Yokai of Kansai

The beast that rides the lightning down — in some tellings tearing apart the tree it lands in.

A centipede wound seven and a half times around Mount Mikami, killed by an arrow the archer had spat on.

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

A short, thick snake shaped like a wooden mallet. Japanese towns have offered reward money for one since 1989.

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

The same growing giant that other regions call taka-nyūdō, but a bōzu here.

It stands in the road and keeps getting taller as long as you keep looking up.

Hide-and-seek played alone, with a stuffed doll, from a set of instructions posted in 2007.

Someone beats a mat somewhere nearby, over and over. Nobody is there, and there is no mat.

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

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

Something that cries 'chi, chi, chi' like a sparrow and follows you, front and behind, on a mountain road at night.

A red-robed monk who turns up in three unrelated stories — a stolen temple bell, a court omen, and a lantern on the shore.

A monk who burned himself alive on Toribeyama, still wrapped in his own flames.

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

Sparks that cling to a traveler's straw cape on rainy nights—and multiply if you try to brush them off.

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

An infant that licks the oil from lamps—perhaps, Sekien wondered, the reborn ghost of an oil thief.

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

Cold blue 'demon-fires' that flicker in graveyards and wetlands, said to be born of the dead.

A bald figure on a Kyoto road with a single shining eye where its anus should be.

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

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

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

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

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

A ghostly ox-carriage bearing a huge, glaring face that drifts through misty nights.

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

Footsteps with no body that follow a person walking a dark road at night. Step to the side, let it go first, and it leaves.

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

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

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

A Japanese merfolk—part human, part fish—whose flesh grants immortality to whoever eats it.

A colossal giant whose footsteps shaped Japan's lakes, hills, and valleys.

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

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

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

Whirlwind weasels that slash a traveler's legs with sickle-like claws, leaving painless wounds.

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

A giant earth spider that ensnares heroes in monstrous webs.

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

A chimeric night beast: monkey's face, tiger's limbs, snake for a tail.

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

A proud mountain spirit with a red face and long nose, master of martial arts.

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