Nioh and her sequel to the inexperienced gamer look like the arrogant clones of Dark Souls. In fact, these are unique games with mechanics unusual for the genre and ENT based on Japanese mythology. And this is logical: why invent monsters if you have at your fingertips a huge layer of myths and legends with whole hordes of unique monsters and ghosts. Let’s try to figure out this difficult structure!
One of the key terms of Japanese monsterology is youkai. Surprisingly, the word “youkai”, in modern Japan combining almost all supernatural beings, originally had a completely different meaning. Like most obscure things, the concept of ecai was borrowed by the Japanese from China and served as a designation for a special energy or aura that endows a living (or not so) creature or even an object with inexplicable and mysterious abilities. Only much later did the youkai begin to call these creatures themselves. It is funny that in Japanese mythology youkai can even have creatures and monsters borrowed from myths and legends of other nations. But outside the land of the rising sun, youkai is understood to be creatures from Japanese folklore. The ancient understanding of youkai by the Japanese is quite close to animism – a belief in the animation of all nature surrounding man.
If you have watched at least one Japanese television show, you should know that the adjective “strange” will be too modest to fully characterize everything that happens there. And the roots of this lie directly in the history of Japan: the vast majority of youkai look extremely unusual and creepy. Where are the Europeans with their folklore!
Dirty toilets, washing beans and Samara
Understanding the difficult classification of a youkai is a rather ungrateful matter: there are a great many of their species and subspecies, and there is no unambiguous point of view on who exactly can be considered a youkai. Yes, according to many folklorists, youkai is the common name for all supernatural beings, but some researchers include only creatures of non-human origin and unusual shape in this group. Let’s try to highlight a few main groups.
Yurei are classic ghosts with a touch of Japanese flavor. If you believe the legends, a typical youkai is firmly attached to a certain place, whether it is a mountain path or a small lake, but the yurey can just move quite freely. Endless disputes come from here – to classify these reductions as classical youkai, because they correspond to other signs of yurei. The main difference between Yuri and other youkai is always the souls of people who did not find peace at the time of death, whether it be murder or suicide. The main goal of the Yuriy is to take revenge on a murderer or to conduct a funeral rite, although sometimes there are ghosts who are unable to accept the very fact of their death and terrorize people simply because of hatred.
The Japanese horror film “The Call” (or its Hollywood remake) is quite a classic story about yurey, adapted to modern realities.
And here is the time to present the mononoke – in fact, the same Yurai, but more powerful and obsessed with a thirst for destruction and murder, which, again, fits into the story of Sadako from “Call“. Both the yurey and the mononoke are united by another important property – these are not just ephemeral evil spirits, but former people, that is, those who retained after death death memories of their interrupted life. Among youkai in the broad sense, there are a lot of interesting specimens.
Adzuki Arai is a business-like youkai, exclusively busy washing red beans in the river. If you are interested, then the Japanese have a whole family of “bean” youkai obsessed with these beans.
Akaname is a great reason to keep your toilet clean, because this youkai appears exclusively in dirty saunas and “thought rooms”. A distant relative of tenjoname, who loves dirt, grease and other human waste.
Amikiri is not a terrible youkai, but it has a rather specific goal: to cut all the nets he encountered, whether fishing or mosquito! And if you think this is funny, here are some chilling examples. Amikiri ruined the networks of one poor fisherman, while the fisherman was so poor that he could not afford to buy new ones and died of starvation. Another fisherman, who returned home after a good catch, woke up in the middle of the night with an unbearable desire to scratch his whole body. The cause of the itch was a rugged mosquito net, which ceased to be an obstacle to hordes of mosquitoes.
Va-nyudo is a creep-shaped human head placed in a fire-covered wheel from a wagon. The motive of a burning wheel is generally quite common in Japanese myths, symbolizing suffering and infernal torment.
Gothaimen – it seems that this youkai was supposed to be the personification of the phrase “dull shit”, and not a drop fish at all.
