The Book of Yōkai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore

Published in 2015 by the University of California Press, "The Book of Yōkai" is a scholarly-but-accessible study by folklorist Michael Dylan Foster of yōkai — the broad Japanese category of monsters, ghosts, and supernatural beings that includes tengu mountain goblins, kappa water spirits, and shape-shifting foxes. Per its own publisher description, the book draws on Foster's years of research in Japan to "unpack the history and cultural context of yōkai, tracing their roots, interpreting their meanings, and introducing people who have hunted them through the ages," and includes detailed entries, some with original illustrations, on more than fifty individual creatures. Rather than simply cataloging monsters, the book explicitly examines how yōkai function as a lens for understanding broader processes of Japanese folklore transmission, storytelling, and cultural creativity, and situates their continuing popularity in anime, manga, film, and games within a much older tradition of local legend and regional ghost stories. Foster is a professor of folklore and East Asian studies whose academic work focuses specifically on yōkai and Japanese vernacular belief.