Japanese Supernatural Beings

324 documented Japanese supernatural beings from the Evil Eye grimoire, including 179 lesser and 66 greater in power tier.

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Ashinagatenaga
Lesser

Ashinagatenaga

Ashinagatenaga (足長手長) are a paired type of yōkai in Japanese folklore—two complementary humanoid figures characterized by extremely long legs (Ashinaga) and extremely long arms (Tenaga). First described in the encyclopedia Wakan Sansai Zue and frequently depicted in netsuke and museum collections, they are typically portrayed working together to fish from the seashore and are associated in some accounts with sightings that presage bad weather.

Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami
Lesser

Ashiya Dōman Ōuchi Kagami

A compound cultural tradition surrounding the Heian-period onmyōji Ashiya Dōman and a hugely popular kabuki drama (Ōuchi Kagami) that stages supernatural episodes—notably a kitsune (Kuzunoha) who is rescued and later marries a human, Abe no Yasuna. The term is primarily attested as the title of a kabuki play and as the theatrical depiction of a historical/mythic onmyōji figure.

Asian dragon (long / loong)
Ancient

Asian dragon (long / loong)

The Chinese or Asian dragon (Chinese: long or loong) is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, folklore, and culture, widely represented as an auspicious, potent being most commonly associated with control over water and weather. It appears across myth, art, and modern public performance rather than as a single folkloric apparition with standardized ritual responses.

Atago Gongen
Greater

Atago Gongen

Atago Gongen (愛宕権現) is a syncretic mountain guardian venerated around Mount Atago as a local gongen (manifestation) of the bodhisattva Jizō and as a protective kami. Traditionally worshipped by Shugendō practitioners, townspeople, and samurai, the cult emphasizes protection from fire, theft, and disaster and developed through honji-suijaku fusion of Buddhist and Shinto ideas.

Atmospheric ghost lights
Lesser

Atmospheric ghost lights

Luminous aerial phenomena reported in folklore and modern observation: balls, orbs, beams, or floating fires that appear in the atmosphere without an obvious physical cause. Traditions variously interpret them as spirits of the dead, yōkai/fairy activity, signs connected to graves or buried goods, weather omens, or as natural optical/electrical phenomena.

Ayakashi
Lesser

Ayakashi

Ayakashi (アヤカシ / あやかし) is a category of yōkai in Japanese folklore associated with phenomena that appear above the surface of bodies of water. The term covers a range of regional reports including atmospheric ghost lights, apparitions, and sea-serpent–type illustrations, and in some locales is identified with vengeful sea-spirits or hazardous marine occurrences.

Ayakashi Sisters
Minor Spirit

Ayakashi Sisters

A named group of fictional characters appearing in the Sailor Moon franchise associated with the Black Moon story arc. In the provided sources they are presented as media characters within Naoko Takeuchi's manga/anime continuity rather than as traditional folkloric beings.

Azukiarai
Lesser

Azukiarai

Azukiarai is a Japanese folkloric phenomenon — a yokai-associated auditory apparition characterized by the uncanny sound of azuki (red) beans being washed or ground near water. In stories the sound can lure listeners toward rivers or ponds; accounts vary between treating it as an unseen spirit, a grotesque short humanlike yokai, or the misattributed noise of trickster animals such as tanuki or weasels.

Azukibabaa
Lesser

Azukibabaa

Azukibabaa (あずきばばあ, "bean hag") is a Japanese yōkai represented as an old-woman figure whose presence is signaled by the sound of azuki beans being handled (azukiarai). Found in regional folk narratives around Kantō and nearby prefectures, she lures or unnerves night travelers and in some localities is said to scoop up or swallow passersby.

Azukihakari
Lesser

Azukihakari

Azukihakari (小豆はかり) is an Edo-period Japanese household yōkai described as an auditory-only phenomenon that produces the sound of red beans being sown or measured inside a house. The tale records audible disturbances and minor physical effects (debris falling) but no visible apparition or harmful actions.

Azumi-no-isora
Lesser

Azumi-no-isora

Azumi-no-isora (阿曇磯良) is a Shinto kami of the seashore and the ancestral deity of the Azumi people. He is attested in late legends as a lesser sea deity who acted as a navigator in a story involving the loan of the tide jewels to Empress Jingū and is worshiped at several coastal shrines.

