receive back to MangoBot , a biweekly pillar about Asiatic futurism byTokyoMangoblogger Lisa Katayama . In Tokyo , teenage girls do n’t worry about escort rape and theft nearly as much as they gag over monster ( and power train gropers ) . I never thought doubly about the whereabouts of my wallet as I walk home in the wickedness after school , but I by all odds braved the path from the train place to the house armed with all my monster - combat skills . I ’d forgotten about most of my own Japanese monster encounters until I readYokai Attack : The Nipponese Monster Survival Guide , a new book in which interpreter / author Matt Alt and his wife Hiroko Yoda neatly document the fabled characteristics of dozens of Hellenic Nipponese goliath . Today , I will usher in you to five monsters that I in person encounter - physically or in spirit - when I was a kid .
1 . The human - look tree My friends Ricky and Chris told me there was a homo - faced tree in the woods behind their mountain theater , so I went to check it out one solar day . Something similar makes an appearance in Yokai Attack - Alt and Yoda ’s research regain that tree with human being - face , edible , lecture yield grow in valleys throughout Japan . The tree R & C showed me had no yield , but surely enough , it had a boldness on its thick barque - middle , a nose , and a creepy-crawly smile mouth . It just stood there with its human - side staring at me . I was pretty sure it would bite me in the ass as I walk away , but it did n’t . Somebody probably reduce it down and built a luxury condo there by now . The preponderance of yokai is steady down in the Japanese notion that all thing have spirits . Tree , George Fox , boxes , giant lounge lizard , Furby , Tamagochi .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8BfGC8X5lg
2 . The super - speed fair sex with the back talk slash When I was in elemental school somebody told me the narration of Kuchisake Onna , a superhuman madwoman who lurks in dark skittle alley and asks you dying trap question . The former peach wears a operative mask to hide an Ichi - the - cause of death - esque gash on both sides of her mouth inflict by a crazed congener when she was a kid . She spent her whole life story in unadulterated wretchedness and gradually developed a serious complex about her appearance . finally , she turn into a ogre . Legend has it that she asks passersby if they remember she ’s pretty . It ’s a joke question - if you say YES , she takes off her masque and says “ Even now ? ” and kill you . If you say NO , she get crazy and kills you . If you run away , she ’ll lam after you at lightning speed and pour down you . ( A lot of the scary Japanese teras are women with unresolved issue . ) walk home from school , I rehearsed what I believed to be the right answer-“You’re average”-over and over in my brain and avoiding all women with surgical masks . agree out the prevue ( above ) from the new picture show that differentiate the back narration of Kuchisake Onna in J - ugly particular .
3 . destruction monsters living in toilets Almost every girl child in Japan is scared of the shoal lav . It ’s because we grew up hearing stories about Hanako , the beat girl who lives in the girls ’ bathroom , and her mysterious supporter who asks you if you want to wear a red-faced jacket crown , and then douses you in blood . I recall the tarradiddle vary from region to area , but I first get word about her while I was at summer summer camp in Nagano Prefecture , and in Nagano Prefecture Hanako always rest in the second stall from the left hand . To this day , I do n’t know that I ’d be able-bodied to walk into the second stall from the left at a public bathroom in Nagano . Silly me with my puerility hangups . With the exception of Godzilla , his friends , and a few others , Japanese monsters are commonly normal - sized and mask as ordinary humans or cuddly lilliputian fauna . Which makes them 100 time scarier , of course , because they can get rattling closely and then rust you alive , make you go stony-broke , or slip your kid .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8P0-ocIwhw
4 . GeGeGe no Kitaro This amazing manga ( and later anime ) series created in the late 1950s by Shigeru Mizuki is about an entire existence full of yokai who coexist with humankind . There are bad I and skilful ones , and they all need to go to shoal . The independent eccentric is a yokai boy name Kitaro who has remote - controlled wooden sandals and the ability to fry the great unwashed . He ’s a unspoiled kid , though , and the last descendent of the Ghost tribe . His dad is a squeaky - voice eyeball with encyclopedic knowledge and a weakness for sake . My favorite quality was always Nurikabe , the giant mellow gray wall that protect people and monsters but like to freak out masses out by digest in their paths late at Nox . I secretly wish I ’d run into him sometimes on my way home from school , or even think that he ’d save me from Kuchisake Onna if she was on the prowl in my ‘ hood . The video clip above point him in action .
5 . Gamera He ’s not the most famous kaiju from postwar Japan ( Godzilla is ) , but this flying turtle monster has some interesting and conflicting origin stories deserving tell . One is that he was inadvertent wake up from prehistorical clip by an atomic turkey . The other is that he was bioengineered to life for defeat another topnotch - hard monster , Gyaos . Which is it ? Both , apparently - different eras of Gamera film have different back story . I wrote about my showdown with Gamera onmy blog :
I ran into Gamera the other mean solar day , so I decide to fight him . He weight a lot more than I do , and his arm are a mickle thick , so I just stood there screamed in his face . I fuck he could only blow flames from his leg so as long as he stayed on his stupid wooden political program I knew I would succeed . “ I thought you ’re supposed to be able to vanish , ” I said . “ GAOOOOO , ” Gamera replied .
you’re able to read more about traditional Japanese demon inYokai Attack - or , if you ’re the kaiju type you’re able to just rent a bunch of Godzilla movies and veggie out .
Japan
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