episteme of a particular

time and place’ (Ibid.: 8). The way that the image of yōkai was distributed and

perceived has changed; they have had different meanings and purposes. The yōkai are

now seen as something typically Japanese, to be more specific; it refers to a time of a

pre-modern Japan. A time and an innocence that is sadly lost. There is a desire for an

idyllic Japan, a Japan that is then portrayed symbolically by the yōkai. Orientalization

at that moment happens internally. Thus named ‘self-orientalization’. Japan has, in art

and academics, placed meaning on yōkai to discover and reflect upon their identity.

The Japanese elite and media create an ideological past, which enforces its own

cultural hegemony. I am interested in how the historical understanding and perception

of the yōkai contributed to how they became symbols of self-orientalization, the

recreation/re-portrayal, and eventually through media, remediation of yōkai

contributed to this self-orientalizing role that the yōkai have gotten.

I have found an abundance of literature that makes me able to answer my main

question. One thesis written by Zìlia Papp (Investigating the Influence of Edo and

Meiji Period Monster Art on Contemporary Japanese Visual Media) might be a bit

too similar, but I hope to put a new perspective on it by using the literature we have

had to read for the subject Perceptions of Asia given by Dr. Tina Harris, and focusing

less on the visual developments. Another person who is an academic expert on yōkai

is Michael Dylon Foster, whom has written a book titled Pandemonium and Parade:

Japanese Monsters and Culture of the Yōkai, I have sadly only been able to find the

first chapter and bit and pieces of other chapters. But his other articles and peer

reviews have helped to elaborate on his findings.

I will continue this paper, after ending the introduction, with a chapter

Ambiguity of the Weird that entails an elaboration of the history of Yōkai and the

ambiguity of its definition, and briefly how the invention of tradition (Hobsbawm)

gives yōkai the function of a tool to symbolize a nostalgic and idyllic Japan which are

the first steps in the self-orientalization of pre-meiji Japan. This invention and

recreation of yōkai will happen constantly during the lifetime of the yōkai. I will then

continue with the chapter The Rational Supernatural that will show the reader what

kind of role yōkai had in the late 19th till the mid 20th century and how the state-

controlled media started to re-imagine and remediate the concept of the yōkai,

resulting in the beginning stages of self-orientalism, and how this was possible by its

ambiguity. I will, in the section The Self-Orientalization by a Famous Demon-Boy,

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discuss the development of yōkai post World War II. I will use the manga/anime

Gegege no Kitarō, written by Shigeru Mizuki, in this time period to bring Self-

Orientalism and Remediation together to show the reader how a nostalgic Japan is

represented through yōkai. I will end with a conclusion, which will then answer the

main question.

I have briefly talked about the history of the yōkai at the beginning of the

introduction, but now I must elaborate on the history and the changes of meaning and

perception that the Yōkai has undergone so that the reader will fully understand how

it could be used and perceived later a symbol for an idyllic Japan.

Ambiguity of the Weird

I intentionally leave the definition open-ended [of yōkai], for the history of

yōkai is very much the history of efforts to describe and define the object being

considered.’ Foster 2009:02

The word yōkai is, historically, relatively new, first appearing in the 18th century and

not becoming the household name of the weird until mid 19th century. It is made up

from the kanji of ‘mysterious’ and ‘weird’. We can, I think, safely assume that they

do not exist, however this only increases the importance of the meaning of the word

and how it is used and seen by the people that use it, or believe in it. It did not become

the default term for specific kinds of spiritual beings until the Meiji era (1868-1912)

when it was used by Japanese philosopher Inoue Enryō to describe all weird and

mysterious phenomena, even naming it a field of study called yokaigaku, which you

could translate into ‘monsterology’ (Foster 2009: 05). Foster says that the other words

that meant something similar were not flexible enough to be used as a general term.

An example is the word Bakemono, meaning ‘changing thing’, was often given to

monsters that could take on different forms. This concept of mutability becomes

important in the Japanese understanding of the yōkai.

