Yokai of Tōhoku

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

A white puff that drifts through the air. Keep it in a paulownia box and feed it face powder, and it brings luck.

A carp in a temple pond whose markings looked like a human face, and the 1990 media storm that made it famous.

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

It starts as a small shadow, and the harder you look the further it rises over the roof.

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

It lives in the storehouse rather than the parlour, and guards what is kept there.

It lives in the hearth ash. Poke the ash and it comes out — which was the point of saying so.

Stones fall from the sky with no thrower ever seen, blamed on a tengu.

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.

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

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 house deep in the mountains with the kettle still boiling and nobody in it; take one bowl home and your family never wants again.

Ogre-masked visiting deities who storm into homes at New Year roaring 'Any crybabies here?'

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 voice that suddenly bellows 'Uwan!' from an empty, dilapidated house—and nothing more.

Countless eyes that appear on the paper sliding screens (shoji) of a ruined house.

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

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

A childlike house spirit whose presence brings a family fortune.

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

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

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