Had an interview with Kate Pearcy from The Book Show on ABC Radio National while I was in Sydney for the show ‘Love, Thieves and Fear make ghosts’. Kate did an amazing job putting it all together…. you can hear it here for a limited time.

The above image is a detail from the original which is almost two metres long.

Chibi Obake (ちびおばけ）

Chibi (ちび, can also be written 禿び​ [1]) is a Japanese word meaning “short person” or “small child.” The word has gained currency amongst fans of manga and anime. Its meaningis of someone or some animal that is small. It can be translated as “little,” but is not used the same way as chiisana (tiny, small, little in Japanese). A prototypical example of the former usage in the original Japanese which brought the term to the attention of Western fans is Chibiusa, a pet name for the diminutive daughter of Sailor Moon formed from Chibi Usagi (“Little Usagi”).[2]

In English-speaking anime fandom (otaku), the term chibi has mostly been conflated with the term super deformed or it can be used to describe child versions of characters.

The final two installments of my ghost tales are being posted here, final day of the show at The Japan Foundation Gallery in Sydney is tomorrow. Listen to ABC Radio National tomorrow (July 3rd) for an interview with me about the show.

Harionago (Japanese: 針女子)

Also known as Harionna (Japanese: 針女), is a frightening female ghoul in Japanese mythology. Her name literally meaning “Barbed woman,” the Harionago is said to be a beautiful woman with extremely long hair tipped with thorn-like barbs. Her hair is under her direct control, and she uses it to ensare men. She is said to wander the roads of the Japanese prefecture of Ehime on the island of Shikoku, searching for victims.

When she finds a young man, she will laugh at him, and if the young man dares to laugh back, Harionago will drop her terrible, barbed hair and attack. A youth once escaped from this monster by closing the door to his house on her; her hooked hair left uncountable gashes in the wood. Fortunately for
him the door was not of the paper sliding variety.

Kitsune （きつね）

The fox (Kitsune), as with the Tanuki (racoon-dog) is a popular character in Japanese folklore and is often seen as a trickster, able to transform itself into human form, most often as young and beautiful women, and any children they bear will often have supernatural powers.

The tale of “Kuzunoha” tells the story of a young nobleman, Abe no Yasuna, who, on his way to visit a shrine in Shinoda, encounters a young military commissioner who is hunting foxes to obtain their livers for use as medicine. Yasuna battles the hunter and sets free the white fox he had trapped. Following this he meets a beautiful young women who tends to the wounds he sustained in the battle.
They return home together, fall in love and eventually marry. Later, she bears a child (a boy they call Seimei who grows up to be very clever). One day while Kuzunoha is distracted viewing the chrysanthemums in the garden her son catches a sight of the tip of her tail from beneath her kimono. Her secret is revealed, Kuzunoha departs to again live her life in the wild, leaving a farewell poem
which asks that her husband and son come to see her in the Shinoda Forest. Husband and son search for Kuzunoha and she appears to them in fox form, she tells them she is a kami (deific spirit) of Shinoda Shrine and she gives her son Seimei a gift, hoping he will one day come to comprehend the language of beasts.

Will be posting a couple more images, this time of my ‘Chibi Obake’ in the coming days!

Thanks for reading and make sure to add any ghost stories to the comments section.

Bakeneko or Neko mata (化け猫, “monster cat”, 猫又)

The bakeneko/nekomata is in Japanese folklore, a cat with supernatural abilities akin to those of the fox or raccoon dog. A cat may become a bakeneko in a number of ways: it may reach a certain age, be kept for a certain number of years, grow to a certain size, or be allowed to keep a long tail. In the last case, the tail forks in two and the bakeneko is then called a nekomata (猫又, ,猫叉, or 猫股 “forked cat”). This superstition may have some connection to the breeding of the Japanese Bobtail.

A bakeneko will haunt any household it is kept in, creating ghostly fireballs, menacing sleepers, walking on its hind legs, changing its shape into that of a human, and even devouring its own mistress in order to shapeshift and take her place. When it is finally killed, its body may be as much as five feet in length. It also poses a danger if allowed into a room with a fresh corpse; a cat is believed to be capable of reanimating a body by jumping over it.

In Japanese folklore, any cat that lives over thirteen years old, reaches one kan (eight pounds) in weight or is allowed to keep a long tail can become a bake-neko ( 化け猫 ) or Ghost Cat (Addis 2001). A bake-neko is a cat that gains paranormal powers after certain circumstances. They also have the ability to eat (bigger or smaller) anything in its way, no matter what it is. Poison is its main food, for example, a certain type of snake (unknown to man). It is rare to see people with a ‘bake-neko’ though some people have been known to see it. The breeding of the Japanese Bobtail may have some connection with this superstition. After a bake-neko tail grows long enough it forks into two tails, then the bake-neko is no longer called a bake-neko, but a neko-mata. Other forms of bake-neko are Maneki-neko (Addis 2001). Most of the stories about the bake-neko are told orally in Japan.

