Badass. A treasure chest of emaciated ghouls and conniving toads. I got this for one image that has more profoundly affected me than any other. Behold: impassive humanoid ghost staring soundlessly down at a ship in the tsunami.
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Japan has perhaps the most lively and richly developed tradition of supernatural lore of any civilization. It is comprised of some of the most relentlessly fearsome goblins, demons, metamorphosed animals, and ghosts ever known to man. Japanese poets, actors, dancers and artists have all delighted in portraying these monsters, often with a playfulness and humor that mitigates the demons' more ferocious qualities, but also with a bold, dramatic fervor designed to impress upon their audiences the lessons of folklore. For, like our own mythological and fairy-tale characters, Japan's supernatural inhabitants suggest much about the morals of the Japanese people and of their efforts to understand the mysteries of the world.

This is the first book devoted to the study of the supernatural world and its representation in Japanese art. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries many of Japan's most brilliant artists, including Hiroshige, Hokusai, Yoshitoshi, and Zeshin, allowed their imaginations free rein in presenting these mysteries in a variety of media, including paintings, woodblock prints, screens, netsuke, and inro sculptures, and fans. The forty-nine color plates and seventy-five black and white illustrations presented here show a stunning array of Japan's most fiendish figures. Each of the ten chapters focuses on an important theme in Japanese lore, discusssing its anthropological meaning and literary and artistic interpretations. ( )