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How Folklore Spirited Anime Away
Brief
The episode uses host Eric Molinsky’s recent binge of the 2024 anime Dandadan as the entry point to a wide-ranging conversation about yokai—Japan’s folklore creatures—and how they migrated from local oral traditions into global popular culture. Guests Caitlin Eugarets, Michael Dylan Foster, and Deborah Shammun emphasize that yokai resist tidy classification: Caitlin groups them in a “folklore bucket” shared by Shinto and Buddhist registers and lists three recurring features (natural ties, shapeshifting, moral ambiguity), while Michael Foster stresses their nature-like indifference—rewarding or punishing humans depending on treatment. Deborah traces a crucial transformation in the Edo period (early 1600s–mid 1800s), when print culture and artists such as Toriyama Sekien compiled regional tales into bestselling illustrated yokai encyclopedias, allowing people across Japan to “see” creatures that had previously been local legends.
The episode then follows a media history: kamishibai (paper theater) and postwar artist Mizuki Shigeru carried yokai into manga and anime—Mizuki’s GeGeGe no Kitaro (manga and a 1960s anime) is singled out as the modernizing, child-focused reworking of yokai. Molinsky and scholars analyze three exemplars that show different uses of yokai: Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko (1994) frames tanuki as ecological actors and a lament for lost rural life; Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) repurposes kami/yokai imagery for moral and anti-capitalist themes (No-Face’s gold/consumption motif); and Dandadan (2024) mines internet-era urban legends (Turbo Granny, Acrobatic Silky) to make yokai unsettling mirrors of contemporary trauma and anxiety. The guests note yokai’s continuing evolution—examples include Namazu catfish used on earthquake posters and Amabie during COVID—and argue yokai survive by adapting (Michael Foster’s “survival of the cutest” idea). The segment closes by noting anime and manga have globalized yokai, turning centuries-old figures into entertainment, social critique, public-safety mascots, and ever-evolving cultural icons.
Why it matters
Eric Molinsky (host) says the 2024 anime Dandadan hooked him despite feeling aimed at a younger audience; he highlights the show’s mix of aliens and yokai (ghost/spirits) and its use of urban-legend yokai like “Turbo Granny.”
Key details
- Caitlin Eugarets (postdoctoral fellow, University of Idaho) classifies yokai as a folklore category that draws on Shinto and Buddhist traditions, and identifies three common traits: ties to the natural world, shapeshifting, and moral ambivalence.
- Michael Dylan Foster (UC Davis) argues yokai function like nature—indifferent to human morality—and notes the kappa example: a water yokai used both to warn children about rivers and as an object of ritual offerings.
- Deborah Shammun (professor, National University of Singapore) and others trace popularization to Edo-period print culture (early 1600s–mid 1800s) and Toriyama Sekien’s 18th-century yokai encyclopedias, which helped turn local oral legends into shared popular-culture figures.
- Mizuki Shigeru (20th century) is presented as the key modern bridge: raised on rural yokai stories, wounded in WWII (Papua New Guinea), then popularized yokai in postwar kamishibai and manga—notably GeGeGe no Kitaro, adapted into a 1960s anime—bringing yokai into contemporary media.
- Three case studies show different uses: Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko (1994) treats tanuki yokai as ecological/nostalgic critique of development; Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) uses yokai/Kami imagery to critique modernity and greed (No-Face as capitalism); and Dandadan (2024) reframes urban-legend yokai as disruptive, ambiguous forces reflecting modern anxieties.