Thought I’d give you a break from the truly spooky and give you a slightly more kawaii ghost….

Zashiki-warashi (座敷童子)

The name breaks down to zashiki, a tatami floored room, and warashi, an archaic
regional term for a child. This child-like spirit is said to inhabit the inner rooms of old houses and other
buildings. It often appears as a little girl but it can be a boy as well. Sometimes it  plays with the children of the house, but it never lets the adults see it.

To attract and maintain a zashiki-warashi in the home, it is said the spirit must be  noticed, appreciated and cared for properly, much in the manner one would raise  a child, though too much attention may drive it off. As the zashiki-warashi is  child-like in nature, it is prone to playing harmless pranks and occasionally causing mischief. They might for instance sit on a guest’s futon, turn people’s
pillows over or cause sounds similar to kagura music to be heard from rooms no one uses. Sometimes they leave little footsteps in ashes. There are different variations as to who can see the zashiki-warashi; usually this is limited to inhabitants of the house, sometimes to children

Although it is fond of mischief, the zashiki-warashi is a beneficial little spook, and houses it lives in have extremely good fortune. This fortune quickly turns to disastrously bad luck, however, if the ghost child ever leaves.

Thanks for the stories in the recent posts… keep ‘em coming!

Kuchisake Onna ((口裂け女, Split-mouthed woman)

The basics of the kuchisake onna have been told in the tea house: She was a vain woman married to a samurai (in some accounts, a ninja) who distrusted her. Believing she was cheating on him, he slices her mouth open at the sides–splitting her face open from ear to ear. She wanders, hiding her mouth behind a fan, the sleeve of a kimono, a stole, or the surgical-style masks now worn in cold and allergy seasons in Japan. She asks someone “watashi, kirei?” (Do you think I’m beautiful?). The answer is usually a resounding “yes” due to her otherworldly beauty, but then she exposes her face and repeats the question; her otherworldly beauty giving way to otherworldly horror. If the person says or does anything besides saying “yes”, she pursues him with a kama (sickle) or knife and replies “I want to do for you what has been done to me.” She can’t be outrun, and eventually slices her victim’s mouth open ear to ear. Women killed in this fashion return as kuchisake onna themselves. In some accounts she is said to run lightning fast, in others she “floats” (due to a famous ukiyo-e artist in the Edo period always painting ghosts with no feet, it was generally regarded by many Japanese that all ghosts had no feet–nothing to “truly link” them to the material world). She has appeared in picture scrolls of yokai and demons as early as the Edo period She was eventually “forgotten” as the Japanese entered the modern age and built a war machine, and then recovered to form an economic giant, but kuchisake onna returned with a vengeance in late 1979. In late 1979 and even into the early 80s, there were many sightings of kuchisake onna. The urban legend probably grew from an actual attack against a child.

During the seventies, the urban legend went that if the victim answers “You’re average”, they are saved. When the urban legend was revived around 2000, the answer that would save you was changed to “so-so,” with the change that this answer causes the kuchisake-onna to think about what to do, and her victim can escape while she is in thought. Another way to escape while the Kuchisake-Onna is distracted is to throw candy or other sweets at her. One other way is to ask her if you are pretty. She will get confused and leave.

The kuchisake onna from the 70s and 80s attack only children, and they attack regardless of whether the answer to her second question is “yes.”

….. still waiting;-)

Nure-onna (濡女, lit. “wet woman”)

Nure Onna is an amphibious creature with the head of a woman and the
body of a snake. While the description of her appearance varies slightly from
story to story, she has been described as being 300 m in length and has
snake-like eyes, long claws, fangs and long, beautiful hair.
She is typically spotted on a shore, washing her hair.

A nure-onna’s intention are unknown. In some stories, she is a
monstrous being who is powerful enough to crush trees with her tail and
feeds on humans. She carries with her a small, child-like bundle, which
she uses to attract potential victims. If a well-intentioned person
offers to hold the baby for her, the nure-onna will let them. If they attempt
to discard the bundle, however, it is revealed that it is not a child at all.
Instead, the bundle becomes incredibly heavy and prevents the victim
from fleeing. She then uses her long, snake-like tongue to suck all the
blood from her victim’s body. In other stories, a nure-onna is simply
seeking solitude as she washes her hair and reacts violently to
those who bother her.
originally from Wikipedia

Well as promised here is Japanese ghost story number two, one of the works currently featured in the show “Love, Thieves and Fear make Ghosts” at the Japan Foundation Gallery in Sydney.