Azure Dragon (Qīnglóng)
Ancient

Azure Dragon (Qīnglóng)

The Azure Dragon (青龙 / 青龍 Qīnglóng) is one of the Four Symbols of Chinese constellations and a principal astral/territorial guardian associated with the eastern quarter of the sky and the season of spring. It functions as a cosmological and civic protective emblem appearing in temple iconography, tomb murals, and syncretic links to named Dragon Kings.

Bai Ze
Lesser

Bai Ze

Bai Ze (白澤, Báizé; Japanese Hakutaku) is a legendary sacred creature in Chinese tradition famed as an authoritative recorder of ghosts and gods whose illustrated compendium (Bái Zé Tú) was employed as a household prophylactic against spirit-world harm. The creature’s image and diagrams were used in China and later Japan to identify, ward off, and prescribe avoidance of spectral calamities.

Bake-danuki
Lesser

Bake-danuki

Bake-danuki (化け狸) are a class of yōkai in Japanese folklore: tanuki (Japanese raccoon dogs) that acquire supernatural powers, most notably shapeshifting and trickery. They appear throughout Japan with strong regional concentrations and some locally named, ritualized exemplars.

Bake-kujira
Greater

Bake-kujira

A skeletal whale yōkai from coastal western Japan, especially Shimane (Izumo) and the Oki region. Appearing offshore as a large white figure that is revealed to be a baleen whale's bare skeleton and attended by strange fish and birds, the bake-kujira is interpreted in sources as a vengeful or resentful whale-spirit that portends misfortune and prompted local placation practices.

Bakeneko
Greater

Bakeneko

The bakeneko (ばけ猫, "changed cat") is a Japanese yōkai classed as a kaibyō (supernatural cat). Folklore presents it as a household cat that, through age, long residence, or other local conditions, acquires uncanny abilities such as shapeshifting, speech, and vengeance against cruel humans.

Bakeneko yūjo
Lesser

Bakeneko yūjo

A stock Edo‑period popular‑culture character: a courtesan (yūjo) who secretly transforms into a bakeneko (a shapeshifting cat). Emerging from rumors around Shinagawa and theatrical/print entertainment, the bakeneko yūjo functions as an uncanny motif linking cats, brothels, and urban anxieties rather than as a codified religious being.

Bakezōri
Lesser

Bakezōri

A Bakezōri is an animated zōri (straw sandal) from Japanese folklore, classified among tsukumogami — formerly inanimate household implements that become sentient after long use or neglect. They are typically mischievous, running through houses at night and chanting, and are generally described as harmless nuisances rather than truly dangerous beings.

Bakotsu
Lesser

Bakotsu

Bakotsu (馬骨, literally "horse bone") is an Edo-period yōkai entry depicted in the Tosa Obake Zōshi as the skeletal, flaming spirit of a horse that perished in a fire. It is an iconographic example of transformed-animal remains in Edo visual folklore.

Baku
Lesser

Baku

A composite supernatural creature in East Asian (Chinese → Japanese) folklore best known in Japan as a benevolent dream‑devourer invoked to remove bad dreams and protect children at bedside. Its depiction and roles developed over time from an older Chinese chimera (mo) into a household protective being with a cautionary moral about overuse.

Basan
Lesser

Basan

The Basan is a legendary nocturnal bird-like yōkai from Edo-period Japanese illustrated compendia. Described as a chicken-sized fowl that emits a visible, cold, non-combustive ‘ghost-fire’ and feeds on charred wood and embers, it is associated with mountain bamboo groves and remote villages at night.

Bayonetta
Greater

Bayonetta

Bayonetta is the titular witch protagonist of a contemporary urban-fantasy action‑adventure video‑game franchise created by PlatinumGames and published by Sega/Nintendo. Presented as a stylized, humanlike witch, she wields firearms and hair‑based magic to battle angelic and godlike foes across modern and mythic settings.

Benzaiten
Ancient

Benzaiten

Benzaiten (弁才天/弁財天), often shortened to Benten, is an East Asian Buddhist protective goddess derived from the Indian Sarasvatī. In Japan she was syncretized with Shinto kami and local serpent/dragon spirits, functioning as a patron of speech, music, learning, wealth, and a protective deity whose vows in the Golden Light Sutra promise protection to those who recite or copy it.

Betobeto-san
Minor Spirit

Betobeto-san

A Japanese yōkai manifesting as the sound of footsteps that follow lone travelers at night. Traditionally regarded as non‑harmful: walkers are advised to step aside and address it politely to have the footsteps pass.

