Pmake you Kitsune, La Volpe. Very intelligent, it can be the benevolent messenger of the goddess of wealth inaries or a perfidious creature that transforms and seduces you, fatally. Or Boroborotonsloppy Futon who comes alive at night, crushing those who take care of it.
OR Gashadokurohungry skeleton 15 meters high. These are just some of the countless Yokai, the monsters that populate dreams and myths From the Nordic Hokkaido of the Demon Orso Onikuma to the southern island of Kyushu.
Real testimonials of the ancient Japanese soul, between natural and supernatural, visible and invisible. Going them over to their territory, out of the ovivorourism routes, means discovering a desuetic and fascinating Japan.
The National Park As-Kuju, in Prefectures of Kumamoto And Ōitain Kyushu. The park derives its name from Mount ASOthe largest volcano active in Japan, and come on Monti Kujū.Tra Monti and Foreste live the “Tenu”, monsters with a long nose.
In Japan, museum monsters
At the end of the nineteenth century he was in love with English Lafcadio Hearnwho from Tokyo failed to the West (his Tales of Japanese folklore They were recently republished by Bur Rizzoli). Today The Yokai they manifest themselves in a little reassuring way manga and animeand occupy an entire museum: the Miyoshi Mononoke Museum (https://www.inte-you.jp/en/places/6817/) in the prefecture of Hiroshima.
The Lafcadio Hearn classic republished by Bur Rizzoli with the preface by Laura Imai Messina.
Kappa, Tenu, Oni are not beautiful encounters, but the waterways, ponds, mountains and forests where they normally reside, definitely yes. We point out to you five, they could be a thousand, suggesting to bring with you, in addition to the classic guides, Two magnificent illustrated manuals: Yokai. Monsters, spirits and other anxieties in Japanese prints edited by Paola Scolavezza and Eddy Wertheim (Skira) e Yokai by Daniel Sastre and Nobukaro Ito (the hippocampus).
A traditional house on a tone waterway, in the Iwate prefecture.
1) Tone, at the home of the “kappa”
Tone, in the prefecture of Iwate (https://www.japan.travel/it/spot/481/), In the north-east of the island of Honshūis a delicious village bucolic. Lots of green, streams and Kappa: green aquatic spirits with beak and scales Which would inhabit the rivers and ponds, arousing horror: they feed on children’s meat. Will mothers have invented them to keep their children away from the risk of drowning? However, the strategy has worked and, to ingratiate these strange creatures, the Municipal Museum and the Kappabuchi is dedicated to them, a small stream with attached sanctuary.
2) Monte Kurama and Monte Takao, in the footsteps of the “Tenu”
To say the least, of disconcerting ugliness, and at all recommendable. Enough A trekking on Mount Kuramanot far from Kyoto, and maybe you come across The King of Tenu, Sojobo. His subjects dwell in forests and mountains And they are of two categories: the Kotengu, crows with anthropomorphic elements, and Daitengu, who resemble winged men with an extra long nose (longer is, the more Yotai is strong).
Here also Tenu: the small Shinto sanctuary of Furumine Jinja, in Kusagyu, Kanuma, in the prefecture of Tochigi.
Not far from Tokyo
Branch, The Yakuo-in temple, on Mount Takao (https://www.japan.travel/it/spot/2103/), just under an hour from the center of Tokyo. Paths or cable car to get to the top, then the view is fabulous. As for Tenu, they are the maximum of ambiguity. A little demons a little of. A little arrogant, methstories and carriers of natural catastrophes, a little benevolent and protective. Know how to deal with them so as not to irritate them.
The “nasuto” tengu in an ancient press.
3) Okayama and the good Momotaro
Other than Pollicino and Giacomino del Fagiolo Magico. From the time Edo the magical child Momotaro It is a pop star that all Japanese children know. He arrives on earth inside a maxi floating fishing on a river, an old woman thinks of eating the fruit with her husband, finds himself a son sent from the sky and calls him Momotarō, from Momo (fishing).
Bravo boy: grown up he hunting for orcs/demons on a distant island, making friends with An eccentric trio: a talking red dog, a yellow monkey and a blue pheasant.
In Okayama, the Shinto Sanctuary Kibitsu Jinja, among the Japanese camellies.
The treasure of the island
Defeating the gang of demons, Momotarō acquires the treasure, he returns home and lives happy and wealthy with his own, it seems In the current Prefecture of Okayama (https://www.japan.travel/it/destinations/chugoku/okayama/), where there is a statue that portrays him with the monkey, the dog and the pheasant, while The island of the orcs would be megi-jima, An islet in the sea near Takamatsu (in the prefecture of Kagawa). Always in the prefecture of Okayama there is the Kibitsu-Jinjaa sanctuary linked to the events of Momotarō, which boasts a corridor three hundred meters long.
4) Gunma, dodging Gashadokuro
At night, better not to wander for the solo campaign. Needless to say. But In the Prefecture of Gunma it should be emphasized. Because it is in those parts that Gashadokuro, gigantic skeleton Wandering, he turns to the fields and devours the head of those who cross. Often associated with the battlefields scattered by the remains of the warriors, it has become a celebrity thanks to a legend illustrated by Utagawa Kuniyoshi in the press “The witch Takiyasha and the skeleton spectrum”.
Gashadokuro, gigantic wandering skeleton that devours the heads of those who cross him at night in the countryside.
During the day, however, go ahead! Between mountains and volcanoes, Gunma invites you to breathe on an outdoor holiday. In the mountain village of Takuminosato, Then, you can try traditional craft activities (https://www.vis-gunma.jp/en/spots/takuminosato/), and in Tambara lavender parkin summer, enjoy the show of 50 thousand lilac plants. But the best are the spa: Kusatsu Onsen is a paradise, And here the tradition is also breathed in the ritual of the yumomiduring which the Amenian staff cools the water of the tanks, shaking it with wooden axes, while placing popular songs. Walking through the alleys in which the vapor of the onsen floats, a stop is a must in one of the traditional shops to taste theOnsen Manjua sweet filling of azuki beans cooked among the vapors of the thermal springs.
5) Fukuoka and “Nurikabe” invisible walls
Fukuoka, the capital of Kyushu, in the South, is an interesting place already of his. Fusion of two cities from the end of the nineteenth century, a port center frequented by the Corean neighbors, has a contemporary Twist: on the promenade of momochi, golden sand and avant -garde architectural works such as the Fukuoka tower, stormed by Godzilla in ’94 and the Asian art museum https://faam.city.fukuoka.lg.jp/en/) is unmissable. It is the fifth largest city in the country and does not give up its more traditional roots. It also stands out in terms of Yakai. Very singular: his own Nurikabe are Invisible Yokai who, at night, snort the road to passers -by. A wall insurmountable that incomprehensibly prevents transit.
Go there for the incredible parade of stalls with traditional food from six in the evening until dawn (Gyoza, Yakitori, Tempura …), for the best Ramen of the archipelago, the Hakata Ramen, for the November summation tournament (the wrestlers run on the street and perhaps the Yokai frighten and do it on the wide). There is also the first Zen temple built in Japan. And there are the hottest, welcoming inhabitants, ready to help us foreign visitors.
The stalls (Yatai) in the evening in Fukuoka, the capital of the Kyushu.
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