| “ | You dare speak to me like that?! Ryogan, banish the fox woman. And all her kind. There will be no more yokai in the palace. | „ |
| ~ The Emperor banishing yokai from his palace in Fairest #9 — "The Hidden Kingdom Chapter Two: Hard-Boiled Wonderland" |
Yokai are the supernatural creatures, monsters,[1] spirits,[1] and demons[2] native to the Hidden Kingdom, the Homelands version of Japan.[1]
History[]
The Homelands[]
The tanuki and the kappa are banished, and Tomoko's nature is revealed to the court
The kitsune Tomoko and other yokai were part of the local Emperor's court in the Hidden Kingdom, the Homelands version of Japan. Tomoko kept her soul outside her body in the foxfire that burned beside her bed. Nine hundred years ago, Rapunzel had planned to die at sea, but instead was found by the funa yurei, who rescued her, clothed her in fine garments and brought her to the Celestial Palace, where she was welcomed into the Celestial Palace by the Emperor and became a member of his court.
However, the seii taishōgun, Ryogan, had begun to bend the Emperor's ear to his puritanical beliefs, and was soon convinced of his plan to exile all of the non-human residents, the yokai, from the palace. First, he exiled the tanuki, then the kappa. Eventually, they came for Tomoko's foxfire. Her true nature as a fox-woman was revealed, and she too was exiled.[1]
After Tomoko was taken away, Ryogan began using her foxfire to enforce his will and influence the Emperor to suit his interests. He also started hunting yokai such as kirin for sports. Meanwhile, Rapunzel travelled to the forests of the Hidden Kingdom, seeking out the hideaway of those yokai who were exiled, including Tomoko. Her former lover was sick, requiring her foxfire for her continued survival. She tasked Rapunzel with finding it in Ryogan's safe.
Yokai hiding from Ryogan's forces
Unfortunately, Rapunzel was unable to get the foxfire back; Ryogan overpowered her and threw her body down a well.[3] During the chaos of the Adversary's invasion, the ghost of Mayumi searched out Tomoko and the other yokai, bringing her the foxfire that she stole from the traitorous general Ryogan's safe.[4]
The mundane world[]
After the invasion, Tomoko led her people on a trek, which eventually took them to a gateway to the mundane world, where they emerged in modern-day Japan in the middle of World War II. Following the war, there were food shortages, and though Tomoko had magic thanks to her foxfire, she had no means of getting them food besides black marketeering. That transitioned into entering the Yakuza, and she soon became a powerful leader within it. She did what she thought she had to do to survive, but some disagreed — the kappa Katagiri included. The group eventually formed a hidden Fable community in Tokyo, with Tomoko as their leader.[4]
Decades later, in the twenty-first century, Tomoko has become the proprietress of the Celestial Entertainment Group, something of a front for her role as a Yakuza Obadan. The upstairs apartments of her building have been designated for Japan's Fables, its own version of Fabletown. Rapunzel travels to Japan with Joel Crow and Jack Horner after receiving a mysterious message from Katagiri. However, he is shot in the street by Mayumi before they have a chance to talk. Tomoko drives up to rescue Rapunzel and her friends, but warns Rapunzel that she shouldn't have returned. She has arrived in the middle of a war, and once again, she is at the heart of it.[1]
Tomoko's army
Katagiri survives the gunshot and curses Tomoko for leading Rapunzel astray. It is only with the Fable woman's help that they can get back to the Homelands, by reuniting her with her bezoars. However, Tomoko will not allow that, because it would jeopardize her Yakuza empire. Meanwhile, Tomoko finds Jack attempting to rob her, and overpowers him and feeds on his neck.[1] Rapunzel and Joel are surprised by the sight of a giant talking cat, Neko, who claims to be an emissary from Mr. Katagiri, the man who had met them when they first arrived in Tokyo, and was apparently murdered before their eyes by Tomoko's assassin Mayumi. The cat drops them off at the train station, claiming that Rapunzel's long lost "children" (actually her bezoars) can be found in Nara. Mayumi, meanwhile, decapitates Katagiri — his second death since Rapunzel arrived. She returns to Tomoko with the head.[5]
Quietly, Neko sneaks into her chambers and steals Katagiri's severed head back, causing a ruckus. Angrily, Tomoko leaves a lackey to watch Jack while she chases after the cat. Bigby and Frau Totenkinder spot the cat, and realize that the man they are looking for, the one who sent them thousands of invitational paper cranes, is on his way out the door. Bigby catches up to the cat and hustles it into the car, making an escape. Further annoyed, Tomoko promises to kill all of her enemies, later.[4]
Yokai civil war[]
After returning Katagiri's head to his body, the Kappa revives and explains how Tomoko led the yokai into the world of mundies. He had sent out messages every week for years, hoping he might reach Rapunzel, one day. It had finally worked — eventually. Meanwhile, Tomoko warns Jack that his friends will have to be ready, as she has assembled an army, and war is coming.[4]
Tomoko prepares for war with Katagiri. Having long thought that Rapunzel was responsible for the destruction of the kingdom she once called home, Tomoko now seeks a way to neutralize Rapunzel's bezoars, which the latter used to escape the well back in the Hidden Kingdom. Jack Horner, under her thrall, offers to help — so long as she has enough cleaning products. Meanwhile, Katagiri sends out a multitude of magical origami cranes to gather all the hidden Japanese Fables and call them to his cause. A few of these bewitched paper birds fly into the crowded roads of Tokyo and set off a nue, who is already causing a scene by hissingly climbing up the front of a car driving through the city traffic. Others float into the supposedly hunted forest where some winged creatures, the tengu were, prompting them to flock away. Yet others paper birds fly into the Ameya Yococho market and stir up the chōchin'obake, who flew off with an excited "wheeee!," startling the mundy bystanders. Many other yokai also hear his summons, and one by one, they proceed to join Katagiri's ragtag army of yokai and fight on his side in battle. Tomoko is livid at the yokai who had chosen to support her opponent, and she harshly criticizes them for emerging from their places of seclusion to fight alongside a "decrepit turtle."
