こんにちは！

I'm Japanese American and grew up watching VHS tapes of an anime called Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi with my family. I have a lot of nostalgia with this show as I learned a lot about my culture and folklore through this show. But one of these episodes show cased something utterly terrifying.

One story was about a child who ventured in the woods (I think it was at night). He was suddenly greeted by an elderly person who let's him into his house on the forest. The child is put into a room to sleep, but he later wakes up after hearing a knife getting sharpened. The elderly person then transforms to a green skinned monster with white hair and approaches him.

The child runs out of the house and through the woods in terror as the knfie weilding monster continuously shouts at him. The monster also is able to stick out a giant tongue to try to catch him. Luckily the child uses some magic papers to counter the monster's attacks. The child barely escapes from the monster, and he tells a guy in his village about the encounter.

I can't seem to remember the name of the story or what the monster was, but if anyone knows what I'm talking about, please tell me in the comments!

I'm headed to Japan to do research for a movie that I'm writing. The story's essence, ultimately, is about the intimate relationship between nature and humanity that the Japanese seem to have deeply rooted in their culture.

I'm looking for any recommendations on places to visit while there where I could learn more about the history of this appreciation for the natural world/websites that would tell me more/or people to look at that have done any research on the topic?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Somewhat of a shot in the dark here. My memory is a bit blurry but a while back, a friend of mine told me a story that I believe was from Japanese folklore/ mythology. The story involved an eagle that while hunting, catches a bird (I can’t remember what type) and holds it overnight instead of eating it. It then releases the bird in the morning and follows closely behind back to the bird’s nest.

I've seen a lot of influence of the story but I'd like to read it. Is there anywhere I could find it online? Is there a book about it that might be at a library?

I cannot find any sources. Preferably English but Japanese will do as well.

I had a dream last night and was curious if it lined up at all with Japanese folklore or common entities/ demons. The entity took the form of a beautiful graceful woman in a pink and red kimono. She had pale skin, long black hair and she glided wherever she went. She could only enter the house if the doors or windows were open. I was trying to close the door and almost got it fully closed, but she had slid her sleeve between the door and frame. Through the crack I could see her devious smile. That’s when I woke up.

I know, very vague. If you have any information, I would appreciate it.

I would like to know if anyone can tell me what this dream meant!

Last night I dreamt of standing outside of my apartment complex with my mom, which are surrounded by a lot of trees, and I turn to see a tall fox come out and look at me. She was brown and grey. The size of it was not like a normal sized fox. It came up to a lady that was walking a small yorkie dog. I thought it would snatch it up kill but it just sniffed the dog. She then picked up a ball that the dog was playing and threw like it wanted to play. It looked at me one last time and turned to go back in the forest. When it turned i noticed that it had 5 long grey tails. I thought it was strange. It was such a strange dream!

Hello,

While researching Japanese media for a project, I noticed a common trend. Most of the stories I'm looking into tend to have characters struggling to overcome some sort of corruption of their spirits. Failure to do so leaves them as something more akin to a demon or something demon-like.

I asked a friend about this, and he said it has to do something with Ki and inner strength. He also mentioned this concept being opposite to common themes in western folklore, where characters gain strength from outside sources.

Is there anywhere I can look that closely analyzes and compares these storytelling tropes?