Yokai of All of Japan

A shapeshifting badger blamed for roadside tricks nationwide, though the same name has also meant the tanuki or the civet depending on where and when you ask.

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.

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.

A boy you summon by calling your own phone from a payphone. He calls back within a day and creeps closer each time, until he says he is right behind you.

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

The cuckoo that crosses the mountain of death and comes back calling — which is why its cry was never just a bird's.

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

A stone at the edge of the village, given offerings at New Year, standing where the road stops being yours.

The judge at the end of the road, who reads out what you did from a mirror that does not take your word for it.

Fingers on a coin, a sheet of yes and no, and a fox, a dog, and a tanuki written over a foreign game.

A dog with a man's face that outruns cars on the highway and tells people to leave it alone.

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

A child walks past the edge of the village and does not come back, and the search party knows which word to use for it.

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

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

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

A dog that walks the mountain path behind you: stay on your feet and it sees you home, stumble and it is on you.

The classic Japanese ghost: white burial robe, black hair unbound, no feet below the knee.

A night heron whose feathers glow blue-white as it passes overhead—a real bird, and a real light.

Flames that rise from old battlefields at night, where the dead were never buried.

A blind, biwa-carrying giant who wades the open sea, drawn by Sekien with no word of explanation.

A clawed thing that peers down through the skylight on the one night you are required to stay awake.

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

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

Pale floating orbs of soul-fire that drift from the newly dead near graveyards and rooftops.

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

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

A chimeric, tapir-like beast that devours nightmares when called upon after a bad dream.

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

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

The spirit that dwells in an old tree; felling its host brings misfortune.

A small mountain spirit blamed for the echoes that answer you in the hills.

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

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

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

An unseen presence heard washing red beans by the river at night.

A small contrarian demon that provokes people into doing the opposite of their intent.

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

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

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

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

A woman whose neck stretches to impossible lengths at night.

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

A jolly shapeshifting raccoon dog, rival prankster to the fox.

Mysterious floating fox-fires that lead travelers astray at night.

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

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

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.

A mischievous, turtle-like river imp with a water-filled dish on its head.