Hyakki Yakō was a Japanese folk belief

Japanese mythology

Japanese mythology is a system of beliefs that embraces Shinto and Buddhist traditions as well as agriculturally based folk religion. The Shinto pantheon comprises innumerable kami...

. The belief holds that every year yōkai

Yōkai

are a class of supernatural monsters in Japanese folklore. The word yōkai is made up of the kanji for "otherworldly" and "weird". Yōkai range eclectically from the malevolent to the mischievous, or occasionally bring good fortune to those who encounter them...

, the Japanese supernatural beings, will take to the streets during summer nights. Anyone who comes across the procession will die, unless protected. The game Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai

was a popular parlour game during the Edo period in Japan.The game was a simple one. In a room, as night fell, one hundred candles were lit. Guests and players gathered around the candles, taking turns telling kaidan. After each kaidan, a single candle was extinguished, and the room slowly grew...

was based on the folklore.

It was a popular theme in Japanese visual art. An early example is the famous 16-century handscroll

Emakimono

, often simply called , is a horizontal, illustrated narrative form created during the 11th to 16th centuries in Japan. Emakimono combines both text and pictures, and is drawn, painted, or stamped on a handscroll...

 Hyakki Yakō Zu (百鬼夜行図, with zu meaning "picture"), attributed to Tosa Mitsunobu

Tosa Mitsunobu

was a Japanese painter, the founder of the Tosa school of Japanese painting. Born into a family that had traditionally served as painters to the Imperial court, he was head of the court painting bureau from 1493 to 1496. In 1518 he was appointed chief artist to the Ashikaga shogunates.- External...

, in the Shinju-an of Daitoku-ji

Daitoku-ji

is a Buddhist temple, one of fourteen autonomous branches of the Rinzai school of Japanese Zen. It is located in Kita-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The "mountain name" , who is known by the title Daitō Kokushi, or "National Teacher of the Great Lamp," that he was given by Emperor Go-Daigo...

, Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

. Notable works of this motif include those by Toriyama Sekien

Toriyama Sekien

thumb|200px| was an 18th century scholar and ukiyo-e artist of Japanese folklore. He was the teacher of Utamaro and, before taking up printmaking, a painter of the Kanō school. Toriyama is most famous for his attempt to catalogue all species of yōkai in the Hyakki Yakō series.-References:...

 (Gazu Hyakki Yakō) and Utagawa Yoshiiku

Utagawa Yoshiiku

, also known as or , was a Japanese artist of the Utagawa school.-Early life:Yoshiiku was the son of a teahouse proprietor and became a student of Utagawa Kuniyoshi.-Career:Yoshiiku is known as a ukiyo-e print designer and as a newspaper illustrator....

. These works are more often humorous than frightening.

In popular culture

• In the Ghibli movie Pom Poko
  Pom Poko
  is a 1994 Japanese animated film, the eighth written and directed by Isao Takahata and animated by Studio Ghibli.Consistent with Japanese folklore, the tanuki are portrayed as a highly sociable, mischievous species, able to use "illusion science" to transform into almost anything, but too...
  
  , Operation Spectre/Operation Poltergeist was intended to evoke the Hyakki Yakō.
• In the manga Nurarihyon no Mago
  Nurarihyon no Mago
  Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan, known in Japan as is a manga series written and illustrated by Hiroshi Shiibashi. The series was first published in Shueisha as a oneshot in 2007. The manga has been continuously serialized in the Japanese manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump since March 2008 and has...
  
  , the main character seeks to gather his own Hyakki Yako.
• It appears in a chapter of the CLAMP
  CLAMP
  , is an all-female Japanese manga artist group that formed in the mid 1980s. Many of the group's manga series are often adapted into anime after release. It consists of their leader , who provides much of the storyline and screenplay for all their works and adaptations of those works respectively ,...
  
   manga xxxHolic.
• The Hyakki Yakō is referred to on a number of occasions in lyrics by rock band Kagrra,
  Kagrra,
  was a Japanese visual kei rock band. They were originally signed to the now defunct Key Party Records under the name "Crow". The group changed its name when they signed to PS Company in 2000. The band's major debut was in 2004 with the single "Urei". Kagrra,'s concept is "Neo Japanese"...
  
  .

See also

• Nightmarchers
  Nightmarchers
  In Hawaiian legend, Nightmarchers are the ghosts of ancient Hawaiian warriors. On the nights of Kane, Ku, Lono, Akua, or on the nights of Kaloa they are said to come forth from their burial sites to march out to past battles or to other sacred places. They march at sunset and just before the sun...
  
  
• Unseelie Court
• Sluagh
  Sluagh
  In Irish and Scottish folklore, the Sluagh were the spirits of the restless dead. Sometimes they were seen as sinners, or generally evil people who were welcome in neither heaven nor hell, nor in the Otherworld, who had also been rejected by the Celtic deities and by the earth itself. Whichever...
  
  
• Wild Hunt
  Wild Hunt
  The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...