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Enochian sketches

To get the right forms, I used a dip pen and inks to experiment with drawing the alphabet out traditionally as I feel more comfortable with it over digital.

Yokai Stationery

For the desk space, I wanted the accessories to be Yokai inspired to draw it back to the theme more, plus it’s really fun designing everyday items but with a Yokai spin.

Yokai Watch

Hence the name, Yokai Watch is a Nintendo 3DS game initially released in 2013 centred around the titular creatures. In a sense its an RPG where you collect yokai ‘medals’ to use them in battle, working through a variety of chapters and their storylines in the game, encountering a wide variety of yokai both traditional and modern.

Likely aimed towards a younger audience with the cuter, almost mascot-ified designs, they’re a nice modernised redesign of many classic yokai (which become their own category in the second game). The Karakasa-Obake, Garappa, and Rokurokubi (see above) all make their appearance as Classics, having a more friendly design to suit the franchise.

Often seen as a ‘Pokemon clone’ it moves far beyond the gameplay Pokemon has used for years, relying on microgames in battle to help your yokai team and befriending yokai via different food types, which increases as the games go on. Though it may not be as popular in Western countries, having yokai remerge into mainstream media beyond Japan is a positive rise in their popularity and staple in culture.

For the third installation of the series, ‘ ‘Merican’ yokai are introduced, yokai native to a placed called ‘BBQ’, which is clearly supposed to be America. Though very different to traditional yokai, some even being based off of existing characters in the series, it shows that yokai aren’t strictly native to Japan. It portrays yokai as being a flexible concept that can adapt to different cultures and places, and how they can take themes and aspects of the culture into their own designs. Many of the ‘Merican yokai appear like mascots, clearly influenced by parts of American culture, even if they’re more caricatures than staple aspects.

Toriyama Sekien

Is one of the biggest names in the history of Yokai recording, being the author of Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, one of the first Yokai encyclopaedias. He is known for other Yokai centred works such as Konjaku gazu zoku hyakki (1779), Konjaku hyakki shui (1781), and Hyakki tsurezure bukuro (1784). What was most significant about his works were they weren’t picture scrolls, they were bound similar to modern paperback books and read in the same fashion. His initial Gazu Hyakkiyagyo was mainly imagery and a little bit of text, focusing on well known yokai throughout 51 entries into the book.

In later catalogs he starts adding more rural Yokai, the amount of text increasing to inform the reader of these less well known Yokai. He even created his own Yokai, drawing ideas from the more serious compendia, Three Realms, he also recorded Yokai from China in his catalogs, bringing even more obscure Yokai into the public eye. He is said to have had fun in creating his catalogs, as well as new Yokai, his subtle wordplay and puns now sadly difficult to translate, yet he has inspired many people even now with his illustrations and depictions of Yokai, even influencing other famous artists of the time.

Sekien using kibyoshi, a lighthearted illustrated book known for their yellow covers, allowed him to separate Yokai from their place of origin and connected narratives, making them more generic and allowing them to be stand alone concepts without a long backstory. The tongue-in-cheek humourous tones of the kibyoshi made it very popular with the people, satirical tones often taken within, such as a wedding being depicted but with Kitsune and other various yokai, shown in a goofy, comical manner. This use of satire is likely why the authorities ended them in 1806, but their popularity remained and they can be seen as the predecessor of manga.

The woodblock print technique he uses brings varying weight to the strokes of the images, adding to the overall effect the simple line drawings have. Though in my own work I will likely be unable to recreate woodblock prints, emulating the style seems a good way to portray different yokai, and perhaps even some modern ones, in a traditional style. The comical style, that is mentioned in his kibyoshi, could work for displaying the yokai themselves, humour adding to their often lighthearted nature and appealing to the audience through humour.

Sumi-e Experiments

From my research into Sumi-e painting, I tried it with a variety of Yokai, some obscure and some well known. I really wanted to get the minimal-lines style down, using negative space and line forms to indicate a shape. I like how all of them vary, my research into Sumi-e showing that there isn’t a specific style you have to use, and its more about capturing the essence and feeling of the subject. The non-erasable brush strokes can really help catch a good form, or muck the whole thing up, but I like how you can’t refine it constantly and every line is permanent.

Shigeru Mizuki

He was one of the artists responsible for bringing Yokai into modern times post WWII, being one of the first to document and speak of hundreds of rural stories of ghosts and creatures, preventing them from being lost to time.

Stories of Yokai are often passed down through generations, some being specific to their region of origin and found nowhere else. Yokai themselves appear through different means, some coming alive on their hundredth birthdays, such as with the Tsukumogami object yokai. Others occur through darker means, such as being wronged or neglected to return as mischievous spirits or some that have malicious intent to those who treated them ill. The roots Yokai folktales have in Shinto and Buddhism often adds unique moral and storytelling logic to the stories, this hybrid being very unique to Japan’s religious history that reflects in the structure of the tales and even when/where they were from.

