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| Image source: Crunchyroll |
Mononoke. No, not Mononoke-hime. The 2007 experimental horror series created by Toei Animation, spun off from the final entry in a 2006 anthology series Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales. Lauded for its visuals and audio design, Mononoke has seen a recent resurgence with the beginning of a movie trilogy. Since I love this series, and I also love Japanese folklore, I decided to explain each of the supernatural beings that are the targets of the enigmatic medicine seller. For some of the creatures discussed, I will be referring to the work of folklorist Toriyama Sekien, translated and released under the title Japandemonium in 2016 by Hiroko Yoda and Mack Alt.
Also, not so fun fact. This was going to be a video, but Twin Engine--which had the series up on its YouTube channel, took those same episodes down before I could capture any clips for them. So you're getting a 1000-word essay instead. Happy reading!
First we must talk about what kinds of creatures the Medicine Seller faces. These beings are drawn from Japanese folklore and often modelled on beings most often called yokai, a term literally translating to “strange apparition” with no direct English localization. But, wait? Aren’t they called ‘mononoke’? Well, yes. And no. Yokai can also regionally be referred to as mononoke and ayakashi, and draw from Japan’s local Shinto traditions of animism, where everything from rocks to animals to humans to your coffee table has a spirit, and with enough time it can gain sentience and in some cases even divinity. The distinctions between divine, yokai, and even between benevolent and hostile yokai are so fluid as to barely exist. The series puts down more hardline rules about what constitutes a Mononoke and an Ayakashi.
Now I’ve got the basics down, let’s begin exploring yokai. (Oh yes, and spoilers will be present for the series.)
First and last in the series is the Bakeneko, a cat who has lived long to gain the ability to speak and walk on their hind legs. These cats are often associated with evil happenings, but can also be seen. As recounted in Sekien’s work, a neighbourhood in Nagi City dubbed Neko-cho or “Cat City”, is where a cat loved his samurai master so dearly that when that samurai committed ritual suicide, the cat followed suit.
The Bakeneko depicted in both Ayakashi and Mononoke are housecats which carry on the grudge of a murdered woman, which is a recurring motif in Japanese folk stories: the grudge of the dead manifesting in an act of vengeance on the living who wronged them.
There is some confusion between the Bakeneko and the Nekomata, with the two sometimes being confused or interchangeable. The main difference is that Nekomata grow twin tails when they gain their powers.
The second yokai, and the first in the series proper, is the Zashiki-Warashi, a yokai native to Japan's northern Tōhoku region. Literally translating to "parlour child", they are prankish beings who are said to bring good fortune to those who see them. So long as they are treated with due respect.
In the anime, they are the spirits of forcefully aborted children who now haunt the inn, which used to be a brothel under the same manageress. There is a further complication as one of the babies that is hinted to be a Zashiki-Warashi is the living unborn child of a woman staying at the inn.
The third yokai is the umibozu, which in folklore is a giant humanoid yokai of the ocean, which can trigger ship-wrecking storms. In the anime, the umibozu is manifested from the darkness of a priest on board a ship trapped within the Dragon’s Triangle.
There is another being which appears in the anime, but it is not the same being as the umibozu. It is an umizato, a being which is superficially similar to the umibozu but depicted as a blind lute player, and in the anime as a fish-like humanoid reminiscent of some depictions of ningyo, or the Japanese mermaid.
The fourth yokai is interesting because its folklore is something of a spoiler for the story. The Noppera-bo, or ‘faceless ghost’, is a being which manifests as a human without a face. When they feature in legends, it is either hinted to be or revealed as the disguise of kitsune and tanuki to frighten humans. In the anime’s narrative, a complex and prolonged dream sequence has the medicine seller seemingly manifest as the Noppera-bo to help a woman who, after a lifetime of emotional abuse from her family and husband, has herself become a Noppera-bo to escape her inner pain.
The fifth and final yokai of the series is the Nue, which in Sekien’s work is described as ‘a strange creature with the head of monkey, limbs of a tiger, and a tail that [resembles] a viper’. Its name came from its cry, compared to the nue thrush. This encounter, and thus the yokai’s existence, originated in the Tale of Heike, as one of the exploits of Genzanmi Yorimasa. In the anime, the Nue’s chimera-like appearance is reworked as the ability to appear differently depending on who sees it.
Now on to the movies, where we have two confirmed yokai, karakasa and hinezumi.
Karakasa, featured in the first movie Phantom in the Rain, is one of a group of yokai which can manifest from household objects, from trashheaps to crockery to rugs. The karakasa, or more properly kasa-obake, is an umbrella almost always depicted with one great eye, and varying numbers of limbs. In the movie, the karakasa infests the Ōoku, the women’s only quarters of the shogun’s castle in Edo.
At the moment we know nothing about the next yokai but the name. The hinezumi is a creature borrowed from Chinese folklore. There called the Huoshu, it is a rodent said to live in fire. Its Japanese incarnation first concretely features in the 9th Century story, the Tale of Princess Kaguya.
Also, fun titbit. There is a superficial similarity between the Medicine Seller’s actions of cleansing the yokai who have begun causing trouble, and the practise of chinkon, where malevolent yokai or ‘ara-mitama’ were changed through a ritual process into more benevolent or harmless ‘nigi-mitama’.
Also if you want to see some further speculation as to the Medicine Seller’s identity, along with a more thorough explanation of the distinctions between mononoke and ayakashi, check out Bonsai Pop’s video which features a compelling theory backed up by the local folklore.
I am very glad this series is getting love again, and look forward to where the next two Mononoke movies go next. So until next time...pray show me your truth, regret, and form.
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