Gods and Demons and Yokai, Oh My!

Halloween approaches. Children who persuaded their parents to buy them costumes right when they appeared in stores have had time to outgrow them. If candy was purchased at that time it has been consumed or gone bad. Evenings are beginning to get a crispness suggesting summer might be going if it’s not quite gone.

It is a good time to think a little about the supernatural.

The older a culture is, the more elaborate its otherworldly traditions seem to be. For us, Halloween is a corruption of All Hallows’ Eve, followed immediately by All Saints Day, followed by All Souls Day — like All Saints Day but for those who do not have their saint licenses and in most cases even their saint learners permits. Into this we’ve stirred a healthy dose of old, spooky stories, even fairy tales.

Ever since I got the only good thing I know of that resulted of COVID-19, my interest in the Japanese art form called “anime,” I’ve been drawn to Japan’s ancient culture. At first it was to help me understand references in the shows themselves, but it soon fascinated me in its own right.

Supernatural things fit in strongly there, more so than they do here (though we do have superstitions and stories that are, or were once, known to most everyone). In Japan there is the belief that everything in the universe carries a spark of the divine. Each mountain is believed to be the home of its own deity. Indeed, many things are thought to bear their own deities.

Those gods are to be respected, their forbearance sought. This takes many forms. For example, if you are embarking on a journey, the people who wave goodbye might bang two rocks together to bring good fortune and safety. At holidays people going to temples, or those attending festivals, might purchase their fortunes for the coming year. Festivals are frequently attached to some deity, and when they’re not they’re in honor of some crop or product in hope that the gods look favorably upon it during the coming season. In the Hokkaido city of Hakodate, for example, the squid festival is hoped to please whatever gods have jurisdiction — many deities can be involved, when it’s something as complicated as catching squid — in hope of a healthy catch.

I suppose the Japanese people are believers in about the same proportion that we are, though many more believe to some extent, the way we somewhere deep inside embrace superstitions. It’s a constant undercurrent.

There’s some confusion, too, as to what constitutes a god, what is a demon, and what is a yokai. It’s not as easy as you’d guess. In Noboribetsu, a town in southern Hokkaido, demons are approached as deities, as they are in some other towns on the other islands. And there are shrines all over the country, some dedicated to local gods, some to yokai, and even some to demons. There are festivals to summon gods and drive away demons, some for yokai, some to welcome demons — mix and match. It is a lot more complicated than “God good, devil bad.”

Japan’s approach to the supernatural, then, is confusing. The national television service, NHK, has covered these subjects interestingly and respectfully. And they are indeed interesting and worthy of respect. Recently NHK started a series about yokai. I looked forward to it. But what I’ve seen so far has been disappointing. For instance, the fascinating tale of a yokai called Ubume gets converted into a sociological demand for women’s empowerment or something. A worthwhile goal, no doubt, but the tradition predates such thoughts by a lot.

As so often seems to be the case, the soul of Japanese culture may best be found in anime (or manga, if that is to your taste). While many anime have supernatural aspects, three of my favorites are devoted to the subject and each in its way is excellent.

I’ve touched before on the Monogatari series, based on the writing of the palindromic genius NisiOisiN. Despite some looking, I haven’t been able to determine if the fantastic beings at the center of his stories are traditional or his inventions. They’re great either way, though it would be better if they have been part of the broader body of belief.

Another favorite, largely because it is very relaxing though you wouldn’t expect it to be, is Mushi-shi. Mushi in Japanese is a bug, a creepy crawly. In the series, mushi are living things outside the usual rules of living things, that do all kinds of mischief. Some are harmless, while some are dangerous. The mushi-shi are an order of adventurers who keep them under control. In the series mushi-shi are exemplified by one fellow who travels from town to town, a terribly crumpled cigarette between his lips, tending to whatever problems the mushi create.

I’m just now watching, and so far entirely loving, GeGeGe no Kitaro. The version I’m watching is from 2018, something like the fifth remake of the series, based on the manga of Mizuki Shigeru. It was originally called Hakaba Kitarō, or “Kitaro of the Graveyard”; GeGeGe turns out to have been Mizuki’s childhood nickname.

Kitaro, we learn, is the last member of a distinguished family of yokai. He has established a well-hidden mailbox where humans who are having trouble with yokai can call on him to intervene. Somehow, those who need his help find the mailbox.

The stories are especially pleasing because most of the yokai mentioned are actually found in Japanese folklore and religion. Occasionally a yokai gets invented for the story, and there is discussion of making humans into yokai — which is how many of the ones in folklore came to be. (I suppose I should mention that the series is subtitled, which is sometimes irritating but not here. It is fun to catch the English loan words that come along.)

The cast of characters is interesting and mostly lovable. There is of course Kitaro, who is a young boy. His father is there, too, in the form of an eyeball with a tiny naked human body. He is fond of bathing in the Japanese tradition, but he does so in a cracked teacup, often in some kind of tea. He is known as “Daddy Eyeball-san.” Others include “Old Man Crybaby,” “Sand Witch,” Neko Musume, which translates as “Cat-chick,” a Lurch-like yokai called “Wally Wall,” and others, as well as a human girl they like named Mana. The comical villain is a half-human, half rat called Rat Man-san. (A friend in Japan refers to him as the “Mouse Man,” so translation may be imprecise.) We see only one of Kitaro’s eyes; his hair sweeps down in front of the other — if it is there. This might tell us something.

