The Book of the Hakutaku: a Bestiary of Japanese Monsters

Kickstarter Success!
over 6 years ago – Wed, Nov 01, 2017 at 01:37:47 AM

Greetings backers!

We did it! $87,978 pledged from 1,003 backers! Over 2900% of the fundraising goal!

Thanks so much, everyone! It's all thanks to your generosity and your trust that a small time artist/author like me can create a project of this scale. It wouldn't have been possible without Kickstarter and all of your help.

So now that the Kickstarter is over, what's next?

Kickstarter takes about 2 weeks to charge everyone/check for dropped pledges. After that, in mid-November, I will be sending out Backerkit surveys. Backerkit works like a webstore, and your pledges from Kickstarter will be imported into it so you can pick your add-ons and stretch goals in an easy-to-use interface. This is my first time using Backerkit, but I think it will make things much much easier than it was during the last Kickstarter, for me and for you!

This month I'll also be creating online galleries to share the art from the books with you guys. Since 80% of the book is finished, that means 80 yokai paintings! During the coming months I will be painting up the last of the images for the book, including some yokai, some landcapes, and finishing up the text, layout and cover design.

I expect all of the artwork and text to be done in January or February of 2018. After that, the text goes to the editor and I start making arrangements with the printer. Proofs will come soon after that, then the book will go into printing. I expect that to be early summer of 2018. After that comes the shipping process, and I hope that can be completed mid-late summer.

So it's a busy few months ahead, and I think you'll enjoy the ride. I will be sharing updates along the way, including all of the yokai, and photos of the proofs and the rest of the process as they come.

Once again, thanks everyone for making this third book a possibility! I hope you enjoy it! Feel free to comment, message, or email me if you have any questions!

Best wishes,

Matt

Hangonko
over 6 years ago – Tue, Oct 31, 2017 at 11:23:33 PM

Greetings yokai lovers!

We're in the final stretch! Just 16 hours left! The Kickstarter will be ending Halloween night, so today is the last chance for people to sign up. I'll be posting additional stretch goals later on, after the Kickstarter ends, but rest assured they are coming!

Since it's Halloween, I'd like to share my scariest yokai of the month with you today. It won’t make you scream and won’t make you cringe in disgust. It won’t take your breath away… But it may just bring you true dread!

*Easter egg: you may recognize the room as the same room from another yokai in The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons!

 Hangonkō
反魂香
はんごんこう
“spirit calling incense”

Hangonkō is a legendary incense from ancient China which has the power to bring forth the spirits of the dead before those who burn it. Those who burn the incense will see the spirits of the dead within the smoke.

The incense was famously used by Emperor Wu (Japanese: Butei) of the Han dynasty in China. After his beloved concubine Li Furen (Japanese: Rifuren) passed away, the emperor fell into deep depression. A Taoist sorcerer, in an attempt to ease the emperor’s grief, provided him with a bit of hangonkō so that he might see Lady Li one more time.

Hangonkō was a popular subject in Japanese literature as well. It appears in a number of Edo period works, from ghost story books to theater, kabuki, rakugo, bunraku/ningyō jōruri puppet theater… The Japanese versions star different characters; for example a man whose beloved prostitute dies is overcome with grief, and a taikomochi recommends he try using hangonkō—a secret incense handed down by the onmyōji Abe no Seimei.

Hangonkō is made from the hangonjū, a magical tree with leaves and flowers that resemble those of a maple or Japanese oak. Its smell can be picked up from over 100 ri away. To make hangonkō, you steam this tree’s roots until the sap comes out. Then you knead the sap to make the incense. A small piece of this resin is said to be effective at recalling the spirits of those who died from sickness or disease.

There is, of course, a catch. Hangonkō only returns the spirit for a short time; and they only exist in the smoke of the burning incense. All of the different versions of the story share the same ending: the person using the incense meets their lover’s spirit one last time, but it only leaves them sadder and more grieved than they were before. It doesn’t alleviate their loneliness, it makes it worse.

There’s an allegory here. Smoke often symbolizes delusion. And in Buddhism the the strongest delusion is attachment to material things—like the inability to let go of a loved one after death. Delusion is said to be the ultimate cause of all suffering.The smoke of the incense prevents those using it from properly letting go of their loved ones and moving on. They’re stuck in the past, in a delusion, and will be miserable until they learn to let go.

To me, there’s nothing comforting about this story. No good moral, no reconciliation, not even a punchline. It just evokes pure, existential horror; the horror of losing a loved one too soon. How do you get over that? Either you do or you don’t… One of my best friends says that their greatest fear is to die alone. Staying alive, however, seems even worse.

Happy Halloween!

The Final 2 Days... (and 2100% stretch goal)
over 6 years ago – Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 01:39:41 AM

Greetings everyone!

We're counting down the final hours of the Kickstarter now! Very exciting!

If you haven't read today's A-Yokai-A-Day, it's a pretty spooky one! Perfect for October 30th, which I grew up knowing as "Mischief Night" but apparently nowhere else but South Jersey/Philadelphia calls it that...

Since we passed 2100% I am sharing a new apparel design: the Yokai Matsuri!

