TokyoWaltz
Yōkai Watch-themed Kemamoto Station installation inside Kumamoto Station with visitors and character displays

Yōkai Watch

A guide to Level-5’s Yōkai Watch, the 2013 role-playing game that grew into a major Japanese media-mix franchise of animation, manga, and toys.

Kappa crouching beside reeds in an Edo-period illustration

Kappa

Kappa are Japanese waterside beings whose diverse local traditions were consolidated into the familiar image of a small creature with a head dish.

Winged bird-headed tengu standing beside a tree in an Edo-period illustration

Tengu

Tengu are mountain beings whose changing forms connect Buddhist warning, bird imagery, ascetic practice, martial legend, and local protection.

Long painted procession of varied supernatural beings and animated objects

Kami, Yōkai, Oni and Yūrei

Kami, yōkai, oni, and yūrei are overlapping Japanese categories distinguished by relation, ritual, origin, and narrative function rather than appearance alone.