Mizuki Shigeru was born in 1922 and from an early age showed talent as an artist. He listened to and absorbed the ghost stories he heard. He looked forward to a bright career, but at age 20 he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army. He was sent to the island of New Britain, got malaria, and in an air raid had his left arm blown off. (This makes me wonder if that is reflected in Kitaro’s never-seen eye. I’m 33 episodes into it; there are 97 in all, so I might learn more about his eye. I’d be surprised if I didn’t.) After the war Mitzuki would work at other jobs while drawing in his spare time before he achieved manga success. Over the course of his career he would write and draw both fiction and nonfiction books, the latter often on military topics. He died in 2015. Though born in Osaka, he grew up in Sakaiminato, a seaside village where today there is a Mizuki Shigeru Road lined with sculptures of yokai. There are episodes of GeGeGe no Kitaro that are set in Sakaiminato. The war’s influence is reflected in an episode having to do with flowers that mysteriously appear each year. It will make you cry. (Many anime have at least one episode that impart that effect.)

World War II in the Pacific remains a very serious subject in Japan. You will not watch NHK for a week without seeing reference to it and especially to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So it’s not surprising to find references to it in Mizuki’s work.

There is other unexpected commentary in GeGeGe no Kitaro. I took particular note of an episode in which Malay yokai came to Japan and brought their customs, traditions, and behaviors with them, to the annoyance and inconvenience of Kitaro and his friends. Kitaro tells them, “Japan has the saying, ‘one should conform to the custom of the land.’” To which the leader of the alien yokai replies, “Respecting diversity is the mainstay of international norms! Diversity! Inclusion! Political correctness!” He then called Japan’s human rights practices “medieval” (which could not be further from the truth.) Fortunately, in the next scene their enemy from back home showed up and killed them. Earlier, the aliens had prepared a revolting meal for their hosts and rather than cause embarrassment Kitaro and the gang ate it and even pretended to like it, as is the Japanese way.

But I was startled by the exchange, in an anime, because it described a continuing problem in real-world Japan — as it is in the real-world United States. Being an island nation, immigration is only a fairly recent issue there. Immigrants clinging to their old ways rather than assimilating is an even more recent one. It was made possible by the Meiji Restoration in 1868, essentially exposing Japan to the West and its influences. Which, coincidentally, got its beginning when Commodore Matthew Perry opened to western ships the port at the same Hakodate mentioned above, in 1854.

It shouldn’t be a surprise when, in the next episode, the all-powerful master villain head of Western yokai is identified as American, named “Backbeard” (there being no “L” as we know it in Japanese). The following episodes will tell whether Japanese yokai can defeat the more powerful Western ones. This has to do with a grudge dating back to Meiji and, perhaps, a fond hope of something like a counter-restoration. But it is surprising to find this kind of thing in anime. Less surprising, alas, is mention of the “Brigadoon Project,” which resembles the Mantattan Project, in a story arc that recalls both Lord of the Rings and World War II, with the One Ring perhaps filling in for uranium.)

I’ve digressed, as did the series. I do not know whether the anime studio, Toei Animaton, added this or if it was in Mizuki’s original manga. As thought provoking as the diversion is, it soon gets back to the real yokai of history and legend.

Part of the underlying theme is that people in Japan no longer give gods, demons, and yokai the respect they deserve. In an early episode the thunder god, Kaminari-sama, complains that people no longer run away when he pounds his drum. They no longer fear that he will come and take their belly buttons. From that hint, followed by a dab of research, I learned that Japanese parents used to make their children come indoors when thunderstorms approached by telling them Kaminari-sama would catch them and steal their belly buttons.

I already knew that parnts told misbehaving children that if they didn’t straighten up they would “call the oni!” There are popular oni festivals today, in which hideously attired and masked “oni” terrify small children. Do not toy with the oni.

I did not know until Kotaro what kappa are really after, and I’ve written about them before. These turtle-like yokai love cucumbers, but is your shirikodama that they seek. You do not want them to get it.

There are real creatures thought to be yokai, too. The tanuki, or Japanese raccoon dog, is something of an imp. The current thinking it that it is a nice one, but that could be because it can, like the kappa, be made into a useful advertising character that way.

Halloween is two weeks from tomorrow. Episode 30 of GeGeGe no Kitaro is an actual Halloween episode, but not as you might imagine it. Rather than deal with the crass commercialization that our never-quite-a-holiday has become, I’m going to go deeper into the often devoutly believed Japanese stories of gods, demons, and yokai, which are as least as exciting as our ghost stories were before they went stale.

Said Kitaro, “The world you see isn’t all there is. There are things you can’t see . . . in the darkness behind you . . .”

Maybe you’d enjoy them. I do.