Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore
Perched on a tall bookshelf between mythology and folklore texts in Michael Dylan Foster’s office sits a green statuette, its mouth agape and hiding its eyes behind webbed fingers. It wears a shell on its back and what looks like a lily pad on its head. At first glance, it could be mistaken for a turtle or a frog.
It is called a “kappa,” and despite the figurine’s charm, the water sprite is known for pulling children into rivers and drowning them. It is also known for having top-notch bone-setting skills.
This peculiar creature was the first “yōkai” to incite Foster’s curiosity. A professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at UC Davis, Foster had brought a similar statue home as a souvenir after teaching English in Japan in the early 1990s.
Foster is an author, anthology editor and the host of a mini-series about “yōkai” for The Japan Broadcasting Corporation (NHK). He recently finished filming the latest season of the series this past summer. All three episodes are available on-demand through NHK World.
Yōkai is a catch-all term for all the monsters, mythical creatures, ghosts and goblins living within Japanese culture. Their influence can be seen throughout Japanese art, texts, games and popular culture. Foster has been hosting the mini-series, YŌKAI: Exploring Hidden Japanese Folklore, which focuses on more rural yōkai, since 2022. In the last two years, he’s woken up before dawn to ride-along with and interview sailors and fisherman, been invited into peoples’ homes for family dinners and traveled to rural villages and temples, learning stories passed on from generation to generation.
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