Yōkai Boom
The Yōkai Boom changed how Yōkai would be viewed and celebrated within Japanese folklore and culture.
Originally Yōkai were celebrated as being a part of the life of the Japanese, but modern life and lighting have made Yōkai a part of all their fiction (Reider, 162). The Yōkai Boom is the increase in popularity of Yōkai after World War II. There are two primary waves of popularity involved with the Yōkai Boom.
The first wave came about in the 1960s with the manga Gegege no Kitaro (Alt "Mizuki's War-Haunted Life"). The second wave came about in the 1980s and 1990s with an amalgamation of manga, research, films, fiction, and other manifestations of Yōkai in popular culture.
The difference between the first and second waves is the popularity and profitability of Yōkai work in Japan. Yōkai became massively profitable and more pop culture works began to integrate Yōkai folklore and creatures in their works. In the second wave popular movies, games, and anime like My Neighbor Totoro, Pokemon, Yugioh, Ringu all experienced massive popularity and further pushed Yōkai into the national consciousness (Foster, Shinonome 72). The Yōkai Boom continues to this day with games and anime such as Yo-Kai Watch, which was the highest-selling game in Japan in 2014, and the manga Jujutsu Kaisen the 6th ranked media franchise by sales in Japan, which deals with young sorcerers fighting cursed spirits to protect the psyche of Japan. On the following page, I will show two creators and their works that are credited for both waves.
Gegege no Kitaro and Mizuki.
Gegege No Kitaro created by Shigeru Mizuki is credited for being the manga that created the Yōkai Boom. Gegege No Kitaro brought the folklore of Yōkai back into the national consciousness of Japan (Shamoon 280). The manga focuses on a young boy named Kitaro the last of a Ghost tribe. He goes on adventures with many creatures of Yōkai legend. Just like in the myths some of the Yōkai are friendly, humorous, evil, and mischievous. The author Mizuki drew reference from old Japanese folklore such as the story of Momotaro, who was a young hero defending Japan from Yōkai. Mizuki also drew influence from his time within the Japanese military in World War II. Mizuki's work is credited with creating the first wave of the boom.
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Two depictions of Yōkai in Spirited Away.
Tree spirits in the movie are based on the Yōkai Kodama, which inhabit trees older than 100 years old.
Totoro is based loosely on Yōkai.
Two depictions of Yōkai in Spirited Away.
Studio Ghibli
According to Michael Foster, who is an academic expert on Yōkai. Studio Ghibli is one of the largest animation studios in the world and is very prestigious, Ghibli is credited for taking the popularity of Yōkai into the stratosphere. The works of Studio Ghibli are steeped in Yōkai lore, and traditional imagery and ideas. Mizuki started the Yōkai Boom with his manga Gegege no Kitaro, but Studio Ghibli heightened the trend and took it to profitability (Ito "Reviving Ghosts"). Miyazaki Hayao's films with Ghibli such as; My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away are all loaded with Yōkai and references to older Yōkai stories. Studio Ghibli films are responsible for Yōkai being mainstream in the late part of the 1980s (Foster, Shinonome, 72).