Customer Reviews

The Great Yokai Encyclopaedia

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was thrilled at the possibilities of a yokai encyclopedia. If you are like me in that, then you'll probably be as disappointed as I was.

The author seems to have been overwhelmed by the quantity of information, so the book is something of a mess. Yokai are arranged alphabetically by name, but without any form of index or cross-reference, it's not particularly useful. If you say to yourself, "I'd like to see all the yokai that look like women" or "yokai that live in water," or even "all the tengu," "all the oni," "all the yurei," etc., you're going to have to go through the book from A to Z looking for them yourself. If you remember a particular entry but you don't remember its name, you're out of luck.

The author is apparently some kind of UFO/Big Foot crank, and that perspective contaminates the book. There's a frequent, naive conflation of images across cultures; if a yokai resembles a black dog, the author is likely to digress into black dog monsters from Norway and Spain, for paragraphs. It's an approach that robs the yokai of both authenticity and a grounding in Japan's cultural traditions. Freeman's silly reductions go directly against the aims of Shigeru Mizuki and other Japanese folklorists, for whom rediscovering the yokai was a way to reclaim Japan's past while embracing modernity. Freeman's cross-cultural comparisons jettison everything that makes the subject matter culturally unique; it's a really stupid way to approach the subject matter.

Possibly to increase his page count, he included "creatures" from traditional Chinese (and Japanese) medicine -- representations of germs and toothaches, which don't really seem comfortably at home here. Certainly neither Chinese nor Japanese folklorists chose to include them in their bestiaries, and no scroll-maker depicted them in any hyakki yakko.

If there were more books on the subject, this would probably rate two stars, or possibly only one; but Freeman took the time and energy to assemble one of the only yokai monographs in the English language, and for that he earns bonus points, bringing this up to "fair" -- three out of five stars.

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Edited to add: Since I originally posted this review, two five-star reviews have popped up. The authors of those reviews are both affiliated with the publisher, CFZ. Neither of them was honest enough to mention it.

I honestly believe this book deserves two stars, but I'm lowering my review to one star to try and help balance out those who are trying to scam people.

A well researched book, densely populated with weird and interesting entries. I discovered more yokai than I had imagined existed. The essays on the more popular Japanese spirit folk--kappa, kitsune, tengu, &c.--are delightfully lengthy, but just as interesting are the more obscure yokai listed here, such as a monk made of ash, a microscopic viral boar, or a giant sea cucumber born from a girl's discarded underclothes. This book is dense with legendary creatures, the entries including any relevant folklore whenever possible.

Although the amount of text is admirable (if not sometimes a little glib), the design of the book is a little disappointing. It's illustrated throughout, but often the works shown (most of them Edo period prints) are pixelated, as if they had been lifted off the web from a Wikipedia article. The original illustrations by Anthony Wallis are reproduced well, but his pictures sometimes pale next to those of Kuniyoshi and other Japanese printmakers. (Also--and I realize this is a huge nitpick--the designers used a title font in the book that does not include all of the glyphs used in yokai names, so occasionally an special character appears in the middle of a heading in a different typeface than the rest of the word. It looks sloppy.)

Still, I purchased this book hoping to learn more about yokai, especially the obscure ones I could not find in other books or the internet, and in that sense, this book really delivers. A solid reference for those interested in the weird critters and beings that inhabit Japan's folk tales.

All mythologies contain strange creatures, but the record holder for most strange creatures of all must surely be the mythology of Japan.

After an introduction telling a bit about Japanese history and the appearance of Japanese mythological themes in popular culture, this book goes on to list literally hundreds of different mythological creatures in alphabetical order.

Yokai is a broad term referring to any mythological creature from Japan. Some of the yokai may be familiar to a number of people, such as the Kappa, a cucumber-loving water monster that tears out people's bowels through their anus; the Oni, Japan's answer to ogres and trolls; the Tatsu, the dragons of Japan; the Tengu, supernatural birdmen; and so on.
Others may be a lot less well known, such as the Atsuuikakura, a giant flesh-eating sea cucumber that grows from the undergarments of a dead girl; the Bake-Kujira, a skeletal phantom whale; the Basan, a fire-breathing rooster; the Gashadokuro, a giant animated skeleton; the Katakiruwa, a one-eared flaming pig that steals souls and renders people impotent; the Mouryo, a big bipedal rabbit that eats corpses; and much, much more.
The book does not appear to leave out any yokai. Even the most obscure and little known ones get an entry, even its just a small entry.
A few of the yokai are briefly compared to similar creatures from other mythologies in the world, which helps provide some quite interesting extra info.