Binbōgami
Lesser

Binbōgami

A kami of poverty in Japanese folklore said to inhabit people or houses and bring sustained lack, misfortune, and domestic hardship. Treated as a negotiable household spirit, it can be driven off, lured away, temporarily enshrined, or transformed by hospitality according to regional tales and ritual advice.

Biwa-bokuboku
Lesser

Biwa-bokuboku

A tsukumogami yōkai originating in Japanese folklore: an anthropomorphic instrument‑spirit modeled on the biwa that becomes animate after long use or long neglect. It is nocturnal, often described as singing and plucking while lamenting neglect, and may meet other tsukumogami for noisy gatherings.

Black Turtle‑Snake (Xuánwǔ / Genbu)
Greater

Black Turtle‑Snake (Xuánwǔ / Genbu)

A composite cosmological guardian from East Asian tradition (Chinese: 玄武, Xuánwǔ; Japanese: Genbu) that functions as the northern member of the Four Symbols. Represented iconographically as a tortoise intertwined with a snake, it orders sky and landscape (north, winter, seven lunar mansions) and is venerated in temples, palace gates, and funerary contexts as a protective presence.

Boroboroton
Lesser

Boroboroton

A tsukumogami yōkai that is an animate, tattered futon which comes to life at night. Traditional accounts describe it as rising, throwing its former owner from bed, and attempting to twine around the sleeper's head and neck in revenge for neglect; alternative accounts depict it joining other tsukumogami in noisy gatherings.

Bulgasari (iron-eating monster)
Lesser

Bulgasari (iron-eating monster)

Bulgasari (불가사리, also romanized Bulgasali) is a kaiju-style iron-eating monster originating in mid-20th-century Korean cinema. The creature is best known from the lost 1962 South Korean film Bulgasari, in which a martial artist (Nam Hyeong) is resurrected as the iron-eating monster to enact revenge on his murderers; a distinct later North Korean film titled Pulgasari (1985) is related in film-history discussions but is a separate production.

Bunbuku Chagama
Lesser

Bunbuku Chagama

A Japanese folktale figure—typically a tanuki (raccoon dog)—that uses shapeshifting to become an ordinary tea-kettle (chagama) or a hybrid half-animal/half-kettle; in the tale it performs acrobatics for a human owner and brings them good fortune. The story exists both as a mukashi-banashi fairy tale and as a local engi tied to Morin-ji temple in Gunma.

Bura-bura
Minor Spirit

Bura-bura

A fragmentary modern-media term rather than a coherent traditional spirit in the supplied sources; the clearest folkloric-like depiction within the provided materials is the fictional burabura chochin — a benign 'wandering lantern' spirit from the video game Final Fantasy XIV. Other occurrences of 'bura'/'burabura' in the sources are mainly Japanese-language titles and modern media that use the lexical sense of 'wandering' rather than describing a single supernatural being.

Burabura Chochin
Minor Spirit

Burabura Chochin

Attested chiefly in Final Fantasy XIV game materials, the Burabura Chochin is presented as a benign 'lantern ghost' or wandering lantern spirit associated with Mount Rokkon; the label 'burabura' evokes wandering or dangling in contemporary Japanese usage. It functions in-game as a summonable minion/mount and as a narrative creature that befriends other wanderers rather than haunting them.

Byssa
Lesser

Byssa

Byssa (Ancient Greek: Βύσσα, Bússa) is a woman of Meropis on the island of Kos in Greek myth who, according to surviving summaries of a myth preserved in metamorphosis compilations, refused to honor Artemis, Athena, and Hermes and was punished by being transformed into a bird.

Byōbunozoki
Minor Spirit

Byōbunozoki

A Japanese yōkai recorded in Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Hyakki Shūi, described as a creature that peers at a person from the outside of a folding screen (byōbu), literally a 'folding-screen peeper.' The entry is primarily a literary/visual bestiary motif rather than a detailed folkloric tradition.

Catbus (Nekobasu)
Minor Spirit

Catbus (Nekobasu)

Catbus (Japanese: ねこバス, Nekobasu) is a fictional character created by Hayao Miyazaki for the Studio Ghibli film My Neighbor Totoro. Within the film's imagined ecology it is a large, animate cat whose hollow body functions as a passenger bus and which interacts directly with the child protagonists alongside other invented forest spirits.

Catgirl (nekomimi / nekomusume)
Lesser

Catgirl (nekomimi / nekomusume)

A fictional character type in Japanese popular culture combining an otherwise human body with feline traits (most commonly cat ears and often a tail). Historically informed by Edo and Shōwa period shapeshifting cat-monster imagery, the modern catgirl functions as an aesthetic trope in manga, anime, theater, and Internet culture rather than a documented religious or folkloric spirit.