It was believed that objects that have existed for more than a hundred years

gain a soul and become living organisms (Ibid.: 07), humans can change into a deity

or a demon. Buddhist theology in Japan is adamant in believing, as also perhaps

elsewhere, in the mobility and transformability of the soul. The body or physical

object is simply a temporary place of residence. The soul or spirit was something

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intangible, unstable and unpredictable and can therefore be frightening. It is certainly

not normal for a person to become a demon, but it is always possible. Yōkai are

beings to be feared. The Japanese character of fear is written as a demon holding a

whip.1

The, previously mentioned, transformability of the soul was often portrayed in

art. This was in part thanks to Toriyama Sekien, who was an 18th century ukiyo-e

artist (woodblock). He is one of the first artists to visualize yōkai, which ‘until then

existed only as an oral form in rural legends. Sekien successfully popularized yōkai

among his urban audiences through mass production of technology at that time

(Suzuki 2011: 232). One of the picture scrolls was the picture scroll known as the

Hyakkiyagyō emaki (picture 2). You see man-made objects as living creatures that are

parading in front of you. These drawings on the picture scrolls were perceived as

playful and fun. They are yōkai and the portrayal on the picture scrolls became a way

to view these weird creatures, not as something scary and unknown, but as something

viewable. In the picture scroll Hyakkiyagyō emaki are also paintings of the Night

Parade of the 100 Demons. The pandemonium, which means ‘a state of many

demons’, was the convergence of the otherworld with the present one; something

deadly if you would gaze upon it. The pandemonium, just as the yōkai, cannot be seen

and should not be seen (Ibid.:09). By portraying it on the picture scrolls, they become

less of a pandemonium and more of a parade, a spectacle that can be watched and

enjoyed. This is the first example of the apparent dichotomous nature of yōkai, fear

versus fun that has changed in the history of Japan.

Picture 2. Yōkai that represent man-made objects

                                                                                                               1  http://www.cnegfx.com/product_images/q/kanji-­‐fear__19286.jpg  

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Another change that re-occurs in the history of Japan is the need to control and

categorize yōkai. Efforts have been made to define yōkai since the 17th century

(Ibid.). Yōkai were at first placed in encyclopedia with other animals and creatures.

Real and imagined beasts, both categorized in categories with relevance and meaning

in that time (Ibid.:16). Categories were made such as ‘siren’ and ‘fabulous’. Yōkai

were part of the world, thus there were no distinctions between the natural and

supernatural. Classifications in categorizing knowledge were hardly scientific (Ibid.:

10). However eventually a separate category was made for yōkai, which signified a

shift in the perception and handling of knowledge. This shift happened in the Meji era

when Western scientists and teachers were brought from oversees and Japanese

students were dispatched overseas. This paradigm shift in knowledge caused yōkai to

be no longer seen to be as real as common animals. They were, however, still hard to

define and categorize. Their characteristics, whether appearance or ability, were based

on the local mythologies; some yōkai represented a particular region but were known

in another region as entirely different supernatural beings.

The question ‘What are yōkai?’ does not result in a clear definition but in a list

of characteristics, names and examples (Ibid.: 11). The pandemonium of monsters

needed to be categorized for them to be put in their place. Yōkai are made less scary

by placing them in clear daylight. Knowledge is empowering, even against ghosts.

The epistemological and ontological status on how knowledge is made and how

categories in ‘being’ exist is, as I have discussed and will discuss, ambiguous for the

yōkai. Even after yōkai were categorized, new yōkai were invented and even believed

in. Even in the Japan of the 21st century there are many Japanese that do not deny the

possibility of the existence of yōkai. They not only often deny the certainty of

existence, but also deny the certainty of its nonexistence (Ibid.: 12). Foster links this

to the ability of yōkai to switch between the credible and incredible, between natural

and supernatural, pandemonium and parade, normal and the weird. Thus it is unstable,

but that makes it able to fulfill many roles that it would get in the future.

