Yurei Illustrated

Sixteen of Japan's most haunting ghosts, in full-page color.

The white burial kimono, folded right over left, the way only the dead wear it. The wild black hair. The drooping hands. And the hem, where the feet should be and simply are not. That look was codified centuries ago by Edo painters like Maruyama Okyo and woodblock masters like Hokusai and Yoshitoshi, and you have been seeing it in anime, manga, and horror films your whole life.

Yurei Illustrated puts sixteen of those spirits on the page, each with a full-page illustration and a complete field-guide profile.

Inside this volume

• Sixteen full-page color plates, one for every spirit.
• Oiwa the wronged wife, Okiku counting plates in the well, Yuki-onna the snow woman, Zashiki-warashi the lucky house child, and Hanako-san, waiting in the third bathroom stall.
• A profile for each one: Region of Origin, Earliest Known Tales, Nature, Appearance, Unique Power, and a Danger Level rating.
• Survival Rules for every spirit. Practical, specific, and only half a joke.
• Ancient kabuki ghosts and modern school urban legends side by side, from the Edo stage of 1825 to the classroom rumours of the 1950s.
• Where each one turns up in modern anime, manga, and games.

Why fans love it

It reads like a monster manual and looks like an art book. Sixteen entries you can open in any order, grounded in the kabuki plays, chronicles, and folklore collections the legends actually come from. And it explains the thing nobody explains: a yokai is a creature, but a yurei was a person.

Perfect for

• Anime and manga fans who want to know where the ghosts came from.
• A gift for the teen or adult horror lover, at Halloween or any time of year.
• Anyone who already owns an illustrated yokai guide and now wants the ghosts.

Turn the page. Sixteen of them are waiting, and whatever you do, do not look behind you.