Tanuki, the badger-like, shape-shifting creatures of Japanese lore, are a rascally bunch. In one tale, a tanuki kills an old woman and makes soup out of her, then takes her form and feeds the soup to her husband.
日本民間傳說中，長得像獾、形體可變化的狸貓，是群無賴。一則物語中，狸貓殺了老婦人，將其屍體熬成湯，狸貓再化為老婦模樣，餵湯給老婦的丈夫喝。
Fantastical monsters like the tanuki abound in Michael Dylan Foster’s “The Book of Yokai: Mysterious Creatures of Japanese Folklore”, one of several books about yokai that have hit American shelves this year.
麥可．狄倫．福斯特的《妖怪經：日本民間傳說中的神秘怪物》裡，有很多類似狸貓的奇幻怪獸。今年有好幾本談論妖怪的書籍上市，這本是其中之一。
Zack Davisson’s “Yurei: The Japanese Ghost”, takes a critical look at the history of some of Japan’s most dreaded and beloved spooks. Both are scholarly texts enlivened by images of the beasts in scroll paintings, woodblock prints and original illustrations.
柴克．大衛森的《幽靈：日本鬼》則評論日本歷史上某些最令人畏懼或喜愛的幽靈。卷軸畫、版畫和原版插畫的妖怪圖像，讓這兩本學術著作變得生動活潑。
Michael Goldstein’s “Yokai Character Collection” is more pictorial. It has the gruesome look and feel of a Dungeons & Dragons manual.
麥可．高士丹的《妖怪角色集錦》圖片更多，具有陰森的外貌和「龍與地下城」（譯註：首款角色扮演桌遊）手冊的感覺。
And then there’s Matthew Meyer’s forthcoming “The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits,” an encyclopedic look at yokai that includes notes on each creature’s appearance, behavior and favorite hangouts. It is a coffee-table book that doubles as an illustrated guide, full of legends and obscure yokai trivia.
接著還有馬修．梅爾即將出版的《碰上惡靈的時刻》，以百科全書的方式介紹各方妖怪，包括對每隻妖怪的長相、行為和最愛出沒地點的註解。本書是大開本的精裝畫冊，可當圖解指南，充滿傳說和晦澀的妖怪微知識。
Why the recent crop of yokai books? People have been exposed to the creatures through a steady stream of Japanese cultural exports. Haruki Murakami has included several in his novels, while hordes have appeared in the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Even more have depicted in video games and trading cards.
最近冒出一缸子妖怪書是怎麼回事？透過日本文化輸出的穩定放送，民眾一直都有接觸妖怪。村上春樹在小說中寫過好幾隻妖怪，宮崎駿的電影裡也有一大票。電玩和遊戲卡出現的妖怪更多。
Pokémon, the multibillion-dollar toy and video game empire, bases many of its characters on yokai. So does the video game and anime series “Yo-Kai Watch.” All those monsters have inspired fans to seek out the original texts.
打造出上百億美元玩具和電玩王國的「神奇寶貝」遊戲，許多角色出自妖怪。電玩和動漫系列「妖怪手表」也是如此。這些妖怪驅使粉絲去找原典來看。
“The students who come into the fields of Japanese literature and folklore as undergraduates are heavily influenced by popular culture,” said Mr. Foster an Indiana University professor and author of “Pandemonium and Parade: Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai.” “They grow up with these things through anime and manga and want to know where they come from.”
「進入日本文學和民間傳說的大學生，受到流行文化很大的影響，」印第安納大學教授福斯特表示，他也是《群魔亂舞：日本怪物與妖怪文化》的作者。「學生們是看動漫中的妖怪長大的，現在想知道妖怪的出身。」
The yokai themselves are everywhere in Japan, in films and cartoons, on billboards and even on beer bottle labels.
在日本，妖怪無所不在，電影、卡通裡，看板上，連啤酒瓶的標籤上都有妖怪。
Relatively few of the thousands of texts and scholarly studies about yokai have been translated from Japanese, which makes these latest books all the more valuable to nonfluent seekers of the original tales.
有關妖怪的作品和學術著作有好幾千本，大多是日文，譯本不多。對找尋原典，但不諳日文的人來說，最近出版的這一批書更加珍貴。
In “The Book of Yokai,” Mr. Foster draws from texts and folk tales from the works of the 10th-century writer Abe no Seimei to the tales of the early-20th-century scholar and avid story collector Kunio Yanagita, considered one of the founders of Japanese folklore studies.
福斯特在《妖怪經》中採集的故事與傳說，從10世紀的作家安倍晴明到20世紀初的民俗學者柳田國男的作品都有。柳田國男也是熱心的故事收集者，被視為日本民俗研究的開創者之一。
New texts and stories are still being discovered and translated.
仍有新的文字與故事被發現和翻譯。
Among the creepiest of yokai are the yurei, spirits of the dead. In “Yurei: The Japanese Ghost,” Mr. Davisson, a translator of a number of classic manga, profiles several yurei. Two of the most famous are the tragic Okiku, a young girl who threw herself down a well (or was thrown) after breaking one of her master’s prized dishes, and Oiwa, a hapless wife cursed with a bad husband.
妖怪中最嚇人的是幽靈，也就是亡魂。翻譯過好幾本日本經典漫畫的大衛森，在《幽靈：日本鬼》中描繪了好幾個幽靈。最有名的兩位是因為打破員外珍愛的餐具而投井（或被扔下井）的可憐女孩「菊子」，以及遇人不淑的人妻「岩子」。
Yurei have inspired paintings and illustrations over the centuries, but perhaps the most influential is Maruyama Okyo’s “The Ghost of Oyuki” (1750), a portrait that the artist made of his recently deceased lover. Her ghost – long black hair, pale clothing, no feet – appeared to him in a dream, and his painting set the visual mold for every Japanese ghost to come, from paintings and prints to Kabuki characters and horror films.
幾百年來，幽靈引發許多油畫與插畫作品，最有名的大概是圓山應舉1750年的《幽靈圖》，畫家為過世不久的情人所繪。女子的鬼魂來到畫家的夢中，長長的黑髮、慘白的衣服、沒有腳的形象，這幅畫讓以後出現的日本鬼，從油畫、版畫到歌舞伎的角色和恐怖片，長相均不脫此一模式。
“After that painting,” Mr. Davisson said, “that’s how they all looked.”
大衛森說：「那幅畫之後，日本鬼就都是這模樣了。」
Fans love tracking these evolutions, as well as learning every bit of information about as many yokai as they can. This might explain why a lot of these books, scholarly or not, have the look and feel of illustrated encyclopedias, with detailed descriptions of scores of creatures.
粉斯喜歡追查演進的過程，盡可能學習妖怪的所有資訊。這或許可以解釋為何這類書籍，不論是否為學術著作，都有畫典的樣子和味道，對於眾多妖怪的描述鉅細靡遺。
Why do the centuries-old monsters continue to fascinate? “There’s the mystery of the world about them,” said Bill Tsutsui, a Japanologist. “You get that in this folkloric sense of the past: that the real world around us is beautiful and wonderful, and yet can be really horrible, too.”
為何有幾百年歷史的妖怪繼續讓人著迷？「妖怪世界很神秘，」日本學專家比爾筒井表示。「你在過去的民俗氛圍中體會到：我們身邊的現實世界很美妙，但可能也很可怕。」
