Yokai Storyland : Illustrated Books from the Yumoto Koichi Collection.
Japanese-English bilingual edition, softcover, 224 pages, 25.8 x 18.4 x 2.1 cm. Pie International, 2019
The absurd and surreal world of Yokai is back with many stories to tell. Following the success of Yokai Musuem and Yokai Wonderland, we are proud to publish Yokai Storyland, the third book by Yumoto Koichi, a renowned Yokai art collector who has gathered over 4,000 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, books, magazines, toys, and more.
In response to the great demand from readers who want to know more details about the meaning, context and stories behind each illustration, this time we focused on collecting storybooks and manga about Yokai. Very rare and never-before-seen materials (books/manga) are presented in an immersive life-size, full-page format to give a more realistic feel. All of them are accompanied by full translations and notes to make the manga's content more accessible to readers. Yokai Storyland will be a treasure trove of information for those who want to know everything in detail about Yokai stories. It also presents Japanese culture from a whole new and different perspective.
This book is divided into three chapters.
Chapter 1 explores the world of Yokai stories in the Edo and Meiji periods, featuring seven stories.
Chapter 2 highlights a quirky manga from the Edo period titled Jinmen-Zoshi (The Book of Faces). This manga was briefly featured in Yokai Wonderland, but only on a few pages with small images. But in this book, it is presented in full-page format and with a complete translation. All the characters have the same comical appearance, which should be cute, but actually gives a strange, bizarre, and even scary impression. The artworks show these strange characters having fun in the city of Edo, but little is known about The Book of Faces, other than these depictions, including the origins of these characters.
Chapter 3 is a Yokai encyclopedia with about fifteen characters selected from the book, fully introduced and explained.