Yōkai had believers. For some it was perhaps a superstition, such as unlucky

numbers or baseball players having their own little ritual before hitting a ball with a

stick, but they were not deities. Foster describes yōkai as fallen kami (gods); they are

like gods except that they should, strictly speaking, not be worshipped. In the anime

Hiiro no Kakera it is explained that kami turn into yōkai when they do not get

worshipped anymore. They are not demons either, they fulfill yet another ambiguous

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space between good and evil. To make it even more confusing; yōkai are un-

worshipped kami and kami are worshipped yōkai according to some yōkai experts

(Ibid.: 15). And this depended as well in which area you lived; a water spirit may be

worshipped as a kami at one end of the stream, but seen as annoying yōkai or even

demon on the other side. As I mentioned before, yōkai were not simply categorized,

adapted and defined but also invented. New yōkai were invented and even believed

in, to a certain extent. The reasons and situations thus vary. The most recent example

is the Yōkai Shrine in Sakaiminato in which you can dedicate a plaque with a yōkai

on it with the prayer you have. This yōkai however is taken from the manga of

mangaka Mizuki (Foster 2008: 170). This is an example of invented tradition; these

invented yōkai are still situated in an old and nostalgic Japan as if they have existed

for hundreds of years. Not only should yōkai not be worshipped, but also new yōkai

were invented and prayed to in a response to the modernization of Japan. More and

more modern sources of history were needed to encourage, not the belief in yōkai, but

in the belief of an authentic Japanese identity.

I have shown the reader the ambiguity of the weird. The ambiguity of the

definition of yōkai made it flexible to change. There used to be a sense that strange

beings and humans populated the world. The media and elite of that time propagated

ways of thinking on how these beings should be thought of. They were used to tell

scary stories, but they were also shown that they as harmless by portraying them as

jolly. They were then categorized and defined in order to know how to deal with them

and at the same time still putting an emphasis on how dangerous these, weird but

increasingly more predictable, beings are. There have been epistemological and

ontological shifts; what should be accounted for as ‘real’ knowledge and facts and

does not being real make them any less real? It is comparable to a computerized

virtual world; just because something is not always tangible, it does not mean that it

has no meaning or basis of reality for some people. As I have already mentioned

briefly, yōkai started to no longer have place anymore in a nation that was focused on

modernization. This is what I will discuss now and show the function and roles that

the yōkai started to obtain.

The Rational Supernatural

‘(…) The supernatural was factored into the structure of the natural. And yet

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even the fact that yōkai were accounted for-and there institutionalized rituals

to deal with their intrusion-does not lessen their supernormality and the sense

of mystery and fear that they were able to engender.’ Foster 2009:20

Yōkai in their most primitive form are actually rational. They are based on a fear of

the unexplainable (Foster 2009:11). It is still difficult to explain the unexplainable

when it comes to the re-occurring question ‘What are yōkai?’. Yōkai occupy a realm

of the supernatural, thus they are above the natural, thus the natural has a certain sense

of order and rules that we perceive as natural. Any animal, such as a cat, can be

categorized and described, by academics, with characteristics that are ‘natural’. But

what if those same academics write in an encyclopedia that the cat has an ability to

shape shift? The supernatural was ingrained in the structure of the natural, and even if

they were categorized and institutionalized through rituals; it did not mean that they

were any less supernatural (Ibid.: 20). How do we deal with our definitions of the

natural and supernatural? Should we impose our perspectives on another society of

another place and time? These perspectives have, as we know, been enforced in Japan

during the Meiji period. The native yōkai were defined according to Western

scientific modes as supernatural and underwent many changes in the previous two

hundred years (Ibid.: 16).

An example is the Tenjōname, literally translated ‘Ceiling Licker’, Picture 3.

It was portrayed in 1331 as a yōkai that lived in houses that had too high of a ceiling

and were thus built poorly. The top of the ceiling would be dark and the Tenjōname

would live there. This was changed slightly in the 18th century; houses with a high

ceiling were chilly because of the Tenjōname that lived in there. It was given a

purpose and ability and the yōkai was blamed instead of the architecture of a house.

