Sick of werewolves, tired of zombies, will you scream if you read ay more about vampires? Well Richard Freeman’s new book ‘The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia; An A to Z of Japanese Monsters’ is the perfect antidote. No one could accuse Japanese folklore or Japanese monsters of being run of the mill.
With early public literacy, access to the printing press and hundreds of years of Shinto, Buddhist, and Taoist cultural cross pollinations, the stage is said for some truly insane legendary beasts that make the creations of H.P.Lovecraft look as wholesome as the Care Bears.
Collectively known as Yokai, the ghosts and monsters from the Land of the Rising Sun are so strange that to a western mind they are like having a mental enema. The book lists a cavalcade of the weirdest monsters in the world. Gant man eating sea cucumbers that grow from girl's knickers, pervert water goblins, grave robbing giant rabbits, dragons that impregnate women, flaming pigs that steal human genitals, monsters that eat your hair, monsters that lick the ceiling, monsters that lick poorly kept public toilets, cats that animate dead bodies, dogs with shape shifting testicles, blood sucking weasels and un-dead whales, it's all in here and much, much more!
Were did they come from? Why did people believe in them? Why are they so damn strange? Cold any of them have a distorted basis in reality? Could some of them still exist today?
‘The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia; An A to Z of Japanese Monsters’ is available from CFZ Books at www.cfz.org.uk
Richard Freeman is available for interview.
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