The Tosa Obake Zōshi is a Japanese yōkai emaki. Set in the

Tosa Province was a province of Japan in the area of southern Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tosa''" in . Tosa bordered on Awa to the northeast, and Iyo to the northwest. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichidō syste ...

(now

Kōchi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kōchi Prefecture has a population of 757,914 (1 December 2011) and has a geographic area of 7,103 km2 (2,742 sq mi). Kōchi Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the northwest and ...

), and 16 sections about yōkai in total, its creation period has been determined to be from the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

. Its author is unknown. There are two kinds, the private collection, and the collection of the Sakawa Education Committee of

Sakawa Sakawa is a Ghanaian term for illegal practices which combine modern Internet-based fraud with African traditionalist rituals. The term or word Sakawa is an Hausa word which means ''putting inside, how to make money''. The rituals, which are mostl ...

Summary

At the opening of all sixteen yōkai tales, yōkai from each area of Japan gather at Tosa, and in the end, at dawn, the yōkai disperse and bring the scene to a conclusion. The yōkai are presented with a rich local colouring but it is a work that has attracted deep interest as an iconization of the yōkai tales of those times. The depictions present the yōkai in an aspect of mischievous naivety and playfulness, allowing the reader to feel close to the yōkai rather than showing their dreadfulness. The fact that it takes in folktales told in Tosa in the Edo period like the Kechibi and the

Yamajijii Yamajijii (山爺) or Yamachichi (山父)市原1977年、45-49頁。 (or, depending on the area, "yamanjii") is a type of yōkai. Summary It is said to be a yōkai that takes on the appearance of an old man with one eye and one leg. According to ...

among others is another characteristic that is brought up. In the private collection, it can be seen that they were composed from the middle of the Edo period to late Edo period. According to the postscript written when the end leaves were repaired after the war, the head karō of Tosa, the comber of the Fukao family, received this work from Masanari Eisuke the 3rd from the Yoshimoto family who worked for them for years since in

Kan'en was a after and before . This period spanned the years from July 1748 to October 1751. The reigning emperor was .Titsingh, Isaac. (1834) ''Annales des empereurs du japon'', p. 418./ref> Change of era * 1748 : The era name was changed to (me ...

2 (1749), and the sixth daughter of the Takehira family brought it into the family she married into, and from

Heisei The is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Emeritus Akihito from 8 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the day after the death of the Emperor Hirohito, ...

onwards, it has been passed down in that family.る According to the postscript, it was used by a young lord for staying over the night, and the author is seen not as a famous artist of yōkai and yūrei and so on, but rather a nameless artist who lived in the countryside. At the same time, the works of the Sawaka Education Committee collection were, according to the statements in the end of the book, made in

Ansei was a after ''Kaei'' and before ''Man'en''. This period spanned the years from November 1854 through March 1860. The reigning emperor was . Change of era * November 27, 1854 (): The new era name of ''Ansei'' (meaning "tranquil government") ...

6 (1859). It is roughly the same as the private collection and the yōkai tales stated earlier, and thus hinting that this

emaki or is an illustrated horizontal narration system of painted handscrolls that dates back to Nara-period (710–794 CE) Japan. Initially copying their much older Chinese counterparts in style, during the succeeding Heian (794–1185) and Kamak ...

was drawn in succession at that place, or was drawn as a copy of the private collection. However, it can be seen that the sequence of tales, and the characteristics of the yōkai are different, so it cannot be said to simply be a reproduction, and the chronology the owners of the Sawaka Education Committee collection is also unclear, so how the book was drawn and passed down still awaits further research.

Notes

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tosa Obake Zoshi Works of unknown authorship Yōkai Emakimono