Yokai civil war
Rapunzel returns to the CEG building to find that it is a war zone, where Tomoko commands her own Fable soldiers against the yokai she believes are traitors. Bigby and Totenkinder come up with a strategy to get their hands on Tomoko's foxfire in the meantime. Calling up to Tomoko, Rapunzel warns of what her bezoars can do, and demands that she stand down. She explains that it was Ryogan, not her, who betrayed Tomoko in the Hidden Kingdom. He had killed the residents of the castle and opened the gate for the Adversary's army. She had been dumped down a well and buried under the corpses of those slaughtered, and the experience drove her mad, and spawned the bezoars that now surround her — but she has them under control now. They could all still go back.
Hearing this, Tomoko's army attempts to give up, but Tomoko uses her foxfire to force them to fight. In the meantime, a tengu flies over Tomoko's head as Jack steals the foxfire from her hands and escapes with the winged soldier's help, knowing that Tomoko will die without it. Jack loses his grip on the foxfire, requiring Joel to become a crow and catch it. In the process, though, one of Tomoko's men shoots him down, and he returns to human form, plummeting to the earth with the foxfire in his arms. However, Joel lands safely — though wounded — in a cushion of her ever-growing hair. Rapunzel retrieves the foxfire, keeping her promise to get it back for Tomoko — centuries late. The tengu that grabbed Jack flies off with him and off him and drops him into the ocean, right into the claws of Godzilla. All the Japanese yokai return to the Hidden Kingdom, intending to close the gate behind them forever.[2]
Known yokai[]
Original source[]
Yokai are based on the yōkai ("strange apparition") from Japanese folklore. The only creatures referred to by name and stated to be yokai in the comics are the funa yurei[1] ("boat spirit"), the tanuki[1] (Japanese raccoon dog), the kirin,[3] and the kitsune ("fox") Tomoko.[1] Katagiri and the rest of the kappa ("river child") are prominently featured in the comics and are also yōkai, but this is never stated directly. The character of Neko is also prominently featured,[1] and is a form of yōkai called a bakeneko ("changed cat"), but this is never stated either. Mayumi is based on the Kuchisake-onna ("Slit-Mouthed Woman") from Japanese folklore, who is also a yōkai,[6] but this is never stated in the comics. Rapunzel is based on Okiku,[3] a vengeful yōkai ghost,[7] although she is never called a yokai in the comics, and she does not become a ghost; nonetheless, she manifests in a new, dark, and frightening guise that is reminiscent of the legend.[3][4]
Other creatures are referred to as yokai, but never named. These include various chōchin'obake[2] ("paper lantern ghost"), various gashadokuro[2][4] ("rattling skeleton"), a nue,[2] a nure-onna[2] ("wet woman"), various[2][3][4] tengu[2] ("heavenly dog") and a Wanyūdō[2] ("wheel monk").
Other yōkai from Japanese folklore appear in the comics but are never named, or referred to as such. These include a hitotsume-kozō ("one-eyed priest boy"),[1] a kawauso[4] (otter), a kyūso[1] ("former rat," "old rat"), a Japanese dragon (also known as tatsu, "dragon;"[8] a water-dwelling yokai[9]), a noppera-bō[1] ("faceless monk"), various oni,[1] a rokurokubi[1] ("pulley neck"), Seto Taishō[1] ("General Seto"), Sunamura no oryō[4] ("the ghost of Sunamura"); Tesso ("Iron Rat") and two uwabami[2][4] ("giant snake").
Despite hearing Katagiri's summons,[2] Godzilla is not actually a yōkai, as the famous Japanese monster is a modern creation associated with science.[10]
Gallery[]
References[]
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