WebToon has quickly become one of my go-to places for digital comics. I’ve talked before on this blog about a few of my favorite series to follow and how the format of WebToons contributes to a new and interesting way to read comics. Today, I’d like to focus on my all-time favorite WebToon, one that … More Lore Olympus Webtoon Comic Review
You’re walking down a dark street at night. Mist is starting to cover the ground making the road ahead of you hard to see. Suddenly you see the shadow of a woman step out of the mist and walk towards you. She looks like a fairly normal Japanese woman and is wearing a surgical mask … More October Mythology Special: Kuchisake-Onna, or What Happens When Ghost Stories Get Too Real
Japan is known for its hungry ghosts, yurei who come back to haunt those who have wronged them or come back to fulfill some unfulfilled purpose before they can move on. In the last post, we had the Manekute no Yurie or the beckoning hand that appears sticking out of empty rooms, and will only … More October Mythology Special: Gashadokuro, the Hungriest of Ghosts
I’m sure you’ve noticed just how much I’ve been talking about XXXHolic, and it’s not just because it’s that time of year when I want to read slightly spooky or mystical stories. The content of XXXHolic hits on a lot of humanity’s biggest fears and insecurities, including the ones from legends and folklore. In chapter … More October Mythology Special: The Disembodied Hands of Legend
Japan Powered recounts one story about a curious thing that happened to a logger out in the forest: “One day a logger was going about his work. Since logging is an exhausting business, seeing as how this was Edo period Japan and the chainsaw hadn’t been invented yet, the man decides to take a short … More October Mythology Special: Jorogumo/Tsuchigumo and Indigenous History
Never clip your nails at night. Make sure to hide your thumbs when a funeral procession goes by. Don’t whistle at night or you’ll invite a snake into your home. These are just a few of many superstitions that can be found in Japanese culture used to scare children into good behavior. Another common one … More October Mythology Special: Raiju/Raijin and the Superstitions around Belly Buttons
The creation of artificial human life has long been connected to alchemy and can be traced back to the first recorded recipe for creating a Homunculus in an Arabic work titled The Book of the Cow. So what does an aspiring alchemist need in order to create artificial life? Well, according to this book you’ll … More October Mythology Special: Homunculi and Alchemy
A.B. Mitford’s Tales of Old Japan has in it an enchanting story of a very particular wedding, a fox’s wedding. He tells of two young, white foxes here: “Now it happened that in a famous old family of foxes there was a beautiful young lady-fox, with such lovely fur that the fame of her jewel-like … More October Mythology Special: The Legends Surrounding Sun Showers
In Noriko Reider’s Japanese Demon Lore, she recounts one curious tale of an Oni: “Shuten Dōji, the chief of an oniband, lives on Mt.Ōe. During the reign of Emperor Ichijō, Shuten Dōjiand his oni band abduct people, particularly maidens, enslaving them and eventually feasting on their flesh and drinking their blood. The concerned emperor orders … More October Mythology Special: The Multifaceted Nature of Oni
This edition of October Mythology Special comes with a true story from a pretty famous mangaka: Mizuki Shigeru, the creator of GeGeGe no Kitaro. Everything is Scary recounts his story on their site: “In his historical memoir, Showa, Mizuki depicts an encounter that brought him incredibly close to the most senseless of all deaths. While … More October Mythology Special: Nurikabe (The Wall Yokai)
Bloom Reviews 