Talk:Obake

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[edit] Examples of yokai

I took out the "obakeneko" because it was superfluous next to the kitsune. They are both shapeshifters, and I felt only one example of such was needed, and the kitsune is the most well known of the two. Shikino 18:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RE: the latest reversion:

"Obakemono" is actually a very rare term in Japanese, "bakemono" is the usual term. I just chose it for my website because the domain was available. I think the edit should stay (and other uses of the term "obakemono" on wikipedia should be changed also). Kotengu 04:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: google searches for comparison just to prove it: obakemono (106 results) VS bakemono (1,380,000 results) Kotengu 05:04, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal

I think that this article and the youkai article should be merged together into one article called "bakemono" (with redirects from "yokai", "obakemono", and "obake"), because: (1) they are largely the same thing, as both Yahoo Dictionary and the Japanese wikipedia pages give these words as definitions for each other, and (2) bakemono should be the name of the new article because it is the most common term in Japan and also is most commonly used in English translations of Japanese folklore books. (Example: Keigo Seki's Folktales of Japan.) Shikino 14:51, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Here's the thread on my messageboard where this is being discussed: http://www.obakemono.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=youkai;action=display;num=1162531153

I'll repost the pertinent translated definitions here:

Bakemono: [synonymous with Obake] Animals and inanimate objects and such appearing in the form of a person. Shapeshifted foxes and raccoon dogs and the like, and the spirits of willows and cherry trees as well as snow-women. Also things with bizarre shapes like hitotsume-kozō, ō-nyūdō, and rokurokubi. An obake. A yōkai. [1]

Yōkai: Miraculous phenonema and weird entities which defy human understanding. Tengu, hitotsume-kozō, kappa and other imaginary things. A bakemono. [2]

And partial translations of the articles from the Japanese wikipedia:

Obake

[3]

Obake is a general term for transformed spiritual beings. Often confused with yūrei and bōrei [human ghosts] and such.

Summary

----

Commonly in the speech of children, it is confused to mean yūrei or bōrei, but an obake is the transformation of an inanimate object or an animal. When a thing is handled roughly, due to its being thrown away it transforms and appears afterwards. This is an obake. Animals and the like which are killed in cold blood, and die harboring resentment and then appear in a different form are also called obake. They are also called keshō (化生).

Yōkai

[4]

A yōkai is a supernatural being which symbolizes a strange and mysterious phenomenon which humans cannot understand, or otherwise a being from Japanese folklore whose behavior deviates from common sense and which exhibits mysterious abilities. This sort of being is called yōsei (fairy) in Europe.

Oni, tengu, kappa and such, the legends are handed down in great numbers, so research in the field of folklore progresses.

Based just on this, I'm not sure if the articles should be merged, but I do think that if they aren't yōkai should become the dominant article of the two. The Mangajin article here seems to be somewhat misleading in defining obake as the general term for ghosts and monsters with yōkai as a subcategory. If anything, it's the other way around.

Kotengu 21:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)