It’s a testament to the design team’s skill that they were able to imagine, extrapolate, and expand so naturally on illustrations from 240 years ago. Sekien, of course, drew for the printed page, so it was a mystery as to what the back sides of many of the yokai looked like. Rendering them in three dimensions proved particularly tricky. The game represents the very first time many of them have ever been portrayed onscreen. We published a translation in 2016, called “ Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekien.” Sekien’s work helped inspire Platinum’s art team in designing the yokai that appear in World of Demons. Japandemonium Illustrated: The Yokai Encyclopedias of Toriyama Sekienīy Toriyama Sekien (Author), Matt Alt (Editor, Translator), Hiroko Yoda (Editor, Translator) The books became the standard reference for the way the yokai would be portrayed for centuries to come – even today. It was the first time anyone had compiled illustrations of Japan’s yokai into a conveniently searchable (and mass produced) visual guidebook. Sekien’s work turned out to be a surprise bestseller. He called it Gazu Hyakki Yagyo, which translates into something like “an illustrated parade of demons.” The citizens of Japan were voracious readers. But in 1776, an artist by the name of Toriyama Sekien had the bright idea of cataloging all of the descriptions and portrayals from centuries of lore into a book: the very first encyclopedia of yokai. Since they emerged out of oral storytelling traditions, for a long time there wasn’t any consensus about what the yokai looked like. They’re the products of an ancient worldview based in animism (the belief that anything, not just a human, can possess a spirit) and polytheism (the belief in not one God-with-a-capital-G but many gods and deities.) In fact, Japanese tradition holds that the land is home to eight million gods, which range from almighty world-creators all the way down to spooks that pop out of the shadows to give you a good scare. Many are what might be called haunted objects – man-made artifacts that have animated into life for whatever reason.
It was a great pleasure and honor to work with the Platinum development team on World of Demons, and it was also a big thrill for us to see so many different yokai get such a starring role in a video game. We’ve always wanted to see yokai get their due, partially because we love them (so much so that we’ve written and translated numerous books on the topic!), but also because they play an important role as the ancestors of all the pop-culture characters people love about Japan today. They’re even part of Japan’s culinary tradition – kappa maki cucumber rolls are named after a cucumber-loving yokai called the kappa. Yokai have appeared everywhere from ancient historical chronicles, to the kabuki stage, to woodblock prints. It might surprise you to learn that the yokai are real – real in the sense that they’ve populated the fantasies of Japan for centuries. The monsters Onimaru faces in his quest are called yokai. This is Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda, who wrote the story and script for World of Demons.
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