Tenjōname underwent another transformation in the 20th century by mangaka Mizuki.

Mizuki stated that ‘in the olden days the mold spots on the ceiling appeared because

the Tenjōname licked it.’ Not only did he change the function of the yōkai, by

unimaginatively using its literal translation, but he also declared it as authentic by

referring to the olden days and later on even mentioning that he had heard it from an

old lady who was an expert on these matters (Foster 2008:16,17). Pretty much every

yōkai that had a history was changed, to a greater or lesser extent, like this.

Japan underwent some transformations during the Meiji period. There was the

desire to develop the country so that it could compete with the West. Policy changes

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were made in trade, science, education and medicine. Superstitious beliefs such as the

belief in yōkai were seen as backward. The academics in Japan created a separate

encyclopedia in which all the yōkai from every area were categorized (Papp 2008:

108). These were defined as the original and true yōkai that should be preserved

(Suzuki 2011: 232, Foster, Papp). This was meant to preserve a piece of historical

Japan, and in doing so, places it firmly as a time of the past. But even though the

desire to banish this discourse was present with the elite or academics, it is not always

the case that it was evident in common practice (Foster 2009: 19). Modern science did

not succeed in restraining yōkai as a relic from the past. The development and

modernization of society and media were vital in this, in that they enforced the feeling

of nostalgia. They started to become a symbol that provoked a strong sense of

nostalgia; an old Japan, an idyllic country before the modernization and

westernization. The yōkai refused to be banished. Foster states it best when he says

that ‘Clearly one reason for the persistence of yōkai is their protean nature as cultural

forms whose meaning can be adapted to succeeding historical contexts.’ (p. 21).

Yōkai are able to change because of the ambiguity of their definition and the place

they occupy between the natural and the supernatural.

Picture 3. Tenjōname – Ceiling Licker

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Zìlia Papp (2008: 108) states that yōkai had to become nationalized in the late

19th century. Inoue Enryô, a scholar in the Meiji period, was appointed by the Meiji

emperor to be in charge in weeding out the idea of yōkai in rural areas. Enryô was at

the forefront in scientifically categorizing the supernatural weird. Schoolbooks started

to portray yōkai possession as a disease, not to be cured by the local witch doctors but

by ‘real’ doctors, or by placement in an asylum. Enryô was given the task to make the

yōkai property of the nation, thus giving the emperor who was at the top of the nation,

divine control over the supernatural (Ibid.:109).

This is traceable via Meiji woodblock prints and picture scrolls, the emperor is

represented by a bright light, and the yōkai are in darkness, subjugated by the

emperor’s divine light (Ibid.: 110). This resulted in the yōkai having to be approved

by the emperor as ‘historically authentic’. Hundreds of shrines had to reorganize and

merge in order to win approval of the emperor (early 20th century), resulting in a

weakening of the ties that the locals had with their local belief system. The yōkai

were on the brink of disappearing. The divine emperor, however, did not let this

happen. He used the ambiguity of the yōkai and his ‘divine power’ over the yōkai, to

let the state-controlled media assign them new roles.

Yōkai, being under the control of state-controlled media, were used to portray

the other, the outsider during the Sino-Japanese war. The yōkai were enemies and

outsiders (Ibid.: 113). In WWII they were used to portray the allies. This can be

compared to the ‘Official Occidentalism’ of Chen (1995:05) in which the State uses

the essence of the West and the yōkai to portray them in a negative light, which is the

Other. Whether this was to suppress its people can be debated, but the people of Japan

were given a visual image of the enemy. Yōkai were, for the first time, given a

purpose. They had been under the influence of social, political and economic events

and transformations, but now they were used and portrayed, albeit in a negative light,

by the state. I will now discuss the concepts of Self-Orientalism and Remediation and

how this links in with what we know about the yōkai (chronologically for arguments

sake) so far.

