Mythical Creatures- Japanese Yokai

On the question of which land has the weirdest and most imaginative mythical creatures, my answer would, without a doubt, be Japan. The mythical entities of this land are generally referred to as yokai and there are so incredibly many I could only include a tiny handful in this pic. I have avoided including more familiar yokai like kappas, tengu and oni, and instead chosen some of the less well known (well, to most outside Japan anyway) yokai.

Top left: Basan. A giant fire-breathing rooster. Despite this ability it appears to be harmless to humans as no tale tells of basans harming people. It is, however, quite interesting that while Japanese dragons seldom breathe fire, this is more than compensated for by these incredible chickens.

Top right: Katakiruwa. A one-eyed, one-eared, three-legged pig whose body is always on fire. Don't let it run between your legs or it will steal your soul and make you impotent.

Bottom left: Mouryo. A bipedal rabbit the size of a three-year old human child, that will raid graveyards to take and eat livers from the corpses. The mouryo was based on a Chinese mythological rabbit that was imported into the mythology of Japan.

Bottom middle: Jubboko. A vampiric tree that grows on the sites of old battlefields and is nourished by the blood of the slain.

Bottom right: Itten-Momen. A huge living piece of cloth that flies through the air. If it sees people it will swoop down on them and constrict them to death like a cloth version of an anaconda or boa constrictor.