By Takehara Shunsen (竹原春泉) - ISBN 4-0438-3001-7., Public Domain Azuki Arai (小豆洗い) — the Bean Washer — is not among the dangerous ones. It haunts riversides and mountain streams at night, and what you hear is the sound of beans being washed: a dry, rhythmic scraping, shoki shoki, rising from the water below. Sometimes a voice goes with it, singing to itself: Shall I wash beans? Shall I catch a human? And then — nothing. The yokai is never seen. Only heard. No one agrees on whe

In Chiaki Kamikawa's painting, Tankoro Lemon, the artist has taken this ancient spirit of the neglected fruit and transplanted it into a new landscape.

Among Japan’s many sea-born yokai, Umibōzu (海坊主) remains one of the most unsettling. Sailors describe it as a colossal, shadow-black figure emerging silently from calm waters—only the smooth, bald dome of its head visible at first, like a monk rising from meditation. But its arrival is anything but peaceful. The sea churns, winds shift, and the boundary between the living and the drowned seems to thin. 速水春暁斎 - 龍谷大学図書館 貴重資料画像データベースhttps://da.library.ryukoku.ac.jp/page/170269,

Amabie x Aphrodite, 2020, Priovate collection My creative journey often begins at the intersection of my Japanese roots and the ancient stones of Paphos, Cyprus, where I live and work. In my studio, I find myself drawn to stories that bridge these two worlds, and perhaps no piece illustrates this better than my Amabie-inspired series. The story of this work starts with the Amabie itself—a Japanese yokai or sea spirit from the 19th century Edo period, characterized by its bir