Evil Yokai

The sake-loving oni king of Mt. Oe, slain by Minamoto no Yorimitsu.

A nine-tailed fox disguised as a beautiful court lady who bewitches an emperor.

The Emishi chief of Mount Iwate, remembered on one side as a leader and on the other as an oni.

A one-eyed man-eater from the Izumo gazetteer, often called the oldest oni in any surviving Japanese text.

One of the oldest recorded oni, a temple demon subdued by a superhuman young acolyte.

A demon chief who held Mount Yuga above the Inland Sea until the general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro brought him down.

The red-bearded giant of Kibi whose defeat by Kibitsuhiko is often called the root of Momotaro.

Horned, fanged ogres of immense strength, often red or blue.

A savage ox-headed monster that haunts coasts and preys on humans.

An oni riding a headless horse, abroad on setsubun night and the year's turn.

A giant earth spider that ensnares heroes in monstrous webs.

An eight-headed serpent that took a daughter a year from one family until a god got it drunk on eight vats of sake.

A thick, mallet-shaped snake with a gaping mouth that rolls down slopes at travelers.

A toad about 2.4 meters long in the Suō hills that does not chase its prey — it simply breathes it in.

A monstrous head that plummets from treetops to snatch anyone passing beneath at night.

A towering bald monk that grows taller the more you look up at it.

A giant skeleton that modern yokai books say is made from the bones of the unburied dead.

The hag of Adachigahara, who offered travellers a bed and kept a room they must not open.

The widow in a mountain temple's back rooms, who digs up the graveyard's dead and strips their skin.

A fiery cat-beast that descends at funerals to snatch away the corpses of the dead.

A monkey-shaped creature with a pointed mouth that sucks a sleeper's breath. If someone else sees it, the sleeper lives long; if not, they die the next day.

A kappa covered in hair like a monkey, which pulls swimmers under and takes the liver.

A scaled water-tiger relative of the kappa that bites children who tease it.

A grudge that outlives the person who held it, and keeps settling the account.

Okiku's ghost rising from the well, counting nine plates and never once reaching ten.

A ball of flame with an old woman's face, born from a woman who stole lamp oil from a shrine.

The vengeful monk Raigo reborn as a swarm of iron-toothed rats that devour scriptures.

A spurned woman whose rage transforms her into a fire-breathing serpent to hunt down a fleeing monk.

The horned, grimacing visage of a woman consumed by jealousy and turned into a demon.

The hour-of-the-ox curse: white robes, an iron crown of candles, and a straw doll nailed to a sacred tree.

A tool thrown out after a hundred years of service comes back with a face on it, furious at being thrown out.

A serpent-bodied woman by the water who lures victims to their doom.

Her hair is always wet. Smile back at her, and she stays with you for life.

A baby-shaped thing in the river reeds—follow its cry and you end up in the water.

Ghosts of the drowned who beg for a ladle, then use it to swamp and sink your boat.

A huge black sea spirit that rises to capsize ships in calm waters.

Seven dead who travel together, mostly by the sea and rivers. They take one living person, and the one they take joins them.

A flaming ox-cart wheel bearing the face of a tormented monk that rolls down roads.

A flaming one-wheeled cart carrying a woman or a fearsome man; to glimpse it is to invite doom.

A dog-spirit familiar that serves a family but can be sent to curse their enemies.

A possessing spirit neighbours blame when a household grows rich fast — and fear once that household's luck turns.

A small snake kept in a jar by a household, which brings wealth and cannot be got rid of.

A cat that gains supernatural powers with age and walks on two legs.

An old cat whose tail splits in two as it becomes a powerful yokai.

An animal that has lived far too long and has stopped being an animal.

A weasel-shaped thing that goes for cattle and horses, listed among the beasts in an Edo encyclopedia.

A hairy beast drawn on a shrine gate, later said to punish the irreverent.

A voice in the school toilet offers red paper or blue paper, and in the typical version both answers kill.

A masked woman who asks 'Am I pretty?'—then removes the mask to reveal a mouth slit ear to ear.

The ghost of a woman cut in two by a train, who drags herself on her arms with a 'teke teke' sound.

Hear her story and she visits in a dream or by phone, asking riddles. Answer wrong and she takes a part of your body.

A tall woman in a tattered white kimono who drags children away on rainy days, said to have once been a bullied girl herself.