Some of the yokai are known to be real animals that the old tales have bestowed with supernatural qualities. The tanuki (racoon dog), for instance, is a primitive type of dog that the legends bestow with sentience, shape-shifting and scrotum enlarging abilities (and no, I am not just joking about the last one).
Also, some yokai could be real animals still officially undiscovered by science. Examples of these include the ape-like Hibagon, the lake monster Issie, and the flattened snake Tsuchinoko.

The book is well organised and pays a lot of attention to detail. I think most people reading it would end up learning a lot that they didn't know before. I certainly did.
I would recommend The Great Yokai Encyclopedia to anyone interested in Japanese mythology, or even just mythology in general.

I liked this book for the complete lists and description. I know, you vould read it from the japanese yokai encyclopedia, if you know japanese... but the author is sincere and gives you an amazing list of sites, movies and translates a lot of japanese yokai to a more digestive english.
If you like folklore, it is for you; if you like RPG, it is for you; if you want pictures... go chase in the wikepedia. The downsize of this book is the illustrations: you can take a lot of better pictures freeware from the internet, with better quality than those in the book (some from the internet. It is the only thing that keeps the book to be perfect

The Great Yokai Encyclopedia, the first of its kind in English, is a fabulous addition to your library. Richard Freeman does an excellent job with this exhaustive catalog of Japanese Yokai. More than a list of names and definitions, this encyclopedia contains in full the legends and their variants behind the Yokai. From the vengeful Onryo (familiar to many, thanks to The Grudge movies) to rectal-coring Kappas and beyond, Freeman shows us there is no shortage of variety in Japanese monsters or lack of creativity in their mischief and havoc. His passion for the subject adds flavor that transforms the book from a simple encyclopedia into a thrilling read. If you are interested in Japanese folklore or strangeness in general, you will love this book.

I can say he did a fine job on an exhaustive compendium of a subject I have no interest in. It's not every day you come across bizarre information you never knew existed. Now I know what to do if met by a kappa.

Breathtaking in its scope, The Great Yokai Encyclopedia is an eye-popping read, and opens up the world of the Yokai to a western audience, giving us a rare peek inside this catalogue of monsterdom from Japan.
Hats off to Richard Freeman who toiled to put together this comprehensive volume, and to Jon Downes/CFZ who published it.
A worthy addition to any folklorist's or cryptozoologist's bookshelf.

Richard Freeman's new book, The Great Yokai Encyclopedia: An A to Z of Japanese Monsters, is an appropriately Godzilla-sized book (it runs to 416 pages!), and is a definitive look at the strange creatures and beasts of Japan, both in times-past and the present day. A wealth of dedication, hard work and diligent study has gone into making this book a triumphant tour-de-force on one of the most sadly overlooked aspects of cryptozoology, monster-hunting and strange creatures. Collectively known as the Yokai, the monsters of Japan are largely unknown in the West. But by addressing the cultural background that gave rise to these legends, and then listing the creatures in detailed encyclopedic form, however, Richard Freeman has now firmly and decisively rectified that situation for one and all. This is a truly magical title that demonstrates not only Freeman's love and appreciation of Japan's rich foklore, history and mythology of a monstrous nature, but that also reveals his profound knowledge of the subject, too - not to mention his patience in putting the mighty tome together in the first place! Freeman writes in an informative and entertaining style that ensures you'll keep turning the book's pages to learn what is coming next. I recommend The Great Yokai Encyclopedia to anyone and everyone that wishes to learn more about the fantastic beasts, mythical monsters, unknown animals, and creepy critters of Japan. Winged monsters, dragons, man-beasts, water goblins and much more - they all feature within the packed pages of this book. Invest in a copy and you won't be disappointed!