It was also featured here recently.

The Girl in the Blue Dress (青いドレスの少女)

A well-known story among Kyoto taxi drivers is the one about the ghost who appears as a young lady and hails a taxi for a ride.

According to one sightseer’s experience in the ancient capital;

“I took a trip to Kyoto looking for ghosts. A taxi driver said he picked up a young woman along the banks of the Kamo River and started taking her to a place called Midoro Pond. When they entered the dark Tadasu Forest, the driver looked back at the woman, but he saw nothing there except for a damp spot on the seat where she had been sitting.”

If the Kyoto cabbies are to believed, this perpetually on-the-go phantom still haunts them to this day.

excerpt from :  www.japantoday.com

Still waiting patiently to hear your ghost tales;-)

This is the first installment of what will be eight (8) Japanese ghost stories. They have been re-interpreted and recreated in the form of limited edition prints on Kozo paper from the Awagami Factory in Japan and are now showing at the Japan Foundation Gallery in Sydney until July 3rd.

The reason I share them here with you now is I would also like to hear some of your stories. When researching for this exhibition I was astounded at the variety and huge number of ghost stories and folktales in Japanese culture and these were just from those that were popular enough to become common folklore and to eventually be published in English. Apart from ‘Bunyip’s‘ and ‘Dropbears‘ there were few stories that could raise the hairs on the back of my neck when I was growing up here in Australia and I imagine if I had grown up in Japan I could have been influenced to do anything, eat green vegies, take a bath, etc,  should I be told a certain spook be coming to get me if I didn’t.

So please share your stories here… in the comments pages….why? Well, because indeed ’sharing is caring’, however more importantly it is also how culture and folklore grows.

Without further ado here is the first ghosty…. the Rokurokubi!

Rokurokubi (ろくろ首)

A female obake with an extremely flexible neck. By day they are indistinguishable from normal women, but after nightfall Rokurokubi stretch their necks out to any length in search of prey. According to one theory, they are seeking out men in order to suck the life energy out of them.

Rokuro-kubi are yokai that used to be ordinary human beings, but somehow they have come to suffer from a ghostly affliction that allows their heads to float away from their bodies, their necks stretching in between like a fleshy garden hose, sometimes indefinitely. According to some tales, rokurokubi were once normal human beings but were transformed by karma for breaking various precepts of Buddhism. Usually they are women. The rokuro-kubi’s condition is sometimes brought about by a curse, and sometimes as a supernatural manifestation of the person’s desires. The neck-stretching almost always happens at night, often while the rokuro-kubi sleeps, and the freed head may wander through the house perpetrating such obake-esque mischief as sucking the life energy out of people and animals, and licking up the oil of andon lamps. Often they will prowl the forest for grubs, centipedes and worms.

Some of them simply wind up using lintels high above doors and windows as their pillows, and scaring the living daylights out of anyone who happens to peek in on them.

Rokuro-kubi women are often unlucky in love, frightening their new husbands away when the men discover their wives’ unnerving nocturnal abilities.

Ok, so for those of you who heard me speak at AGIDEAS this week here are the links I was referring to as well as some added bonuses.

Go forth and click my friends!

Illustration mundo … you can upload work to this site, there is a forum and regular posts from all around the world.

Drawn …great for inspiration.

Startdrawing …some insane asian talent.

Illustrators Australia… become a member!

The Jacky Winter Group … my agency.

Flickr … you should already know this one.

Etsy …great place to sell and make handmade as well as art and drawings.

Redbubble … good way to find local friends online and get feedback on your work.

Dr. Sketchy …if you’re into drinking, dames and drawing here is the place to go!

Sketchcity …. a big warehouse full of doodlers. Very apocalyptic and end of the world feel of ‘lets just tag the walls before they fall down’ kinda scene. Aceness.

Sketchcrawl …. come on down, don’t you love intimidating the general public by suddenly appearing as a flash mob of sketchers? Or is that just me;-)

Illustration/Freelance advice

Keri Smith

Nate Williams

Great progress blogs :

Jillian Tamaki

Process/Recess – James Jean

…. will add more as I think of ‘em. Feel free to email me should you need any other advice or just want to hear a good story… innocentgirl@otoshimono.org.

Let’s be making happy pictures!

“I’m the operator with my pocket calculator” was inspired by

Little bit slow on my own uptake of late, is due to times of much and extreme busy, busy in a good way though. Thought I’d just quickly let you know I have a show on at Lamington Drive at the moment.

In a gallery made of cardboard I decided to construct a giant birdhouse, out of said cardboard, for my own special imaginary hikikomori to live.

Feel free to go in and have a peek inside;-)…. if your not in the area I have put up all the works and pics of the opening night on my flickr page.