Grotesque Theatre - Mononoke and Japanese Horror

Mononoke│© Toei

One of the many charming aspects of Japan is undoubtedly its folklore. Tales of tanuki, Momotaro, and yokai have found widespread recognition, even abroad. Over time, modern media has continued to shape and spread these legends through various forms: from DanDaDan and Onibaba to The Ring, Nioh, and Okami. Among them sits the Mononoke franchise.

The Mononoke Franchise

Mononoke is a murder mystery horror series set largely in Edo-period Japan (16th–19th century). It originated as a spin-off from Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror Tales (2006), an anthology of traditional ghost stories. While Ayakashi told disconnected tales, Mononoke follows a single throughline: each arc is bound together by the enigmatic medicine seller, a wandering figure who doubles as both detective and exorcist.

In 2007, director Kenji Nakamura and Toei Animation expanded the spin-off into a full series, instantly drawing attention with its bold, experimental visual style, first glimpsed in the final episodes of Ayakashi. For years the franchise remained dormant, limited to that one season and a handful of manga adaptations (2007, 2013). But fifteen years later, Nakamura revived it with an ambitious film trilogy. The first installment, The Phantom of the Rain (2024), was followed by The Ashes of Rage (2025), with a final, still-untitled film slated for release in 2026.

Just as the series revived older visual experiments, its stories also draw deeply from Japan’s own tradition of ghostly narratives, kaidan.

Mononoke│© Toei

Kaidan, The Classic Ghost Stories 

Oral storytelling flourished in Edo Japan, in fact, people were thrilled by the many tales brought by merchants, performers, travellers and itinerant priests who came to cities in the early 16th century onward. Among the most popular genres were comedy, mystery, and horror. The latter, known as kaidan, referred to ghostly and supernatural stories often tinged with mystery.

It is well documented that these tales quickly found their way onto the stage, particularly in kabuki theater. Yet what is especially fascinating is how kaidan and similar narratives gradually seeped into everyday social practices: village gatherings, funerary vigils, court entertainment and religious rituals. Their grotesque elements, such as playful parodies of social norms or plausible explanations of strange phenomena, gave them a carnivalesque quality, heightening their appeal.

Many of these stories originated in China, and as a result, that land often served as their setting. With Japan’s isolationist policies restricting foreign contact, China became imagined as an exotic, mysterious place, a distant backdrop perfectly suited to the eerie atmosphere of kaidan.

This fascination with grotesque imagery and layered meaning also lives on in Mononoke’s art style, where beauty and horror intertwine.

Horror Vacui

According to Umezu Kazuo (master of manga horror) and Motoi Okamoto (developer of Silent Hill f), the interplay of ugliness and beauty is a recurring iconographic theme in Japanese horror, a lens that can also be applied to Mononoke. The series weaves together visual references as diverse as muzan-e (無残絵), ukiyo-e, ponchi-e (ポンチ絵), Klimt, Picasso, expressionism, and folding screen paintings, creating an atmosphere that feels both dreamlike and disorienting.

Yet the dream quickly curdles into nightmare. Through its audio design, editing, framing, and character composition, Mononoke instills a sense of horror vacui, an unconscious itch, a gnawing unease that lingers in the viewer’s mind.

Much like in ukiyo-e, the world of Mononoke seems to “float”, though here it drifts not on pleasures but on uncertainties. Its silences, its stylized acting, its soundtrack, and its use of wide, empty spaces echo theatrical traditions. It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that Mononoke has already inspired two stage adaptations, one in Tokyo (2023) and another in Osaka (2024).

If the series unsettles through its aesthetics, it also disturbs through its moral weight, linking horror to guilt, sin, and karmic punishment.

Yoshitoshi Ryakuga by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Guilt and Punishment

Among the many forms of traditional Japanese theater, one of the most distinctive is rakugo: a solo performance with minimal props, in which the storyteller remains seated until the very end. Today, many non-Japanese audiences may recognize it through the comic tales of Katsura Sunshine, a non-Japanese rakugoka. Yet rakugo is not only comic, it also embraces ghostly narratives, including classics such as Botan Dōrō and Yotsuya Kaidan.

