About Yokai Almanac
Yokai Almanac is an illustrated English guide to the yokai of Japanese folklore — their legends, the regions they haunt, and the kanji behind their names. It’s written for readers who met a yokai in a game, a film, or a tattoo and want the real story behind it.
How each entry is made
- Checked by machine before it publishes. Every creature must name its earliest source in our source list. Claims about modern manga, anime and games need a source, or must be marked as a guess. New pages are graded for readability. Anything that cannot be traced is left out rather than softened.
- Primary sources first. Every creature is traced back to Edo-period bestiaries, classic ukiyo-e, and academic folklore — not recycled from other “top 30” lists.
- Illustrations made for this site. Every image is generated for this site, in an ink-on-paper style modelled on Edo-period bestiary plates. Nothing is traced from a modern artist’s design or a copyrighted character. The pictures are our reading of the old descriptions, not historical images.
- Readings are labelled as readings. Where a connection is an interpretation rather than a documented fact — why a modern series chose a particular creature, say — the entry says so in the text.
- Folklore, not modern remakes. The creatures themselves are public-domain folklore; we keep to the classical traditions and avoid modern, copyrighted redesigns.
- How the pages are produced. Sources, checks, tools and corrections are all described in our editorial policy.
The byline
Kaito Mori — Pen name of Yokai Almanac.
Kaito Mori is the pen name of Yokai Almanac. Every entry is checked before it goes up: the creature is tied to a named work and a date in a source ledger, and a claim that cannot be traced is left out rather than softened. Both the writing and the pictures are built from public-domain folklore — Edo-period bestiaries like Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyō, classic ukiyo-e, and academic sources — never from a modern artist's design or a copyrighted character. How the pages are made is set out in the editorial policy.
Get in touch
Spotted an error, or is there a yokai you’d like covered? Email info@yokailore.com.