Yokai Art- Night Parade Of One Hundred Demons May 2026

For art collectors and enthusiasts, originals of Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyo are museum-grade, but high-quality reproductions are available via the British Museum and the Tokyo Metropolitan Library.

The Edo period saw a massive explosion in the popularity of yōkai art thanks to the rise of woodblock printing (ukiyo-e). Artists like Toriyama Sekien took the chaotic concept of the Night Parade and began to categorize it. Sekien’s "Gazu Hyakki Yagyō" (The Illustrated Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) functioned as a supernatural encyclopedia, giving names and backstories to creatures that were previously just nameless shapes in a scroll. Later, masters like Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi brought a more dynamic, often macabre energy to the parade, using vivid colors and dramatic compositions to capture the terror and excitement of the spirit world. Yokai Art- Night Parade of One Hundred Demons