yokai – VoVatia (original) (raw)

Tag Archives: yokai

Anthony’s Animals, Part 2: Plus Plants

Continuing from my earlier post on fantastic beings in Gustave Flaubert’s The Temptation of Saint Anthony, here are a few other sorts of mythical animals who appear but don’t get lines: a Tragelaphus, Myrmecoles, Askar, Pastincaca, Presteros, Mirag, Phalamant, Senad, … Continue reading →

Posted in African, Animals, Arabian, Art, Chinese, Dragon Quest, Egyptian, Final Fantasy, Islam, Japanese, L. Frank Baum, Monsters, Mythology, Oz, Oz Authors, Poetry, Pokémon, Religion, Video Games | Tagged aksar, alexander the great, antelopes, antlions, apocalypse, askar, asps, bears, bestiaries, bunicorns, cebus, cecil harvey, cepub, cepus, clark ashton smith, dabbat al-ardd, dedaim trees, diodorus siculus, dipsas, dorothy and the wizard in oz, dragons, eggsecutor, exeggcute, final fantasy iv, gustave flaubert, hell, horned rabbits, jimenju, kesrick, king solomon, lin carter, mangaboos, miraj, monkeys, moses, muhammad, myrmecoleons, pastinaca, phalmant, pliny the elder, presteros, quran, rabbits, ring of solomon, rosa joanna farrell, samuel bochart, senad, sinad, snakes, the garden of adompha, the temptation of saint anthony, tragelaphus, waq-waq tree, weasels, yokai, zabraq, zaqqum tree |

Stay Out of the Deep End

I’m going to guess you want more fish-people, but I’ll admit I’m very bad at predicting what other people want. So let’s just say I want to write more about fish-people. I often go to TV Tropes to see examples … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Art, Australian, Babylonian, Breath of Fire, Cartoons, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Games, Greek Mythology, Health, Humor, Japanese, Language, Magic, Mana/Seiken Densetsu, Mario, Monsters, Mythology, Pacific, Relationships, Sexuality, Television, Video Games, Zelda | Tagged amabie, breath of fire ii, bubble bobble, deep ones, desert hags, dorrie, dragon quest iii, dragon quest vi, dragon quest vii, dungeons and dragons, final fantasy adventure, final fantasy ix, final fantasy mystic quest, final fantasy vii, final fantasy xv, fish, glaucus, gobi, goblins, gracos, h.p. lovecraft, king bowser koopa, lochladies, manillo, mermaids, mermen, mertropolis, oannes, ocarina of time, princess ruto, sahagin, sahuagin, sekolah, sharks, super friends, super mario bros. 3, super mario odyssey, sword of mana, tv tropes, water hags, yokai, zoras |

A Thousand Thousand Slimy Things Lived On

I wrote about Slimes in the Dragon Quest series eleven years ago, and mentioned the fact that they were inspired by Creeping Cruds from Wizardry, but Akira Toriyama drew them as cute. There was also a mention of Slimes in … Continue reading →

Posted in Board Games, Cartoons, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Focus on the Foes, Food, Games, Gender, Japanese, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Video Games | Tagged akira toriyama, amoebas, at the mountains of madness, bavarois, black pudding, creeping cruds, custard, dungeon!, dungeons and dragons, final fantasy ii, final fantasy iv, flan, flan princesses, gelatinous cubes, green slime, h.p. lovecraft, jelly, moon, mousse, nuppeppo, onward, oozes, pink puffs, pudding, queen slime, she-slimes, shoggoths, slime, slimes, the blob, wizardry, world of final fantasy, yokai |

Nobody Ever Suspects the Butterfly

Picture by Carsten Witte In this post about a Chinese drama, there’s a mention of butterfly demons, and some possibilities as to how this links to mythology. Butterflies are apparently considered manifestations of the soul in Greek, Chinese, and Japanese culture. … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Aztec, Chinese, Dragon Quest, Greek Mythology, Japanese, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Native American, Roman, Urban Legends, Video Games, Zelda | Tagged aoyama, batterflies, betterflies, butterflies, caterpillars, cupid and psyche, demons, dread admirals, ghosts, godzilla, insects, itzpapalotl, mothman, mothra, moths, mothula, okiku, okiku mushi, psyche, shinchu, souls, yokai |