Emerging in the Edo period, rakugo developed as a hybrid of various spoken traditions, among them Buddhist sermons. Priests often used these sermons to instill moral discipline by vividly depicting scenes of Hell, an influence that can be traced in the themes and tones of rakugo storytelling.

In Mononoke, the medicine seller assumes a similar role. He exposes the hidden sins and suppressed guilts of those entangled with each murder, and by extension, with the ghost itself, interrogating them and probing into their very souls. Each arc functions as a critique of social norms, with karmic retribution embodied by the mononoke, arriving as both haunting and punishment.

But what exactly is a mononoke? The definition is elusive. Rather than referring to a single type of spirit, the term acts as an umbrella for ghosts and supernatural presences. A mononoke can be understood as a corruption of spirit, an affliction born from negative karma and the festering grudge of on’nen (怨念).

Mononoke│© Toei

Exorcising Corruption

Negative events can tanrish both body and spirit, creating an imbalance that ripples outward to affect humans, animals, and even the natural world. This imbalance is called pollution.

Physical pollution, known as kegare (穢れ), can be thought of as something like germs: an invisible threat that spreads and causes sickness. The Engishiki (10th century) identifies many sources of pollution, among them guilt. This form of pollution was called tsumi (罪), regarded as a deeper kind of moral corruption. So while kegare might be likened to a hygiene problem, tsumi represented a defilement of the soul.

The remedy for pollution was purification. Water and salt served as tools to cleanse kegare and keep it from spreading, while tsumi required exorcism. Over time, during the Heian period (8th–12th century), tsumi gradually merged with kegare under the growing influence of Buddhism. New rituals arose to purge communities of sin and restore harmony with the kami, deities who despised pollution and were believed to punish it with calamities or epidemics. Such rites remain alive today, most notably in the Oharae (大祓), performed twice a year at every Shinto shrine.

During Japan’s feudal era, many types of exorcists, and many forms of exorcism, emerged. Despite their variety, all sought the same goal: to restore balance by healing the afflicted spirit. Countless kaidan feature Buddhist monks in this role, some of whom were known as genja, monks specializing in exorcism. The medicine seller of Mononoke, though he insists he is “just a seller,” shows striking similarities to these figures. His method of discerning the form (形), the truth (真), and the reason (理) behind a mononoke echoes their practice. He even seems capable of invoking the power of a Gohō (護法), a protective spirit of esoteric Buddhism summoned by genja to repel evil beings.

At the same time, he also recalls the onmyoji, diviner-exorcists adept at sensing spiritual imbalances, tracing them to their source, and using seals to contain wayward spirits.

But here lies the crucial difference: unlike traditional exorcists, the medicine seller does not pacify, he destroys. In this sense, he resembles less a healer than an inquisitor, more interested in exposing hidden sins than in calming the restless dead. At times, he even seems to delight in outwitting or toying with certain mononoke, treating the confrontation like a game of wits.

This dynamic recalls House M.D.. Like Dr. House, the medicine seller may be tasked with curing, but what truly fascinates him is the puzzle of cause. He probes and interrogates, unearthing the lies and guilt buried in his patient’s life, except here, the patient is the spirit of the mononoke itself.

Perhaps the real reason Mononoke, both the series and the films, remains little known in the West is its cryptic, often bewildering nature. The purpose of this column has been to untangle some of its layers, especially by tracing its ties to kaidan and traditional Japanese theater. Once, a PDF guide circulated for each episode, rich with cultural analysis. It may have explored details such as the medicine seller’s makeup evoking a kitsune mask or the Buddha-like eyes in his design. Unfortunately, that guide appears to be lost to time.

Yet kaidan continues to resonate in modern media. In postwar Japan, manga magazines became fertile ground where muzan-e, kaidan, and Western horror literature, such as Frankenstein and the works of H. P. Lovecraft, collided. Lovecraft’s influence was particularly strong on Chiaki Konaka, one of the writers behind Mononoke.

From that cultural melting pot, whole subgenres emerged: guro, ero guro, shojo hora, and many more. Each of them demonstrates how kaidan not only survived but thrived, mutating and adapting through the evolving landscape of Japanese pop culture.

And it is precisely here that Mononoke finds its place: a modern heir to kaidan, simultaneously preserving its roots and twisting them into something cryptic, stylized, and unforgettable.

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