Vampirism in Japan

Like many dark monsters that inhabit our consciousness, the belief in the vampire has been theorised by many to be as old as we are.  At its core a vampire is a creature that feeds on the life of another person.  Today that is generally thought to mean blood, but around the world are legends and myths of creatures who feed on entrails, hearts or sometimes just the life energy of its victims.  Each region had its own name for this creature but in the early 18th century the term vampire was popularized thanks to books like John Polidori’s The Vampyre, James Malcolm Rhymer’s Varney the Vampire and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. 

In Japan there are old folk tales of vampirism that still exist.  The creatures that indulge in vampirism though are not ones we would normally associate with this practise.  Take this tale from the Sengoku Era of The vampire cat of Nabeshima.  In this tale we find a cat killing a beautiful woman by biting her throat out so that the cat can assume her form and drink the blood of a prince. 

Another vampire-type entity that exists in Japanese folklore is the Jubokko. The Jubokko is a tree that grows on sites where much blood has been spilt, such as a battleground or the site of a mass murder.  This tree will then grow but to survive it must feed on the blood of humans.  Any human that got too close would be captured by the trees branches and then the tree would drain its victim of all its blood.  Of course the only way you could tell if the tree was a Jubokko was to get really close which meant death.

For more folktales of Japanese vampirism you can look at the tale of Watanabe no Tsuna and the Hannya or there are many tales of a creature called a Nukekubi. A Nukekubi is a creature who can pass for human during the day but by night its head detaches from its body and flies away on wings that sprout from its head.  It looks for victims to kill and eat and then returns to its body.  If it cannot find its body by daybreak then it will die and there are many tales of potential victims who have survived by hiding its body away until day break.

What we would consider a vampire, a human-type being walking on two legs and stalking people so that they can drink their blood is a fairly recent import into Japanese culture.  While folktales and myths had come to Japan from westerners about these types of vampires, they didn’t really take off until the media started running with that idea.  The first mainstream example of the western vampire could be seen in Vampire Moth also known as Kyuketsuki-ga.  This is a film released in 1956 about a series of murders where the victims have their necks punctured and is the first Japanese film of the vampire genre.

Since then Japanese horror or J-horror as it is known to aficionados has gone from strength to strength with the vampire.  This is especially true when you take into account manga and anime films as well.  While the vampire as we know it may not have existed in the ancient folklore of Japan it is alive and well in modern day Japanese culture.  Maybe this is the true strength of the vampire, not that it is immortal and difficult to kill, but that it is invasive and everywhere it goes, it stays.