Yokai Pop Culture Revival: Museums, Exhibitions and Games

Friendly monsters from old picture scrolls are showing up in museums, touring exhibitions, bronze-lined streets and video games.

Published October 26, 2026 at 12:21 PM JST | By Tokyo Paul

Quick answer: Yokai, the supernatural creatures of Japanese folklore, are enjoying fresh attention through dedicated museums, immersive exhibitions and games. In Hiroshima Prefecture, the Miyoshi Mononoke Museum holds more than 5,000 yokai artworks and objects, while Mizuki Shigeru Road in Tottori Prefecture is lined with 177 bronze yokai statues. Touring shows and digital art bring the creatures to new audiences.

Yokai have never really disappeared from Japanese life, but they are visible again in places where visitors can meet them. People searching for this topic often want to know where to see yokai in person, what is new, and how games and animation connect to old folklore. This guide covers the main museums, a famous yokai street, a Japan Foundation touring exhibition, immersive digital shows and the games that borrow from tradition. It also gives a short introduction to the creatures themselves.

What counts as a yokai

Yokai are supernatural beings and spirits in Japanese folklore, including shape-shifters, ghosts, demons and tricksters. They can be mischievous, helpful or occasionally frightening, and they often appear as animal-like figures, humanoids or possessed objects. Tsukumogami, for example, are everyday objects that gain spirits after long use. The kappa is a water creature often drawn as turtle-like and sometimes cute, the tengu is usually shown with wings, and oni are ogres that appear in some of the oldest Japanese texts.

The idea of many yokai marching together, called hyakki yagyo, is recorded in Heian-period story collections and in picture scrolls. In the Edo period, the artist Toriyama Sekien (1712 to 1788) created many new yokai using imagination, puns and wordplay, and prints, card games and board games made them familiar to ordinary people.

The Miyoshi Mononoke Museum in Hiroshima

Miyoshi Mononoke Museum, also called the Yumoto Koichi Memorial Japan Yokai Museum, stands in Miyoshi City, Hiroshima Prefecture. It opened in 2019 and holds more than 5,000 artworks and objects depicting yokai. The museum was founded by Yumoto Koichi, a yokai scholar who wrote widely on Japanese monsters.

The ground floor houses a permanent collection, rotating special exhibitions and a hands-on gallery. Exhibits include a haunted lantern, a headless yokai and Nurikabe, the haunted wall. Special exhibitions change through the year, so check the museum's official site for current themes before planning a visit.

Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato

Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture is the hometown of manga artist Mizuki Shigeru, creator of GeGeGe no Kitaro. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, Mizuki Shigeru Road is an 800-meter shopping street starting from Sakaiminato Station, lined with 177 bronze yokai statues, many based on characters from his work.

The street was extensively renovated for its 20th anniversary in 2018 and is lit at night, with more than 50 computer-controlled projectors casting shadow images of familiar characters onto the street and sidewalks. The Mizuki Shigeru Museum sits near the far end of the road. Mizuki is credited with helping keep yokai in popular culture and created about 30 new ones himself, which shows that the tradition is still growing.

A touring exhibition from the Japan Foundation

Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan is a traveling exhibition organized by the Japan Foundation. It was curated by Yumoto Koichi, the museum founder, and it traces yokai from oral tradition to modern pop culture. Woodblock prints, picture scrolls, toys, films and other works show shape-shifters, tricksters, vengeful spirits and comic creatures in prints, literature, anime and film.

The Japan Information and Culture Center at the Embassy of Japan in Washington, D.C. presented the show in August and September 2026, with weekday gallery hours and tours bookable through the center. Touring shows like this are a good way for overseas audiences to meet yokai without a flight.

Immersive and digital exhibitions

Immersive technology gives yokai a new kind of stage. A Yokai Immersive Experience exhibition, described by Japanese travel media as having drawn more than 200,000 visitors in Tokyo and Nagoya, made its Kyushu debut at the Kagoshima Prefectural History and Art Center Reimeikan in 2026. Kappa, tengu, oni and tsukumogami appear from historic artwork through projection mapping, holograms, 3DCG animation and life-sized sculptures.

The exhibition draws on the Hyakki Yagyo Emaki picture scroll and the Hyakumonogatari ghost-story tradition, and it is designed for visitors of all ages. Check each venue's official page for run dates, since such shows tour and change.

Games, anime and everyday media

Yokai appear across modern media. Wikipedia lists the Yo-kai Watch series among popular works focused on yokai, and notes that films and games such as The Great Yokai War and Nioh also feature them. Earlier media paved the way: kamishibai storytelling, manga, television and, from 1975, urban legends called modern yokai, such as Kuchisake-onna and Hanako-san.

Part of the appeal for players and viewers is that yokai are flexible characters. A single creature can be comic in one story, protective in another and eerie in a third, so creators can reinterpret them without losing the core idea.

How to visit a yokai place well

Plan around a theme rather than a single stop. Combine Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato with nearby Tottori sights, or pair the Miyoshi museum with a Hiroshima trip. Wikipedia also notes that yokai draw tourism to places such as Tono in Iwate.

Visit during daylight for the museum and after dusk for the lit statue street, which shows the projections. Opening days and hours vary, so confirm on official pages. Treat the displays with the same respect you would give any museum, and photograph only where permitted.

Why the creatures keep returning

Yokai explain the unexplained with humor and imagination: a strange sound at night, a lost item, a spooky stretch of river. That blend of curiosity and comfort is easy to carry into new formats. As long as people enjoy stories that make the world feel a little more alive, yokai are likely to keep finding new stages.

Want to go deeper? Tokyo Paul's book Yokai Are Still Watching You is available on Amazon.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where are the best places to see yokai in Japan?

Popular places include Mizuki Shigeru Road in Sakaiminato, Tottori Prefecture, with 177 bronze statues, and the Miyoshi Mononoke Museum in Hiroshima Prefecture, which holds more than 5,000 yokai objects. Temporary immersive exhibitions also tour cities, so check venue pages for current schedules.

What is the difference between a yokai and a ghost?

Yokai is a broad category of supernatural beings that includes shape-shifters, tricksters, spirits and animated objects, and many are playful rather than scary. Ghosts of people are one kind of yokai, but the category also covers creatures such as kappa, tengu and tsukumogami.

Which games feature yokai?

Wikipedia mentions Yo-kai Watch as a series focused on yokai and Nioh as a game that features them, along with films such as The Great Yokai War. Many other games and anime borrow yokai too, since the creatures are flexible and widely recognized.

Keep Exploring

More guides from Tokyo Paul: Yokai: A Friendly Guide to Japanese Folklore Creatures, Kappa: Japan's Legendary River Spirit and Oni: Japan's Ogres and Their Many Faces in Folklore.