Female Yokai

The ghost of a woman who died in childbirth, begging you to hold her baby.

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

A skeletal woman who, seen as beautiful only by her lover, visits him each night.

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

A bobbed Japanese doll at a Hokkaido temple whose short hair is said to have grown down to its shoulders after the little girl who loved it died.

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

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

A blue-lit specter that appears when the hundredth ghost story is told by lantern light.

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

A pale, beautiful woman of the snowstorm who freezes travelers to death.

A one-legged old woman in the snow. You can follow her prints, and there is only ever one line.

A mountain crone who shelters travelers—then may devour them.

Enter the mountain on the 1st, 9th or 17th and a young woman points at you and laughs; you come down half dead.

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

A sea woman who comes ashore for the night's catch, close kin to the iso-onna of the western coasts.

A woman whose neck stretches to impossible lengths at night.

A woman with a second, ravenous mouth hidden at the back of her head.

A woman whose body or neck runs out to seven fathoms—about 12.6 metres—before she looks down at you.

A woman stretched impossibly tall beside a brothel. Modern writers made her an envious peeper.

A giant woman's laughter rolling down over a fence, and never stopping.

A thieving woman whose arms sprout countless bird-eyes as punishment for stealing coins.

A courtesan whose face and body are entirely hidden by cascading hair.

A woman who licks. Her famous story calls her a cat girl; the kanji we spell her name with today is a modern choice.

A beautiful girl at a spinning wheel by the road. Stop to watch and she turns white-haired and laughs.

A hairy hag from a 1776 picture, later linked to a mountain woman who spins hemp at superhuman speed.

A crooked old woman tied to white face powder, with a sake jug, a stick and a broken umbrella for a hat.

An old woman who blows out the lantern in your hand and leaves you standing in the dark.

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

An old woman with a great snake wrapped around her body, said to be the wife of Jagoemon of the snake mound.

A ghostly court lady in a ruined palace, teeth blackened, watching for anyone who comes by.

A goddess born from Susanoo's spat-out rage: high-nosed, fanged, and contrary to everything.

A cart of old love letters, and the woman shaped from the longing that was never sent.

She waits at the children's graves and nurses the ones buried there.

A shrine bell grown into a dancing woman—the sound of kagura, finally given a face.

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

Knock three times on the third stall of the third floor, ask for her by name, and a small voice answers yes.

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

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

A woman about eight feet tall stands on the other side of the hedge, and the sound she makes is po, po, po.

An old woman who runs alongside speeding cars on all fours, a paper reading 'Turbo' taped to her back.

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

A fox that takes the shape of a beautiful woman and goes after men who are already spoken for.

A shapeshifting fox spirit that gains tails and wisdom with age.

A giant spider that takes the form of a seductive woman to ensnare men.

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

A river otter that shapeshifts and plays tricks, a smaller cousin of the kappa.

A turban-snail that lives long enough to become a shapeshifting sea demon.

The spirit of a banana plant that takes a woman's shape at night and speaks to whoever answers.