Yokai

Yokai are Japan's vast population of folklore spirits, monsters, oddities and supernatural neighbours. Some are terrifying, some comic, some tragic, and some appear mainly to prove that the universe has a sense of humour and poor boundaries.

It is best not to translate yokai too neatly as ghosts, demons or fairies. They are their own ecology: umbrella creatures, river beings, fox spirits, shape-shifters, household presences, mountain terrors, tricksters and things that probably live behind the cupboard because you were warned not to look.

Manga owes an enormous debt to Shigeru Mizuki, whose GeGeGe no Kitaro brought yokai folklore into modern popular culture and taught generations the names and habits of old spirits. Natsume's Book of Friends treats supernatural beings with melancholy tenderness. Inuyasha turns yokai material into romantic adventure. Mushishi is quieter and stranger, while Dandadan cheerfully throws yokai into a blender with aliens and adolescent panic. Ghibli's Pom Poko draws on tanuki folklore for ecological satire.

Yokai stories often ask whether modern life has forgotten what shares the world with it. The answer is usually yes, and the forgotten thing is now standing in the road.

This category suits viewers who enjoy folklore, rural unease, supernatural comedy and the idea that old stories are not dead, merely waiting for redevelopment plans to become irritating.