Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction -- Yōkai art : from prehistory to modernity. What are yōkai? ; Type of yōkai ; Yōkai of the mountain ; Yōkai of the water ; Yōkai of the village and the home ; The art of yōkai ; Yōkai of prehistory ; Jomon art ; The one-eyed god ; The end of the Jomon Period ; Horrors of the Heian Period ; Demon parade of the Muromachi period ; Codified monsters of Edo ; Militarized monsters of Meiji ; The Meiji Restoration and yōkai ; The folk studies of Yanagita Kunio ; Yōkai go to war -- Enter the limping hero. Mizuki Shigeru, professor of yōkai ; Early years (1922-41) ; War years (1942-45) ; Postwar years (1945-) ; Tricksters animated ; Daddy Eyeball ; Graveyard Kitaro, the pseudo folk superhero ; The limping hero ; Ratman -- Art history meets Gegegeno Kitaro. The illustrated night parade of one hundred demons, 1776 ; The illustrated one hundred demons from the present and the past, 1779 ; Supplement to the one hundred demons from the present and the past, 1781 ; The illustrated bag of one hundred demons, 1781 ; Yanagita Kunio's Yōkai meii -- Yōkai in cinema, 1968-2008. Great yōkai wars 1966-2005 ; Yōkai daisensō in manga, 1966 ; Yōkai daisensō in animation, 1968 ; Yōkai Daisensō in film., 1968 ; Yōkai daisensō in remake, 2005 ; Yōkai daisensō character design ; Yōkai daisensō demon parade ; Kitaro on film, 2007 ; Dotaro, 2007 ; Cat-eye boy, 2006 -- Monsters march on. Kitaro in the context of Superflat ; yōkai landscape.

Japanese anime plays a major role in modern popular visual culture and aesthetics. This study puts today's anime in historical context by tracking the visual links between Edo- and Meiji- period painters and the post-war period animation and manga series Gegegeno Kitaro by Mizuki Shigeru.