Definition:

• Youkai or Yokai are various races of monster and spirits from Japan.
• Obake, Bakemono or Obakemono are beings who have taken on a temporary transformation.
• Yurei or Yuurei is the Japanese term for a ghost.

I know we already discussed this topic a long time ago but after reading from many websites, their given descriptions make me confused. Are obake under the category of youkai or youkai are under the category of obake?

Definitions can be a tricky subject when you take technicality to its heights, but I would say an obake お化け could be considered a class of youkai 妖怪. If a youkai were a category of obake then to me that would suggest that all youkai are shape shifters. The change referred to in the name obake often refers to the being's ability to shape shift (e.g. a kitsune transforming into a human form or a boar transforming into a "demon" form). How people actually decide to use these terms in practice can make the definitions blurry.

>.> Obake...did you use a kanji for "Ba" because that looks more like hirigana "O" katakana "I" and "hi" then hirigana "Ke"

if it was hirigana it would look more like おばけ Just curious cause if it is a kanji character then it is easy to draw so i can start using it. Yep, I used the kanji. It's an easy kanji, so go ahead and start using it comes from the verb 化ける (ばける).

Also, i think Obake can be apply to anything that changes, like personality, emotion, etc. so in a sense, if something changes mood often, or something like that, it is an Obakemono. o.o

on another note, many youkai are created from something or someone else by specific circumstances, like extreme emotions. >.> I think that might make them Obakemono as well. So maybe Obakemono is the bigger catagory?...mmm, maybe. I've read several tales of humans turning into or being reborn as snakes (usually due to some attachment (either clinging desire or aversion like hatred)). Something like that may be considered an obake. I would not personally consider an ikiryou an obake though. Though, I would not be surprised if some would classify it as an obake.

or maybe all of them go like on HUGE vin diagram where some fit in more than one catagory but others don't. so some ghosts are youkai, and obakemono, but others are just ghosts. I would agree that a vin diagram would probably be most accurate in the reality of how such terms are used. That's one reason why it's not always practical to seek really concrete or absolute definitions. It's illusory.

I agree. :3 In fact most terms are able to be used on many many things, so i guess terms should just be used to describe how we personally view something.

Hello folks,

I'm new to the site, so apologies if any of what I am asking has been addressed somewhere already. I am currently working on a revision of a paper on the film Mononoke Hime by Hayao Miyazaki and am trying to get a little more clarification on some of the terminology vis-a-vis bakemono, youkai and tatarigami, which comes up many times in the film, especially in reference to the various animals in the film (apologies for anyone not familiar with the film, I can give more details if needed).

At first, I was referring to Nago as a demon in the general terminology of a bakemono, but after reviewing the Japanese audio several times, as well as doing more research into yokai and related areas, it's clear to me that this may be a little too messy and perhaps not entirely accurate. One site I found stated that a tatarigami is essentially an enraged animal spirit. But suggest that a Tatari Gami (or Curse God) is actually a transformed Forest God caused by some serious rage or anger transforming it (again here is the issue of transformation and obake -vs- yokai from earlier posts) from a Forest God into a Curse God. In the case of the film, it is the bullet in Nago, and the hatred towards the humans of Tatara Ba (Irontown), that would have caused this.

So would Nago be a monster or a god, or would it change depending on how one was classifying various monsters or demons? And my questions is essentially the same for the Forest Spirit, Moro, her two children, as well as Akoto, as they also have slightly different classifications within the film.

The Forest Spirit (Forest God) = Shishi Gami
Transformed Forest Spirit (Nightwalker) = Didarabochi
Moro (and children) = Inu Gami
Akoto = Inoshishi Gami
Nago = A boar Gami transformed into a Tatari Gami
Apes = Shoujou (but apparently these may come from an earlier Chinese mythological context as a red furred animal?)
Kodama = forest spirit, or tree (plants?) spirit
San = Mononoke Hime

San is also a problematic character to identify, since she is called a mononoke, yet is clearly a human, or is she? Mononoke can mean either "monster" or "spirit", if I understand the literature correctly, but usually has a negative sense to it?

So how would people classify these various characters within the framework of discussions about bakemono or yokai? Would a Gami be completely outside, as a god, of this framework? What about a Tatari Gami like Nago? Any suggestions on how to best discuss these variations in a coherent way or more details would be greatly appreciated. Also, this is a long-term academic project I am working on and writing about (specifically dealing with animals, monsters, hybridity and the destabilization of the categories "human" and "animal" through anime and film), so I would love to have additional discussions on some of these ideas here in the future as well, and would be happy to share what I am working on as well with others that might be interested.

Finally, as a caveat, I'm not a Japanese speaker (at least not yet), so I have to work within my limited English framework, which is why I have some of these questions that might seem obvious to others who grew up in or around Japanese culture. Sorry, but thanks all the same.

chris

Sometimes literal translations may give a slightly different meaning. In most cases the term youkai is translated as “monster” or “demon” which is a little vague since youkai are various races of monsters and spirits from Japan and not all of them are considered to be evil. I think the word gami or kami means “nature deity” and as far as I know nature deities in Japan like the Greek Gods are not “perfectly good”. That is, they are also subject to strong emotions like hatred which is the common cause of transformation, thus, making them a bakemono.

Kami are very emotional beings. Just look at the story of Amaterasu and Susanoo. O-o it's like if siblings had super powers and then had a rivalry.

hmm.. I'm new here, and I started become interested about supranatural...
like this one.

could someone mention some ghost name? like Kuchisake-onna, Yuki-onna, Hone-onna, Toirre no Hanako, and the others.. I don't know so much. so please your helps~ ^^

thanks =)

Hi and welcome!

What do you mean by ghost name? If you're referring to yokai, they are not classified as ghosts (although some of them are actually ghosts) instead it refers to any supernatural being (aside from Kami) in Japanese folklore.