100 books like Kwaidan

This contemporary, quirky tale centers around the life of Keiko, a young woman who has never done anything in a conventional way and has her mother very worried that her daughter will never find a man and settle down into a conventional life. No, Keiko’s ways of thinking are startling and odd in ways that are both amusing and somewhat horrifying, as she really does fall outside the realm of conventional thinking and socially rewarded behavior. The reader comes to love her as she grows into womanhood (and personhood) as a worker in a fast-paced convenience store, where she memorizes hundreds of products and practices behaving more “normally” by mimicking the actions and words of her co-workers. Then a man named Shiraha enters the picture, for a new twist.

I came across Ugetsu Monogatari in a used bookshop at a time when I was voraciously reading everything I could lay my hands on about the Japanese supernatural. First published in 1776, it is rightly regarded as one of the most important collections of Japanese ghostly fiction. Ugetsu Monogatari gave me a greater and deeper insight into this fascinating world. Almost as Interesting as the book itself is the life story of the author. The son of a prostitute and an unknown father Ueda Akinari was born in a period when the Japanese were deeply interested in yokai and yurei. He himself was a firm believer in the supernatural. It is that belief and the influence of the period which makes this book such an essential read for anyone interested in the subject. It is a book that I often return to.

This book has a special place in my heart because the author was recommended to me by my son, also a confirmed fan of horror and the supernatural. Growing up in Japan, like most school children, he had read some of Edogawa Rampo’s many books of child detectives before graduating to his much darker adult stories of horror. While my son had read the original Japanese, at that time Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination was the only volume of English translations of Edogawa Rampo’s stories that I could find. It is, however, a masterly introduction to the dark, and at times perverse, world of the author. Whereas Edgar Allan Poe, from whom the writer Hirai Tarō derived the pen name, had fueled my teenage fancy for shadow-filled gothic tales, Edogawa Rampo made me view my adopted homeland with a more wary eye.

I first saw the film adaptation of Ring at a film festival in 1998 and was blown away by it. The English translation of the novel wasn’t published in the UK until 2004, but it was worth the wait. It’s difficult now that Sadako has become such a cliched and parodied character to appreciate the impact the character had. The book is much bigger in scope than the film, also providing the inspiration for the film Rasen. I slightly regretted not having read it before seeing the film so that I could have felt the impact Japanese readers must have felt. Ring was the first modern Japanese novel that I read. Reading it coincided with me getting to know Japan for real and was more of a point of reference than any guidebook. Long after I leave Japan, Ringu will remind me of the country I left behind.

This is the first in a three-volume set which I regard as one book. All are a total joy as they offer the reader the chance to read stories mostly not previously available in English. Having read the available famous stories of yurei and yokai to death, I felt like a little kid at Christmas when presented with the whole set (actually at Christmas!). Because the stories were written in many styles from the 1700s to the 2000s, and cover the whole range of Japanese ghost stories, I got a genuine insight into how tales of the Japanese supernatural have developed through the centuries and how the past influences the present. It was also interesting to see how contemporary events, such as World War II, influenced the stories. Just writing this makes me want to dive back into the stories.

This is a gorgeous coming-of-age novel about a young, poor fisherman named Shinji who falls head over heels in love with a new girl on the island of Utajima. Japan’s most famous writer, Mishima, sets his romance in post-WWII where the innocence of Shinji and Hatsue is as pure and passionate as can be. The wind, the waves, the sea, the kiss that tastes of salt—all of nature intertwine with human life. The problem: Hatsue is actually the long-gone daughter of a major family who wants her to marry someone of equal social standing. With its humorous episodes, close descriptive imagery, and a plot that displays Mishima’s unabashed devotion to old-style traditions and customs, this little novel is one of my all-time favorites. 

Kitchen is an utterly charming short novel by a modern writer whose protagonist, Mikage, is a young woman who must find a way to carry on after the death of her beloved grandmother who served as her sole caregiver-guardian. Her voice engages immediately: “The place I like best in this world is the kitchen.” Orphaned amidst the bustling world around her, Mikage hesitatingly accepts an invitation to move in with Yuichi, a boy who’d worked part-time in her grandmother’s flower shop. His situation is also unusual, as he lives with his trans mother—an elegant woman who actually is his biological father. Food serves as a compelling bond and plot twister. Expect lots of food and cooking in this novel, plus generous doses of pure kindness and unconditional love. 

Looking for a well-curated, wide variety of Japanese short stories written by nearly all the famous modernist novelists revered in Japan? This collection contains everything from Kawabata’s "The Izu Dancer" to Satomi Ton’s marvelously deep story called "Blowfish", wherein the hero—a famously talented Kabuki actor succumbs to the kind of brain-fogging, body-busting death that only blowfish poison can deliver. The author manages to get inside the head of his character, uncovering what transitioning into death feels like, with humor sprinkled here and there, and an emotional recollection/revelation about his own actor-father dying in a theater fire. 

Shigeru Mizuki is the late, great god of alternative manga (or gekiga). Suffused with personal experience and reflections, his work by turns playfully and powerfully explores pre-war childhood, near-death war-time experiences, politics, and – most importantly – the world of Japanese yōkai monsters. Nononba tells the story of his childhood education by his grandmother into the world of supernatural Japan, leading the way to his great yōkai series GeGeGe Kitaro. A memoir of love and loss, childhood innocence and imagination, Nononba was, in turn, a great education for me. Funny, strange, tender, and wise. And in places it freaks you out too!

I was fascinated by yokai, the weird and wonderful creatures of Japanese folklore, well before they became a thing on social media and in global pop culture. Of all the books designed to introduce yokai to Western audiences, Michael Dylan Foster's is by far the best at explaining how the Japanese understand these legendary creatures and their roles in Japanese culture throughout history.

His stories of kappa and oni and monstrous umbrellas with arms and legs are hilarious, creepy, unforgettable, instructive, and revealing. If I have one gripe about this book, it is that Foster dismisses Godzilla and other kaiju as not being yokai. He’s wrong, but everyone deserves one mistake, especially in an otherwise excellent book.