Self-Orientalism & Remediation

I will now discuss the concepts Self-Orientalism and Remediation. I will use what we

have read so far as an example and a case to explain these concepts. This is in order to

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fully understand the historical context when contemporary yōkai is discussed. This is

also in order to clearly portray what I mean by these definitions, which is, hopefully,

the same as they were intended to be. First of all, I will discuss self-orientalism.

Self-orientalism is a bit different when regarding Edward Said’s definition of

Orientalism. Self-orientalism is not a method and discourse by the West to discuss

and think about the Orient, but a method and discourse of the Orient to discuss and

think about the Orient. Said states on page 325 in his book Orientalism that

Orientalism will be complete when ‘the modern Orient…participates in its own

Orientalizing.’ (Traboulsi 2007:2). Although this is certainly interesting to think

about, it is not entirely the self-orientalism that is applicable to the case of Japan and

in particular yōkai. Since he, in that context, links it to Oriental countries that were

colonies. Japan with its isolationist attitude does not seem like a good fit. I will

discuss some definitions of self-orientalism that are more applicable, first of all

quoting from the book ‘Re-Orienting Fashion: The Globalization of Asian Dress’.

Internal and self-orientalizing are never simply unidirectional moves by elites

against the disempowered. Just as indigenous bourgeouisies used selective

strategies of ‘tradition’ and modernity’ to resist colonial identities, so too are

post colonial populations selectively embracing elements of exoticism that

serve their own purposes of self-orienting.

Jones, Leshkowich & Niesen 2003: 28

Yōkai used to be a part of life. Attempts were made to define and categorize them,

but it was hard to define them since they occupied so many places in society. They

were weird and feared because they were so ambiguous. They appeared in stories,

which emphasized their danger, but at the same time portrayed them as characters for

entertainment purposes. They were registered in an encyclopedia so that people would

know how to handle them, but at the same time this emphasized the fact that they

existed and were thus dangerous. This changed during the Meiji period; science and

rationality became key instruments in defining yōkai, concluding that they most

definitely did not exist. They were seen as a part of a pre-modern Japan, thus they

must remain in the past. However, the Meiji Emperor decided that they must become

state property, which forced many shrines to merge or change, and lessened the belief

in them amongst the local and rural population. The state-controlled media then used

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yōkai for its own purposes; portraying yōkai as ‘the Other’ and as enemies in the

Sino-Japanese war and the Second World War. The state embraced certain elements

of exoticism that served their own purposes in self-orienting.

The purpose and perception of yōkai has changed. This has happened through

social and political events and the realization of the Japanese nation state to use the

historical ambiguity of the yōkai to its advantage. Although the most use of yōkai for

self-orientalism can be seen post World War 2, there is still a sense that they represent

a pre-modern Japan during the Meiji period. There is a definite difference in power,

the weak feudal Japan versus the strong modern Japan. Plus there is the ability now to

research, document and ‘preserve’ the past so that it will not be lost. Self-

orientalization is a result of social engineering (Georgiev 2012: 17). Japan was facing

issues with identity in the process of becoming modern, creating the Other by

portraying them as yōkai meant that the other was weak and sometimes primitive. I

will discuss how this perception was to turn around and portray yōkai in a more

positive light; a pre-modern Japan was desired. But first I shall briefly discuss

remediation and how the remediation of yōkai developed in the time period I have

discussed so far.

David Novak discusses the concept of remediation in his article. He says that

‘remediation transfers content from one format to another, thereby making media

new, and making new media.’ (Novak 2010: 41). The best example I could think of to

explain remediation to other people is the remediation from manga to anime, comic to

cartoon. The story (in most cases) stays the same, as does the characters and visual

style. However it adds multiple forms of media such as sound and music, and of

course the fact that it is moving. The anime of for example One Piece does not have

to be seen as a mockery or a tribute; it can be seen as a stand-alone product with its

own particular way of being received. One may for example be in tears while

watching a scene in an anime, but not while reading the scene in a manga.