Chimimōryō
Lesser

Chimimōryō

A traditional East Asian class of nature‑bound spirits and monsters associated with mountains, rivers, forests, swamps, trees, and rocks. Originating in ancient Chinese chronicles, the compound term unites two paired spirit-types (chimei and wangliang/mōryō) and was later adopted into Japanese reference works as a catch‑all category for various yōkai, oni‑like beings, and nature deities.

Chinese guardian lions (shī, 石獅)
Minor Spirit

Chinese guardian lions (shī, 石獅)

Stone or metal sculptural guardian lions (Chinese: shī, often 石獅 shíshī "stone lion") placed in male–female pairs at thresholds to protect buildings and occupants. Originating in Chinese Buddhist and imperial symbolism, they function as apotropaic architectural emblems believed to ward off harmful spiritual influences and hostile humans when correctly placed.

Chinjugami
Lesser

Chinjugami

Chinjugami (鎮守神) are tutelary kami enshrined to protect a specific building, estate, or region. Traditionally installed at chinjusha (guardian shrines) or within temples, they function within syncretic Japanese popular religion to secure human projects and negotiate authority with older local spirits.

Chōchin'obake
Lesser

Chōchin'obake

A Japanese yōkai depicted as an animate or transformed paper/silk lantern (chōchin). Best known from Edo-period and later pictorial, theatrical, and popular-culture imagery, it functions as a stock visual character of an object-turned-obake rather than as a widely attested regional oral spirit.

Chōchinbi
Lesser

Chōchinbi

Chōchinbi (提灯火, "paper-lantern fire") are regionally reported Japanese atmospheric spirit-lights treated as a variety of onibi. Tales describe them as lantern-like floating flames seen near footpaths, rice fields, riverbanks, and graveyards, sometimes vanishing when approached and sometimes associated with animal yōkai or resentful human spirits.

Chūjō-hime
Minor Spirit

Chūjō-hime

Chūjō-hime is a legendary aristocratic woman in Japanese Pure Land devotional tradition who becomes a nun and exemplary holy woman credited in later hagiography with the miraculous weaving of the Taima Mandala; she functions as a model of filial piety, female salvation, and as a focal figure for relics, embroideries, and etoki preaching.

Daidarabotchi
Ancient

Daidarabotchi

Daidarabotchi is a gigantic humanoid yōkai in Japanese tradition credited with creating and reshaping large-scale landscape features — its footprints form lakes and ponds and its movements are said to have made or moved mountains. It appears in classical place-records (Fudoki) and regional lore, most prominently in Hitachi/Ibaraki and Mount Togakushi traditions.

Daikokuten
Greater

Daikokuten

Daikokuten (大黒天) is a syncretic Japanese deity of fortune, wealth, and household/professional prosperity. Originating from the Buddhist/Hindu figure Mahākāla and transformed within Chinese and Japanese religious contexts, Daikokuten functions as a protector of monastic kitchens and, in Japan, as a beneficent patron of farmers, cooks and occupations tied to money.

Dakki (Dakkiya)
Lesser

Dakki (Dakkiya)

Dakki (romanized also as Dakkiya in the query) is presented in the supplied sources as a fictional antagonist in the Japanese manga Hoshin Engi. Within the manga's summary she is described as a Sennin who murdered the protagonist Taikobo's family; the work itself is inspired by the Chinese novel Investiture of the Gods.

Danzaburou-danuki
Greater

Danzaburou-danuki

Danzaburou-danuki is a localized Sado Island manifestation of the bake-danuki: a shapeshifting tanuki spirit famed in Aikawa and surrounding locales for illusions, trickery, occasional benefaction, and a folkloric status as leader of the island's tanuki who was said to have been deified locally as Futatsuiwa Daimyoujin.

Datsue-ba
Lesser

Datsue-ba

A supernatural old-woman ogress figure in Japanese Buddhist underworld imagery who sits by the Sanzu River and strips the deceased of their garments (or, in some accounts, their skin) as part of post-mortem judgement. She functions as a liminal, procedural agent within Ten Kings / Six Realms iconography rather than as a creator or cosmic force.

