Yokai

The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons handscroll at Shinju-an, a subtemple of Daitokuji in Kyoto, painted in the Muromachi period (16th century) and an Important Cultural Property, is filled mostly with yokai that were once household objects, marching across the scroll in a crowd. In 1776 Toriyama Sekien published Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, giving each page a single yokai with its name, much like a modern yokai field guide. In the Edo period yokai also turned up on nishiki-e prints, sugoroku boards, and toys. In 1904 Lafcadio Hearn (Koizumi Yakumo) published Kwaidan in English, carrying Japanese ghost stories abroad, and in December 2025 the Oxford English Dictionary added the word "yokai."

Find a yokai on an everyday object, such as a netsuke, a plate, or a sugoroku board, and think about who would have used it.

What was this yokai before it became one?