Yōkai have undergone some changes of remediation. First being depicted in

shrines and old religious documents, and talked about through tales and songs. It

became easier, as technological development took place, to depict yōkai visually in

books to form stories. The encyclopedia that was made (18th century) that depicted

yōkai together with normal animals. They were seen as part of everyday life. They

were then gradually modernized; seen as redundant before being used for nationalistic

propaganda. They have changed from the dangerously supernatural Other to represent

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the dangerously natural Other, yet they remain yōkai. I will now discuss how yōkai

were seen and used from post World War II till now.

The Self-Orientalization by a Famous Demon-Boy

I have, at great length, discussed the historical context in which the role and

perception of yōkai have changed. This is in order to fully understand why the yōkai

were able to symbolize whatever the director or mangaka wanted, through their

ambiguity of meaning. Yōkai mostly demonstrated the Other, thus the yōkai and the

other were depicted in a negative light. This started to change in 1966. This change

was partly attributed to the mangaka Mizuki. His work ‘contributed to the

mascotization of these monsters, changing their roles from outsiders to representatives

of an imagined, shared nostalgic Japanese past.’ (Papp 2008: 233). Another example

is a manga that is called Yōkai Daisensō (the Great Yōkai War); this manga depicted a

battle between Western ‘yōkai’, such as werewolves and vampires, and Japanese

yōkai (Ibid.: 227). References were made to particular battles that the Japanese fought

and there was a strong emphasis on the East versus the West. An anime series and

movie were made to remake this story two years later, which Mizuki influenced a

great deal with his own yōkai creations. Certain things were toned down, for example

when it came to World War II references, but there was a distinct idea reinforced that

Japan had to protect the whole of Asia against Western interests (Ibid.: 233).

Yōkai Daisensō was once again remade in 2005. The yōkai of Mizuki were

not in it, because of copyright laws, although he did make a cameo appearance in the

movie. The film corporation made five hundred new yōkai characters based on

historical yōkai and new original ideas from the filmmakers. The yōkai were

portrayed as simple, almost senile, creatures and fought against the enemy that

represented ‘modernity’. ‘Those that discard the past have no future.’ and ‘War is

bad, it only makes you hungry!’ are two sentences that represent the movie quite well

and the themes that yōkai were set in; they were pacifists and a link to the past. Yōkai,

as visual symbols in Japanese narratives, are on the borderline between the familiar

and ‘self’ and the outside and ‘the other’. This is why they can sometimes be

portrayed as heroes, foreign threats or even both (Ibid.: 236). The following quote of

Papp summarizes it perfectly.

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‘The role of yōkai could be manipulated in postwar visual media because of

the yōkai’s inherent ambivalence. In the postwar manga, animation, and

cinema versions of Yōkai daisenso (the Great Yōkai Wars), yōkai were

transformed to represent a nostalgic Japanese past. This was the era of the

Cold War and of Japan’s economic recovery, and what emerged in popular

visual media was the patriotic entities, legitimized by ancestral lineage, who

guarded Japan from outside forces. – Zilia Papp 2009 p. 237

Shigeru Mizuki

I have mentioned Shigeru Mizuki numerous times, but have not yet had the

opportunity to emphasize how important he was in the perception of the yōkai and

why. Mizuki (most known for manga and anime Gegege no Kitaro) is a mangaka who

is, as it isoften is argued, the first that re-introduced the traditional and historical

yōkai in an aesthetically and historically convincing way through popular media such

as manga and anime (Ibid.: 226, Suzuki 2011: 232). Mizuki’s aesthetics seem to have

its roots from a more traditional Japanese visual source, this is because he gets his

inspiration from Edo period Buddhist emaki picture scrolls and ukiyo-e woodblock

paintings (Suzuki 2011: 230), which create a nostalgic image of Japan and thus

represent a Japan from the past.