This is a design composed of the cute yokai animals from The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons: kitsune, kawauso, tanuki, and mujina. Here it is on the shirts, hoodie, and happi:

I think it's a pretty cute design. The cute animal yokai have always been very popular, so having them all together on a shirt will look nice.

As I am writing this, the Kickstarter ticker is eeking closer and closer to 2200%! It's moving faster than I can keep up with stretch goals!

Todaiki
over 6 years ago – Sun, Oct 29, 2017 at 12:47:37 AM

Greeting yokai lovers!

Today I am sharing with you another one of the yokai you will see in The Book of the Hakutaku. This one has such a nice and creepy story to it, it's perfect for getting you in the Halloween spirit!

Tōdaiki
燈台鬼
とうだいき
“spirit candlestick”

Today there are all kinds of urban legends about people traveling to foreign countries, staying in hostels, and then waking up in a bathtub of ice with surgical stitches and missing a few internal organs. As much as that sounds like a product of modernization and the trend of global tourism, urban legends like this have existed for as long as people have traveled. Tōdaiki is a fun example of such a legend; although, it deals with dark magic instead of amateur organ harvesting…  

According to Sekien, long ago, a government minister named Karu no Daijin was sent on a mission to Tang China. This was a period of great movement of culture and ideas between China and Japan, so nothing is strange about that. However, when the envoy failed to return to Japan long after they were overdue, the minister’s son, Hitsu no Saishō, began to worry.  

Hitsu no Saishō traveled to China to search for his missing father. He traveled far and wide, and in one particular location he came across something he had never seen before: a tōdaiki—a candlestick fashioned out of a living human being! By some combination of strange drugs and sorcery, the man’s ability to speak had been removed. His body was covered in tattoos, and a large candle had been placed in his head. He had been installed on a fancy little stand like a piece of furniture.  

As Hitsu no Saishō looked in puzzlement at the strange sight, the human candlestick began to shed tears. Unable to speak, the man bit into he tip of his finger until it began to bleed. He scrawled out a few characters in his own blood. Upon reading them, Hitsu no Saishō realized in horror: the tōdaiki was his own father who he had come to China to search for!

Jakotsu Baba (and... 2000%!!!)
over 6 years ago – Thu, Oct 26, 2017 at 07:39:35 PM

Greetings yokai fans!

I can't believe it! We've surpassed 2000% of the original goal today! I'm really touched that so many people around the world are so interested in yokai and want to support this project. Thank you all so much for joining and becoming a part of this book. There's still 6 more days to go, so let's see how far we get!

I've been delaying any additional stretch goal announcements because I have been working on setting up backerkit. However, I wanted to share with you a few new stretch goals.

First, all of the yokai designs presented so far have been added to all three types of apparel: white t-shirts, baseball t-shirts, and hoodies! There are currently 9 designs available! Should we reach more stretch goals, I will begin adding more yokai designs.

Secondly, since we reached 2000%, I wanted to throw in a bonus. This one is free, for all backers receiving a signed book or higher. (The reason only backers receiving signed books or higher are getting it is because those books are being shipped to me first, and then to you. So I can slip the reward into your package easily. The people getting unsigned books are saving on shipping by getting the books shipped straight to them, so unfortunately I can't slip anything into their packages. Sorry!) All of these backers will be getting a bonus yokai ofuda in their shipment!

Ofuda are, of course, special strips of paper with prayers, charms, and magic spells written on them to keep you safe. You can see an example of one on the image for The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits' bookmark. If you Google Image search "ofuda" you'll find tons of examples as well. I'll be making an ofuda design especially for this campaign, so hopefully it will keep all the nasty yokai safely inside of the books where they belong, and not roaming about your house causing trouble!

Also, today I'm sharing a new yokai painting from the book. Jakotsu baba:

Jakotsu babā 蛇骨婆
じゃこつばばあ
“snake bone hag”  

Jakotsu babā is an old hag and a shaman. She is described as carrying a blue snake in her right hand and a red snake in her left hand. According to Toriyama Sekien, she was the wife of a man named Jagoemon, earning her the nickname Jagobā (i.e. “Jago’s wife”). Over time, her name became corrupted into Jakotsu babā.  

Because she carries two snakes, Toriyama Sekien speculates that Jakotsu babā originally came from the country of Bukan (also called Fukan; Wuxian in Chinese). Bukan was a land of myth. It is recorded in the Shan hai jing, which Toriyama Sekien uses as his source for this record. It was supposedly located far to the west of China on the Asian continent. The race of people living in Bukan were shamans, using snakes to master the art of divination.  

It’s not quite clear where the yokai originally comes from. “Jagoemon” is not a famous figure that Sekien is referencing, so his own explanation seems like something he made up just for fun. She was published by Sekien in 1780. Prior to that, the name “jakotsu babā” appears in pulp fiction and kabuki plays of the 1760’s and 1770’s—although it was just used as a vulgar slang word for an old woman, rather than a yokai. Some yokai scholars belief that Sekien may just have taken a popular buzzword of his time, transformed it into a yokai and attached a simple backstory to it.