Japanese monsters 'Youkai'

Blindness causes uneasiness. If you eat blind, the sense of taste alters. If you pinch your nose then, then it would even be harder to distinguish the different taste between water and tea. Five senses function supplementing each other. If one sense doesn’t function, other starts to function harder. How much information you gain from your sight is enormous, and it is not easy to complement your sight with other organs. It is the imagination which could be based on the empirical and the logical that can fill the lack of information. As long as what we see is not certain, all the interpretations are equal. Interpretations are finite. It becomes irrelevant whether it is based on science or logical background. It becomes something about which is more realistic to the one who has experienced.

The logic does not always ensure the reality. That is because the conditions differ from the culture and social environment. When something appears to be a ghost to some people, the idea of ghost becomes more realistic than scientific interpretations, and then the scientific interpretation would become only a possibility. It is the same quality that both science and superstitions try to explain the unknowable.

Here are some pictures of monstrous creatures in Japan. Some appeared in the classic novels in Heian period (9th century) which is the time period that art and literature flourished. The scroll called ‘hyakki yakou e maki’(100 monsters night walking) was published in 16 th century, and many after since then. They all have stories based on nature, morals, god/deities, karma, and different cultures in different regions.