Jimmenju is a whole tree on which smiling human heads grow.
Dodomeks are abominable women with extremely long arms, completely covered by the eyes of birds.
Isogashi – if you were interested in where the creators of Silent Hill got their inspiration from creating monsters, then just look at this youkai and any questions will disappear.
Kamikiri is a creature with claws like scissors. Slices locks of hair from unsuspecting people. Fearfully?
Old mattress, vegetable grater and flying sheet
Another large group of youkai is bakemono – it includes any material creatures or objects capable of transforming and changing, such werewolves. Among the subspecies of bakemono, one can distinguish tsukumo-gami – household items, henge – werewolf animals and obake – all the rest. Even more confusing is the fact that sometimes the term obake refers to not only youkai that change their shape, but also to all supernatural beings that are subject to transformation, including youkai. For example, the same Sadako can be both a youkai, and a bakemono, and an obake, and a yurei.
Difficult? U.S. too. Now imagine that all the bakemono subspecies are also divided into groups with their unique names, thousands of them! It is not possible to describe them all, so we will go through only the most interesting ones. It is important to understand that not all youkai are necessarily evil and certainly want to harm a person – not at all. An old lute that can play a melody without human intervention, or a bottle that endlessly reproduces the liquid that has been poured into it – in a broad sense, youkai are all. This is a separate subclass of creatures – tsukumo-gami, or animated objects.
Bake-zori is a revitalized straw sandal. At night he gets out of the closet and paces around the house, singing songs.
Boroboro-ton is an old mattress that can strangle a person sleeping on it.
Vaniguchi – a temple bell, suddenly growing a reptile body.
Ittan-Momen is a flying sheet. He wraps himself around the victim’s head and neck to strangle the unfortunate.
Kasa-obake is a paper umbrella that has grown limbs, mouth and eyes. According to legend, it has a complaisant character and is able to amuse the owner, but looking at the image you won’t immediately say so.
Korinrin – in mysterious Japan, even old newspapers and books can turn into a dragon-like creature from paper.
Morinji no Okama – the kitchen is generally a dangerous place, but a teapot that has come to life? The only good indication of the material from which this teapot is made is pleasing: only porcelain and cast iron cookware can turn into youkai, so this does not threaten your electric plastic friend.
Narigama – if you have not yet realized all the scrupulousness of the Japanese, then here is another example: youkai in the form of a teapot or a cauldron, but not for tea, as in the previous paragraph, but for cooking rice!
Shiro-unari – the next time you decide to throw out a dirty kitchen towel, think three times, because it may well return in the form of an evil youkai that can strangle an unlucky owner.
Tenjöname is a helpful youkai in the form of a creature with a very long tongue, who loves to devour dirt and dust from the ceiling.
Yamaorosi – a grater for vegetables with a human body (yes, we are also surprised).
It is worth explaining that not every object can turn into tsukumo-gami. According to myths and legends, only forgotten and thrown out by careless owners things turn into youkai, and even then after only a hundred years. It is easy to guess that all this was invented to cultivate frugality and a responsible attitude to property.
Eye on buttocks, invisible wall and rotten meat
Another youkai subspecies – aboutnor – some kind of demons capable of transformation, and, in principle, also fall under the definition of obake and bakemono. Among the other youkai, they are distinguished by their huge size, fiery red skin and an incredible love of human meat. ABOUTnor become sinners who hate everything so living that even going to Hell is not able to temper their thirst for violence. That is what they do, torturing and tormenting other sinners, but they are not evil, however, to become aboutneither. By the way, if you think that you have finally figured out the difficult classification of youkai, then here’s an interesting comment: among researchers of local myths and legends, there is an opinion that the word “aboutnor “in ancient Japan they called … Yes, yes, in general, all ghosts, monsters and other evil spirits. That is, all youkai used to be ranked as aboutneither. And now aboutnor is a group within a youkai.