Demon Lord Dante
Ancient

Demon Lord Dante

Demon Lord Dante (魔王ダンテ, Maō Dante) is a fictional primordial demon-leader from Go Nagai's manga/anime property. In the narratives Dante is an ancient combatant against autonomous 'gods', sealed in the past and later reborn or reawakened, alternating between human incarnations and fused demonic forms.

Dodomeki
Lesser

Dodomeki

A Japanese yōkai depicted in Toriyama Sekien’s collections as a woman cursed with unusually long arms covered in many bird-eye–like marks; the form is described in source material as tied to habitual theft and appears in a Muromachi-period tale where religious preaching leads to its repentance.

Double Dealing Character
Lesser

Double Dealing Character

Double Dealing Character is the fourteenth main game in the Touhou Project series (Touhou Kishinjō) and the name used in-universe for the episodic incident depicted in that game: a crisis in Gensokyo where tsukumogami appear and various youkai riot under the influence of a Miracle Mallet and an instigator, producing social upheaval resolved by the protagonists.

Dragon King
Ancient

Dragon King

A high-ranking serpent/dragon ruler associated with water, weather, and territorial guardianship across East, South and Southeast Asian folk-religious traditions. Treated as a divine or semi-divine authority (Nāgarāja / lóng / Ryū / Yongwang) who presides over seas, rivers, wells and rainfall and is an object of ritual supplication, especially in rainmaking and agricultural contexts.

Dōsojin
Lesser

Dōsojin

Dōsojin (道祖神) are local Shinto kami venerated as tutelary guardians of liminal places such as village boundaries, crossroads, mountain passes, bridges, and roads. Represented by stones, carved couples, phallic markers, poles, or syncretic Buddhist images, they are locally maintained to ward off wandering spirits, epidemics, and to promote fertility and safe passage.

Ebisu
Lesser

Ebisu

Ebisu (also Yebisu) is a deity in Japanese tradition identified in the provided sources as a god of fishers and of luck. The available references are brief and primarily state his functional associations and the modern cultural reuse of his name.

Eight Legions (Aṣṭasenā / Hachi Bushū)
Greater

Eight Legions (Aṣṭasenā / Hachi Bushū)

The Eight Legions (Sanskrit aṣṭasenā; Japanese Hachi Bushū 八部衆) are a grouped category of Buddhist divine and semi-divine beings assembled from multiple non-human classes whose described function in Mahāyāna sources is to protect the Dharma. They appear as part of the Buddha's audience in sutras such as the Lotus Sutra and the Golden Light Sutra and are represented in temple iconography with locally variable memberships.

Enenra
Greater

Enenra

Enenra (煙々羅, en'enra; sometimes enraenra 煙羅煙羅) is a yōkai of Japanese folklore described as a being composed of smoke and darkness that mostly resides in bonfires and may emerge taking human shape; sources state it can only be seen by the pure of heart and that two types exist: those born as enenra and rarer cases of humans transformed after death.

Five Wisdom Kings
Greater

Five Wisdom Kings

A class of wrathful, mantric protector-deities in East Asian Mahāyāna (notably Japanese) Buddhism, identified with the Sanskrit Vidyārāja and Japanese Myō-ō and described in sources as guardians of the cosmic Buddha Dainichi (Vairocana) and of esoteric teachings.

Four Heavenly Kings
Greater

Four Heavenly Kings

A quartet of Buddhist devas who guard the world by the four cardinal directions, serve Śakra in the Cāturmahārājika heaven, and vow to protect the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Buddha's followers. They are standard protective figures in East Asian Buddhist temple complexes and are included among larger groups of dharmapalas in Chinese practice.

Four Symbols (Sì Xiàng)
Ancient

Four Symbols (Sì Xiàng)

A set of four mythological creatures in Chinese cosmology—Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise‑Snake—serving as celestial asterisms and directional guardians integrated into ritual, astrological, and state symbolism.

Fox spirit
Greater

Fox spirit

A widespread class of mythical beings associated with foxes (often represented by red-fox imagery in many traditions) characterized by cunning, shapeshifting, trickery, and ambiguous moral roles; prominently attested in East Asian folklore and present in modern literature and media as romantic, vengeful, or matchmaking figures.

Fukurokuju
Greater

Fukurokuju

Fukurokuju is a beneficent, long-lived deity in Japanese popular religion, counted among the Seven Lucky Gods (Shichifukujin) and associated primarily with wisdom, longevity, and good fortune. His figure reflects syncretic assimilation of Chinese Taoist star-deity material (notably the Southern Polestar and the Three Star Gods tradition) into a distinct Japanese auspicious deity.