Keisuke Nishimoto, William Scott Wilson, Tuttle Publishing, (352p) ISBN: 9784805316603. Mythology, read 05/03/25, Paperback ★★★★☆

Strange Tales From Japan

Another folklore book but this time from Japan and once more it was the cover that drew me to this.

A huge collection of short tales from around Japan, loosely themed into several small chapters.

What was immediately apparent was that the style of story telling in these was far different from folklore of Euro-centric origin and part of this was that the endings felt very abrupt most times.

The rhythm of the stories was also strange with more specific details than Euro-centric folklore, but this did seem to give the tales far more ‘truth’.

Full of tales from different parts of the country, tales of ghosts, demons, yōkai, and wrongdoers getting their comeuppance. The mix was just right and gave a really good overview of the concerns and fears of the people at the time of writing these tales. They also give a good idea at how important Buddhism was to the culture of their world.

Overall I really enjoyed this collection and found the format refreshing as all the tales were brief and to the point.