Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demon)

Gazu Hyakki Yagyō (The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demon), the first book of Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's famous Gazu Hyakki Yagyō e-hon tetralog.

The supernatural remains very much a part of modern Asia. In Japan, the ‘eight million kami’ are the gods of Shinto, Japan’s ethnic religion, honoured nationwide in around 80,000 shrines. Based on animistic, polytheistic beliefs, these gods are everywhere and ever-present, in humans, animals, nature, objects, even the land itself. Within those eight million are the yōkai, strange creatures who live among us but are always apart and unpredictable. Some of their early representations on painted scrolls show a nocturnal procession of ‘100 Demons’, or vengeful 100-year-old objects coming to life to slay the humans who threw them away. Their representations were collated in 1776 by Toriyama Sekien (1712–88) into the first visual bestiary.

This work features in Mangasia: Wonderlands of Asian Comics, a Barbican International Enterprises exhibition, curated by Paul Gravett. Mangasia presents a vivid journey through the art of Comics and visual storytelling across Asia. From its historical roots to the most recent digital innovations, the exhibition looks to popular Japanese ‘Manga’ and beyond, highlighting key creators, characters and publications.