I picked up “Strange Japanese Yokai - A Guide to Weird and Wonderful Monsters, Demons, and Spirits” by Kenji Murakami on a whim at Periplus in Narita International Airport right before my flight home. I just needed something light for the plane, but the book ended up bringing me a lot of joy.
This book is essentially a catalog of hundreds of different monsters and spirits, drawing a lot of its stories from old Edo period scrolls. But Murakami doesn’t treat it like some serious, terrifying encyclopedia. Instead, he defangs the supernatural. We get the famous folklore “superstars” like the kappa and tengu, alongside mischievous household pests and my personal favorite, a whole section dedicated to yokai you can defeat in incredibly stupid ways. Even the gory details are glossed over quickly to keep the tone lighthearted and entertaining.
The best part is how it constantly flips my expectations. I actually laughed out loud reading about the Oni haunting the Rashōmon Gate. Oni supposed to be terrifying, bloodthirsty demons, but it turns out the Oni here just really loves poetry and music. A very cultured monster. I think I can hang around with him.
Reading about these spirits, I found a striking similarity with a legend back here in Indonesia. The book mentions stories where terrifying Oni are challenged to build massive structures, like a bridge or a thousand-step staircase, in a single night. Just as they are about to finish, the gods trick them by imitating a rooster’s crow. The monsters panic, thinking dawn has arrived, and flee into the shadows.
This instantly reminded me of the myth behind Candi Sewu, a massive 8th-century Buddhist temple complex in Central Java, Indonesia. According to local legend, a prince commanded an army of jinn to build a thousand temples in a single night to win a princess’s hand in marriage. To stop him, the princess had the villagers light fires and pound rice to trick the local roosters into crowing early. The jinn, terrified of the sun, scattered and left the thousandth temple unfinished.
It's strikingly similar. Amazing.
That shared vibe, where the supernatural isn’t unstoppable, but something that can be outsmarted in ridiculous ways, is exactly what this book captures.
The artwork really helps set the mood, too. The manga-style illustrations are far less horrifying than you might expect. They are bright and almost cartoonish, which makes all these bizarre creatures feel weirdly endearing.
I will say, the book is not perfect. The English translation can be a bit clunky, with several spelling mistakes and odd word choices. Toward the end, the formatting also gets surprisingly sloppy. But those are just nitpicks, they didn’t ruin the fun for me at all.
Reading it back here in South Jakarta, it feels like the perfect kind of travel souvenir. It’s not a heavy academic deep dive, just a silly, informative visual feast. I always love how wildly creative folklore can be.