Ah, I hear the Adzuki Arai song. Even though I’m singing this song, I am usually a harmless Yōkai which washes Adzuki by the riverside.

With the onset of the Edo period, we Yōkai who were once so feared, slowly became an object of entertainment. In the latter half of the Edo period, an artist named Sekien Toriyama created a sort of illustrated encyclopedia of us Yōkai, as if we were a rare rhinoceros beetle or a butterfly. Seeing this, everyone suddenly found us amusing and intriguing. Anyone who once said we were “scary” were made fun of and called “uncivilized.” Yōkai became an exhibition of sorts, a topic of conversation.

The Edo Period, which came directly after the Warring States Period, was a peaceful time that lasted for 300 years. People were apparently so bored that they spent every evening getting caught up in stories about Yōkai. On top of this, the art of woodblock printing was developed and Ukiyo-e paintings could be found everywhere. Most people could buy a colorful painting of Yōkai for cheap, and this lead to our image spreading rapidly across the nation.

Yōkai were extremely popular and even Japan’s most famous Ukiyo-e artist, Hokusai, would often depict Yōkai in his artworks.