Though Mizuki collected hundreds of Yokai stories from across Japan and made many comics about them, his most famous was the series Hakaba Kitaro, or GeGeGe no Kitaro. The series centred around the ‘morbid but adorable’ Kitaro, the last of a race of undead beings, travelling across Japan accompanied by a variety of yokai friends. Kitaro’s adventures also chronicle the social history of 20th century Japan, the yokai often struggling with modern changes and adapting to new environments such as the closing of shrines, dwindling habitat, and scarce offerings. Kitaro helped Yokai become their own genre, Mizuki’s collecting helping save hundreds of rural stories of obscure yokai and popularise them for the 21st century.

Mizuki was eager to share his comics with the world, them having been translated into French and Italian to name a few, yet progress was slow due to his ‘old fashioned’ art style. His style is not similar to typical manga style at all, the characters almost appearing for a younger audience with the round forms and large eyes, yet the eeriness of his Yokai stories hint at an older target audience. Being so different to typical western styles it is unsurprising why Kitaro wasn’t as popular beyond Japan, yet it is unique to him and captures the curious yet odd tones Yokai themselves portray. His work in his book Nonnonba fluctuates between the rounded, stylised characters and semi-realistic yokai as well as scenery, almost picturing these fantasy caricatures along with the fantasy creatures who’s stories he is recounting.

Sumi-e painting

As Japan has such a rich variety of art media, i wanted to explore a few to see if any suited the style I was going for. On initial research I came across Sumi-e painting, which itself is Japanese for ‘black ink painting’.

Initially I thought the painting to focus on giving an impression of the subject; minimal lines giving a hint of the form it was creating. However, it is a much more detailed and poetic process that emphasises the beauty of the brush stroke and capturing the feeling of the subject. It originated in China and then moved around Asia, other countries developing their own styles of brush painting, but all have similarities in wanting to capture the spirit of their subject, with a strong focus on the forms of nature. An integral part of the composition is the red seal that possesses the artist’s name, other seals possibly added as an indication of their town or philosophy.

The methods and philosophy of Sumi-e appears to have similarities to Shinto and Buddhism, the process in appreciating the forms and spirits in nature and acknowledging the feeling of a subject to effectively capture it on paper. Sumi-e’s roots in Chinese calligraphy can be seen in the smooth brush strokes and form, some seeing Sumi-e as a form of ‘visual poetry’.

Before my research i didn’t know that it was often done on rice paper, needing another sheet to secure it to after painting to ensure there are no wrinkles or to repair any minor tears while on display. Sumi-e varies between the free style and the formal style, formal being much more careful and sometimes coloured whereas free is much more loose and focuses on the tones of black ink. Some of the subjects painted have layers of symbolism to add to their depth, such as bamboo symbolising summer and endurance and an Orchid flower symbolises bright promise and beauty along with spring. Landscapes are also popular, along with the free style that allows a good impression of nature’s flow and form that can represent it better than fine details.

As initially I thought Sumi-e to be quite minimal and precise, seeing that it can take many forms, and that its more about the philosophy than the technique, helped me understand it better. It may be a good technique to try painting Yokai with as its a traditional technique that could represent the Yokai’s spiritual and ethereal nature well; loose lines not quite giving them a firm form as Yokai are often down to interpretation.

Creating Sumi-e

Yokai Parade - Available here

Yokai have always been a niche section of pop culture, the rise of social media and global connections further broadcasting their presence, and rising peoples’ fascination in them. The myths around them are just as interesting as how they look, as well as how they could adapt to modern society.

Yokai Parade on Etsy has a variety of yokai based products, especially enamel pins, which are immensely popular currently. Though the Kuchisake-Onna, Oni, and Yurei are known to be feared yokai, their depictions in pin form, along with their cute little bio and haiku, show them to be much more than things that go bump in the night.

The interpretation of the Rokurokubi and Futakuchi-Onna in 1960′s fashion is an interesting twist on yokai presence, taking a much more Western style of clothing and combining it with traditional yokai. Seeing them in such normal situations, and styles, is an interesting twist, almost making the viewer imagine what it would be like having yokai casually living among people. This wonder is what I want to capture within my project, instilling ideas into the viewer and inspiring their imagination to work beyond the image before them.

As yokai were/are based on the unexplainable, it is unsurprising that nowadays, with our increase in science and understanding, these shadowy creatures have become much less scary than they were in the past. Though a little creepy to some, these are an example of yokai adapting to many different platforms and emerging in the rise of pop culture.