Something Wicked from Japan: Ghosts, Demons & Yokai in Ukiyo-e Masterpieces (PIE Ukiyo-e Series)

Beautifully illustrated and layed out. Highly recommended.

A book on a Japanese subject, written by Japanese people, published in Japan. . .it just happens to have English text alongside the Japanese text. Are you tired of Westerners covering Eastern subject matter? Nuff said. The criticism about the centerfold obscuring the beasties is valid. The repetition criticisms are not; prints were done in multiple, so what you're seeing are different printings of the same work. Look closely. If you are a careful observer, this book will delight you. I was constantly pulling out my magnifying glass! Both the subject matter and composition of these works had an incredible influence on Edward Gorey, and this book laid bare those connections for me. Buy your copy from Bargain Bookstores. They pack books really nicely, so they arrive unscathed.

The impressive preview pictures of this book do reflect the other strange but inspiring illustrations.If you’re on the fence about this purchase, its worth the investment.

Great reference book!

This is a very nice book. The overall size is on the smaller side but the amount of art and the construction of the book are very nice for the price. This is a great way to start a collection of books like this and is still a nice entry after building out my collection.

This was a gift for my Japan enthused son. He is learning Japanese, so it is great that the book is in English as well as Japanese because these subjects are not in most translation books. It is also part of the culture that is most often left out. Once he got over the surprise of the subject matter he was very pleased. We have looked at Ukiyo masterpieces before, but unless you know, you are always wondering what is going on! It is a good book. I knocked off a star because of the representation, which led me to believe it was going to be a large artbook with explanations. It is a small to medium book with great stories and explanations so you know what is going on. Some wild and crazy things! Buy it! Comes from Japan so takes longer to arrive.

I love this book to death! (har har) I lived in Japan for a while and went to an awesome yokai exhibit at the Tokyo ukiyo-e museum while I was there. This book brings back great memories of that visit. It has such a great collection of the masterpieces and tons of ones I didn't even know existed. I was pleasantly surprised because there are some super rare prints here that only have one or two search results through Google.Each print also has a well written anecdote or historical note that goes along with it (really great if your kind of a Japanese history nerd like me). The quality of the printing is amazing as well. 10/10 would absolutely order again and will probably get some copies as xmas gifts for friends and family this year. Definitely recommend!

So, everyone can enjoy if you are interested in ukiyo-e.I usually avoid this theme, but I chose this book just because I wanted to read something about ukiyo-e. It turned out that this book was very interesting because of 2 reasons:1. I could compare different painters' art works with the same topic.2. I could learn the perception of Japanese people at that time about those topics. All stories are very famous even now.This book covers all famous ukiyo-e painters, so this can be a good guide of ukiyo-e. However, it can be only if you're interested in this theme though.