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wisp

The term “Will o’ the Wisp” refers to a sort of light that appears over swamps and marshes, caused by photon emissions from gases. Or at least that’s the scientific explanation. There’s a lot of folklore devoted to these weird … Continue reading →

Posted in Animal Crossing, Animals, Authors, British, Christianity, Dragon Quest, Etymology, Fairy Tales, Final Fantasy, German, J.R.R. Tolkien, Japanese, Lewis Carroll, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Plays, Poetry, Religion, Science, Scottish, South American, Video Games, William Shakespeare | Tagged a midsummer night's dream, ariel, boitata, bram stoker, dracula, dragon quest iv, fairies, frodo baggins, ghosts, gollum, hobbits, ignis fatuus, irrwisch, jack o' lantern, john milton, karl haupt, lord of the rings, lost souls, paradise lost, puck, rogue wispers, samwise gamgee, snarks, st. elmo's fire, st. erasmus of formia, the hunting of the snark, the tempest, tonberries, umibozu, will o' the wisp, wisp, wisps, yokai |

Something Old, Something Nue

I was looking at the Wikipedia page listing flying mythological creatures. There were many I’d either already written about or didn’t appear to have much information, but I did take some interest in the Nue, a kind of yokai from … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Breath of Fire, Japanese, Monsters, Mythology, Video Games | Tagged breath of fire iii, emperor konoe, i no hayata, minamoto no yorimasa, nue, nuezuka, samurai, shishio, swords, tanuki, thrush, yokai |

Weasels on the Wind

Another mythical Japanese creature, or yokai, that came up in the Pokémon videos I talked about last week is the kamaitachi, the probable inspiration for the Sneasel. The name kamaitachi literally means “sickle weasel,” and that’s basically what they are, … Continue reading →

Posted in Animals, Chinese, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Humor, Japanese, Language, Monsters, Mythology, Pokémon, Video Games | Tagged cyclown, demons, four fiends, kamaitachi, quiongqi, razor wind, si xiong, sickles, sneasel, weasels, yokai |

Sinking the Stinking One

The Storm Runner, by J.C. Cervantes – This is another book from the Rick Riordan Presents label, and there’s a definite pattern to most of these. A kid who has trouble fitting in with their peers finds out they’re the … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Aztec, Book Reviews, Catholicism, Christianity, Greek Mythology, incryptid, Japanese, Magic, Mayan, Monsters, Music, Mythology, Native American, Philosophy, Prejudice, Religion, Rick Riordan, seanan mcguire | Tagged a wizard in rhyme, ah-puch, antimony price, chaos choreography, christopher stasheff, cryptozoology, hero twins, ixtab, j.c. cervantes, jian ghomeshi, kukumatz, magic for nothing, manticores, moxy früvous, quetzalcoatl, rick riordan presents, the secular wizard, the storm runner, verity price, yokai, zane obispo |

Toilet Terrors

There was a link on Twitter to this article on ghosts that haunt Japanese bathrooms, and I thought that might be a topic worth addressing myself. Bathrooms can be pretty scary places anyway, but usually the fear is more that … Continue reading →

Posted in Arabian, Chinese, Christianity, Islam, Japanese, Korean, Monsters, Mythology, Religion, Roman, Semitic, Urban Legends | Tagged Akaname, aki-manto, baal-peor, belphegor, cheuksin, cloacina, crepitus, demons, dictionnaire infernal, empress wu zetian, ghosts, ghoulies, hanako, izanami, kashima reiko, kawaya no-kami, namseonbi, noiljadae, stercutius, sulak, yeosan buin, yokai, zi-gu |

Hair Club for Warriors

I recently heard about both Bayonetta and Shantae being video game characters who fight with their hair. I don’t know much about these games, but from some brief research I found that Bayonetta doesn’t directly use it as a weapon … Continue reading →

Posted in Cartoons, Characters, Comics, Fairy Tales, Japanese, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Oz, Oz Authors, Ruth Plumly Thompson, Video Games | Tagged baifa monu zhuan, bayonetta, belfaygor, demons, futakuchi-onna, genie, hair, inhumans, jack pumpkinhead of oz, jinn, kabuki, kabuki quantum fighter, lian nichang, marvel comics, medusa, nintendo power, rapunzel, shantae, tangled, white haired witch, witches, yokai |