This room is dedicated to our friend the Yōkai artist, Chubei Yagyu.

People who create Yōkai art have attracted attention in the world of art throughout many different time periods. There was Toriyama Sekien, who first collected Yōkai designs in the Edo period, the Ukiyoe artist, Katsushika Hokusai; the prodigy of the Meiji period, Kawanabe Kyōsai; and then there was the manga artist Mizuki Shigeru, representing the Showa period. Chubei Yagyu, continuing in the footsteps of such artists, works on this island creating Yōkai.


Born and raised on this island, he has always felt the presence of things that remain unseen. Having always admired the Yōkai, and longing to meet them, Chubei Yagyu has been drawing Yōkai ever since he was a child. He draws the Yōkai who have guided you through the maze-like streets of the town up until now.

While continuing to draw Yōkai, Chubei Yagyu developed a device in his brain that he calls his "Yōkai-Making Device". This "Yōkai-Making Device" is sort of like a matrix or a womb from which Yōkai are born. He uses this matrix to open up the gate between our visible reality and an invisible world of imagination to bring forth all sorts of information, emotions, and even things we cannot see. These things, which grow as they drift about in chaos, eventually become new Yōkai who are born from this matrix and dropped unceremoniously into a mundane world, with their very own names and forms.

His device operates around the clock, continuing to create Yōkai, fueled by the emotions and memories left by those who come to visit Shōdoshima. Though it may appear as though he is the one who controls his Yōkai-Making Device, in actuality, it would seem that he is the one being controlled. While he might call himself a Yōkai artist in the human world, I wonder if he realizes even now that he himself is a Yōkai.