WORLDWIDE FANTASY MONTH #2: Yokai Monsters: Spook Warfare, by Kuroda Yoshiyuki (1968)

Type of Media: Film

Japan seems to have an affinity for producing franchises with worldwide appeal starring gobs of lovable monsters. Pokemon was a cultural force in the 90s, Digimon wasn’t as big but still did respectable business, and more recently Yokai Watch has been getting kids around the world hooked on catching ‘em all once again. Yokai Watch in particular is fascinating because it’s more up front about its cultural inspiration, the same cultural inspiration at the heart of Pokemon and Digimon. 

Yokai are animist spirits and monsters from Japanese folklore, appearing in stories since at least the first century. Like your average collectable monster franchise there are hundreds of types of yokai, all with different natures, appearances, and supernatural powers. While today depictions of yokai are usually cleaned up for international consumption, a series of films by the Daiei Motion Picture Company in the 60s struck a balance between making yokai cute and scary. This is the Yokai Monsters franchise, and it’s a pretty good way to learn about traditional Japanese folklore.

It’s also weird as hell.

In Spook Warfare, often considered the best Yokai Monsters movie, two treasure hunters raiding an ancient Babylonian building accidentally free a vampiric demon named Daimon. Daimon flies to Japan (for some reason), where he kills a local lord and assumes his form. While Daimon takes control and starts feeding on the lord’s subjects, a yokai water imp living in the lord’s pond named Kappa notices and tries to fight him off. Kappa gets soundly thrashed by Daimon, so he goes to the forest to seek help from other yokai. Together they work with several of the lord’s retainers to defeat Daimon and free Japan from his influence.

It’s not a great plot, but you aren’t coming to Spook Warfare for the story or character development. The main draw is in the yokai designs, which manage to walk the line between cute and ugly while staying close to traditional descriptions and woodcut renderings. Rokurokubi the snake-necked woman, Ungaikyo the tanuki, and Kasa-obake the umbrella ghost in particular look great, while the others have a shitty, low-budget charm to them. Kappa and Abura-sumashi are dudes in masks, Futakuchi-onna is a woman with an bad ugly face prosthetic strapped to the back of her head, and Nuppeppo is just a big mass of foam rubber. 

However, while the appearances of the yokai are quite traditional, their behavior isn’t. In folktales yokai range from being docile to evil, sometimes using their powers to kill people in strange ways (like kasa-obake acting like a normal umbrella so someone will pick it up, then flying off and dropping the person from the sky). In Spook Warfare the yokai are all mischievous, but ultimately peaceful. They just want to hang out on their own and occasionally scare some people. They aren’t compassionate though, as their motivation for fighting Daimon is primarily xenophobia rather than an urge to save humans. The yokai in Spook Warfare are a nationalistic bunch, offended by the idea that a foreigner demon is coming into their lands and showing them up, so they defeat Daimon to show that Japanese apparitions are the best around. Considering Japanese culture in the 60s didn’t have nearly the international influence that it does today, it’s not hard to interpret this as a call to Japanese cultural pride.

Before you think Spook Warfare would be a good way to edutain kids on some Japanese folklore, hold up. Though it was originally billed as a kid’s movie, Spook Warfare will probably upset and disturb any kid younger than 13. There’s blood, and cursing, and the yokai would probably creep the bejesus out of less developed humans. Spook Warfare is much better for teens and adults as a novel alternative to watching a monster movie (especially if said teens and adults are inebriated). If you want to see a movie with proto-Labyrinth puppetry and foam rubber suits, or you’re curious about the folkloric roots of Pokemon, then Spook Warfare will scratch those very specific itches.