Mizuki fought in the Second World War, which he says was horrible and

made him a pacifist. But he also states that war was an important, as well as tragic,

rite of passage for both the nation and the individual (Foster 2008: 171). War must

show that War itself is not the answer, and that progress can be searched for

elsewhere. He compares his development and growing up as an individual to what

should happen in the entire country. He said that he grew up in a rural village called

Sakaiminato, which was only half true; he was born there, and did drop by there

numerous times, but mainly lived in Tokyo. Mizuki said that he met an extraordinary

woman that had a special link with ‘the supernatural world’ and through whom he

learnt a lot about the yōkai. Mizuki notes that ‘it was as if I was living with yōkai

every day’ (Ibid.: 234). His brother describes the woman, later in interviews, as an

ordinary old woman. Mizuki fought in the Second World War, lost an arm and was

taken care of by a group of locals on an island. According to him, this made him see

how life should be like. He uses himself in narratives as a medium on how the country

is developing and should develop. From a rural pre-modern past, linked with the

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supernatural, to the destructive shock of modernization and then finally realizing how

we should be, we should look at the past.

Foster and Suzuki (p. 234) both state that ‘Mizuki has created a persona

intimately linked with the nostalgic image of the yōkai and Japan’s rural past (…)

Mizuki’s manga offers a strong yearning for the idyllic, rural past of Japan without

being torn down by either modernization or modern warfare (…) ‘strains of nostalgic

longing for a purer, more authentic world (…) and the yōkai he describes and

produces are implicated in the formation Japan’s identity as a nation’ (Foster 2009,

165)’. Mizuki desires the establishment of an authentic Japan(eseness), which he

enforces through nostalgia. Mizuki has researched religious and secular traditions to

illustrate ‘old’ yōkai from several areas in Japan. This reinvention and recreation of

yōkai causes them to become popular in imagery of the supernatural (Foster 2009:

164). He makes them also more amicable, thus enjoyable for children to watch and so

that they can be ‘raised by yōkai’. This creation of the ‘newish-old’ places much

emphasis on nostalgia, the nostalgia and desire for the idyllic past that Mizuki wants.

Yōkai becomes a link to the past, yōkai becomes a way nostalgia about an idyllic

Japan can be expressed and visualized.

Self-Orientalization & Remediation of Modern Yōkai

I will choose the manga and anime Gegege no Kitarō as the main case to be the main

example of the self-orientalizing and the remediating aspect of yōkai. This is because

the series began in 1960 and is still broadcasting now. It has been remade into anime

series and movies and even a live action movie. It has undergone many changes; both

visually and with the medium that it is portrayed in.

Shigeru Mizuki transformed the yōkai he drew in Gegege no Kitaro, taking

examples and then changing them from the old yōkai catalogue of Toriyame Sekien,

the same catalogue made in the 18th century (Papp 2008: 204). Other historical,

historical, folkloric art resources have also been used besides Sekien. He gave the

yōkai personality traits and characters which became the standard and were adopted

as the original by every director or writer about yōkai (Ibid.: 205). Approximately

15% of the yōkai he drew were his own creations without any historical reference, but

these were not received as well. The yōkai, with an historical background, that were

changed and adapted to contemporary times were well received. Readers were mostly

familiar with such yōkai and appreciated the link to the past, which seemed authentic.

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Yōkai became a mascot that stood for ‘an idealized, nostalgic rural past and a shared

national and communal identity. By extension, it also becomes a symbol of pristine

nature and an idyllic rural way of life that is progressively disappearing in the post-

war period.’ (Ibid.: 214). This was enforced by the fact that in 10% of all the episodes

of Gegege no Kitaro, the yōkai fought environmental pollution and problems.

Yōkai became a form of an idealized past, a past in which the supernatural and

magical are part of the natural. It is quite normal, in a series about yōkai, to see things

such as Buddhist monks, samurai and ninja (Ibid.: 104), aspects of the historical

Japanese culture that are shown and are accepted as authentic. This authentic link

with the past gives the yōkai a self-orientalizing role; the Japanese Orientalize

themselves through yōkai by linking yōkai to an authentic Japan that existed before

modernization, before urbanization, before the Second World War. A Japan is desired

that is able to go back, to reflect and redeem itself a bit with its ancestors. The reason

all of this was possible was because of the ambiguous role the yōkai have had in the

past. Their roles could change and be adapted to anything that was desired, needed or

was simply fitting at that time. Because they were so ‘fluid’ they were easily

portrayed in any form of media. Nobody knew what they looked like and new

meanings and personalities were given to them constantly. They were a link to the

past through the medium of modernity such as manga, film, animation and computer

games. The final quote of Papp summarizes it perfectly before I conclude this paper.

