Stories about Yuki Onna in Japan are as diverse as every falling snowflake. In Niigata prefecture, she is said to act like a bogey woman who seeks out children who wander into her domain, the snowy forest land. Her behavior manifests differently, according to prefecture. Her skin is as white and pale as blinding snow and her body freezing cold to the touch. Japan’s version of a ‘fatal attraction,’ she is often depicted with piercing eyes that transfix and, at times, terrorize the gaze of those she preys upon. She is commonly seen in a thin, white and summer-like kimono (known as yukata) that may expose her pale white skin or more like a ghost. Her movements leave no snow tracks as she is seen in some versions as a floating spirit who arrives, like smoke or fog, and is gone. Yuki Onna is a bit of a YouTube sensation (See, for instance, YUKI-ONNA: THE SNOW WOMAN or Yuki Onna // Something Scary/Snarled), with a combined several million views.) Her global appeal is that she’s a character worthy of a thousand storied variations-appearing as a youthful but dangerous beauty, tall and with long black hair-or older and more like a snow hag. This gave rise to stories of strange creatures and unexplained happenings. Travel between towns could be slow and dangerous in old Japan, especially in winter. Yuki Onna uses the kanji 雪 (yuki snow) with 女 (onna woman) to mean Snow Woman. One of the most attractive is Yuki Onna, otherwise known as snow woman, snow ghost, or even snow monster, depending on how she interacts with humans in different parts of Japan. Yokai’s kanji characters ( 妖 怪) represent respectively the “attractive, bewitching” and “mystery, wonder” of the spirit world. ![]() Some of the world’s most famous modern yokai are the intimidating Godzilla and entertaining Pokémon (an abbreviation for Pocket Monsters) that have been widely portrayed in film, anime, and games. ![]() Yokai circulate in Japan lore as acceptable replacements to the outmoded expression, land of the gods. ![]() Likewise, ‘land of the gods’ at one time meant a country where the emperor descends from the kami and reigns as a kami himself. The phrase carries a more negative connotation today and is rarely used in modern conversation, given its ties to Imperial Japan’s expansion ambitions. Japanese people are quite familiar with the phrase, ‘land of the gods’, (Shinkoku) to refer to the country of Japan.
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