Returning directly to the youkai: if you thought that all worthy of mention creatures have already been described above – you underestimate the Japanese.
Kambari-nudo – and here again we return to the reasons for the Japanese love for unusual television shows. This youkai is a fan of hiding in latrines and spying on people, moreover, appearing only on the eve of the new year.
Kidoumaru – a samurai killed when he was in the skin of a bull (do not ask).
Kutisake-onna is a woman disfigured by a jealous husband whose mouth is cut open from ear to ear. Yes, we also thought about the Joker.
Kaukagan is a vile cross between an extremely hairy dog and wood lice.
Name-onna – at the very moment when we are already accustomed to an abundance of strange youkai, a woman comes on the scene who loves to lick men.
Nisyu-onna is a two-headed woman whose neck is like a snake. A terrible sight.
Nuppeppo is a piece of rotten meat with a human face. It looks very sorry.
Nurikabe is an invisible wall, depicted, however, quite visible, and even with a disgusting face. Who said Dark Souls?
Okiku – the Japanese loved to come up with youkai for any, even the smallest, occasion. So here we are dealing with Yurey in the form of a ghost of a servant who was unjustly accused of stealing a plate from an expensive service.
Ohaguro Bettari is a distant relative of Kutisake-onna: a woman with nothing on her face. Besides a huge grinning mouth with sharp teeth. What is the source of inspiration for Kitana?
By compiling this extensive list, I am increasingly convinced that the problems with the original monsters have Koei tecmo will not be very long. It is noteworthy that almost all of the listed youkai very rarely go beyond Japan, remaining exclusively local figures, and kaiju has become more widespread in the world. Well, you know, huge monsters who love to destroy entire cities, the flagship of which is Godzilla. True, the already mentioned Hollywood remake “Call“Nevertheless, he managed to clearly demonstrate to the whole world what a typical yuriy looks like, and even for some time brought Asian flavor to the horror genre, resulting in the same Hollywood remakes of the films”Curse“,”Dark water“And”Eye”, However, things did not go further.
You don’t have to be seven spans in your forehead to understand what fears and experiences the Japanese laid in the images of youkai and where their roots are drawn from. The traditional religion of Japan – Shintoism – is something like paganism, which makes the object of worship not a single god, but a host of deities, each of whom is responsible for his own, rather narrow area of activity. The cult of ancestors has not gone anywhere in Japan either: veneration of the spirits of deceased relatives and respect for them is still an integral part of the life of many Japanese people. Most youkai are a frightening image designed to show what can become of the spirit of a deceased person who has committed some kind of misconduct in his life, and how to behave so as not to meet them or become him.
But let’s continue our list.
Rokurokkubi – the image of youkai increasing in size is quite common in Japanese folklore, but here we have something very strange: a girl with an incredibly long neck. True, it is very long. Has a relative of mikoshi-nyudo – a traveler monk with the same long neck.
Sirime is our favorite. Looks like a youkai man, but with a surprise in the form of a huge eye, located directly below the back.
Syumoku-musume is a very strange cross between a young girl with the head of a hammerhead shark.
Taka-onna is a youkai on guard of marital fidelity, frightening clients and brothel workers.
Te-no me is a creature with eyes on its palms (yes, as in the Faun Labyrinth).
Usirogami – yurey with a pronounced eyeball on his head. Well, really, he has a very big eye.
Furutsubaki-no ray is a tree spirit that can turn people into bees.
Futakuti-onna is an ordinary, seemingly ordinary woman, with the exception of the presence of a second mouth, located, moreover, on the back of the head. A terrible sight.
Haradashi – youkai with a second face on his stomach. The Japanese, by the way, call him funny.
Hyakume is a disgusting lump of flesh, dotted with human eyes.
И это лишь малая часть бесконечного сонма существ всех форм, расцветок и конструкций, прекрасно дающего понять, откуда же у современных японцев столь сильная любовь ко всему странному и необычному для среднестатистического европейца.
