Yokai of Chūgoku

A toad the size of a boulder in the Suō hills that does not chase anyone — it simply breathes them in.

Something small and dog-shaped that winds between your shins on a wet Okayama road until you stop walking.

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 whale of bare bones surfacing off Shimane in the rain, followed by fish and birds nobody can put a name to.

The cauldron at Kibitsu Shrine whose hum answers yes or no—and whose silence is the worst answer.

A horse's head that dangles from an old hackberry tree, neighing to frighten passersby.

A human-faced calf that is born, speaks a true prophecy of coming disaster, then dies.

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

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