written late, lit badly ✦
Hyakki Yagyō — the procession of yokai through the streets after dark. Where the picture scrolls came from, how one 18th-century artist standardised half of Japanese monster design, and what the parade is really about.
read itWhy shop-bought stage blood looks like paint on camera, the recipe I actually use, and how to make it run, pool or dry depending on what the shot needs.
read itSix films, in an order that actually works, for anyone who says they want to get into Japanese horror and has only seen the one about the videotape.
read itThe slit-mouthed woman is the best documented case of a folk story forming that we have. What the legend is, how the 1979 panic spread, and why the escape routes are the interesting part.
read itWhy a mask that looks incredible in your hands turns into a lump of plastic on camera, and the shadow-first painting method that fixes it.
read itOne night a year, families throw roasted soybeans at someone wearing an oni mask and shout at them to get out. Where the ritual comes from, what it is really doing, and why I love it.
read itThe most misused image in Japanese folklore. What the hannya mask actually depicts, why it changes expression when you tilt it, and the three stages of the transformation it belongs to.
read itThe horns, the tiger-skin, the iron club and the northeast — where the standard oni design comes from, and why translating the word as 'devil' throws away everything interesting about it.
read it