‘Their fluidity as visual symbols permits yōkai to be adapted to new roles in

contemporary media, including manga, film, animation, and computer games,

and these roles change with each new patriotic war they undertake to protect

the Japanese homeland from invaders. Nonetheless, their core feature remains

unaltered: they live in a no-man’s-land between right and wrong, which

readily lends them to new interpretations in their constant visual evolution

within Japanese popular visual culture.’ – Papp 2008: 238

Conclusion

The main question was ‘How does the historical development of the perception of

yōkai contribute to the self-orientalizing role that yōkai have in being a symbol of a

nostalgic and authentic Japan, while being remediated through the development of

media?’ I have discussed a lot about the past, which is something that Shigeru Mizuki

  18  

probably would appreciate. This was in order to show the reader how important the

historical context was so that the yōkai could fulfill its role, whatever that role was,

and whoever decided what that role should be.

Yōkai were dangerous supernatural and most of all unpredictable creatures,

but they were given ability traits, appearance traits and even personality traits. They

were feared and enjoyed in tales. They were not evil, nor were they good. They

occupied a space between many dichotomous definitions. They have been used and

perceived in many different ways depending on the historical, political and socio-

economical context. From modernization and the technological advancement of the

printing press, to it being necessary as a tool in wartime. Ambiguity can be used to

insert meaning, which relieves them in that time of their ambiguity. Mizuki made

them symbols of a rural and pre-modern Japan. They are a link to a nostalgic Japan,

which is desired when facing all of modernity’s problems. Mizuki used the

technological development to reach large audiences and homogenize the meaning of

yōkai. Starting as the basics of human fears, being dangerous, between good and evil,

and then trying to explain the unexplainable (there is a yōkai that represents the tingly

sensation on your foot or on the back of your neck), they have now become as forces

for (mostly) good. They are the past and future of Japan, and that is whatever the

storyteller wants yōkai to be.

Brief Reflection mono aware

So much can be said when one talks about the history of the yōkai; it is hard to decide

what is important and what is not. I hoped to link the Japanese term ‘mono no aware’

(translated ‘the ahh-ness of things’; the awareness of impermanence) with the

ambiguity and the fluid meaning of the yōkai. This eventually became too large a

subject to simply insert it somewhere. Nevertheless, I enjoyed writing this paper; I

have read and learnt a great deal about something fascinating, although I must admit I

never want to type the word yōkai ever again.

I feel like that the paper has failed if I have exoticized Japan, depicting Japan

as weird in itself. It is a country with a past that makes it the country that it is today.

The last thing I want to do is Orientalize it into a country with the mysterious

supernatural creatures that have so much meaning with the people that are so much

spiritual than other people (emphasis on sarcasm). I have tried to link this paper

mainly with the main point of the course Perceptions of Asia, which is obviously

  19  

‘perception’. I perhaps should have made more distinct links with the course

literature. But ‘perception’ is for me too, as is the yōkai, an ambiguous concept,

which I find fascinating and focused all my attention on.

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Peer Reviews

2012 by Martinez D.P. on Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and

Culture of the Yōkai – Foster M.D., Journal of the Royal Anthropological

Institute 18.

2010 by Grayson J.H. on Pandemonium on Parade: Japanese Monsters and Culture

of the Yōkai – Foster M.D., Folklore, 121:2, 242-243

2010 Kimbrough R.K. on Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the

Culture of Yōkai – Foster M.D., Asian Ethnology, Vol. 69, No. 1 (2010), pp.

176-180