Eerily beautiful modern nihonga paintings by Matsuura Shiori (she also does a lot of bijin-styled art, some hinting at wlw!). For her take on Japanese monsters, the pieces shown here are:
One of the most beautiful jorougumo depiction I’ve ever seen (the tangled butterflies in her spiderweb-hair <3)
A banquet going amok because of mischievious rokurokubi and nopperabou, and their tsukumogami (animated objects) suite
A falsely serene Otsuyu from the Peony lantern ghost story
Crokery tsukumogami and a very curious investigating cat
Make-up tsukumogami and sleeping white cat (maybe a bakeneko as hinted in the mirror)
@amaryllis14612 Your post about the Man in the Fox Mask made me think more deeply about why I think he is a part of Ochou.
I remember that the Medicine Seller said that Ochou had fallen in love, and when this person is revealed to us, we see that it is the Mononoke. However, at the end of the episode, we find out that the Mononoke is actually Ochou. Taking all these facts into account, we can come to the conclusion that the masked man is a part of Ochou that wanted to be happy and free, but she kept that part of herself inside her heart, so it is represented as someone else. Ochou developed self-love, and this self-love led her to seek freedom, the freedom she found in ending her own life.
At least that's how I like to think about it :))
❝— Feelings and memories. They only exist inside my heart.
— Even if we live at the same time, or have the same visions, what we carry in our hearts will never be the same.
— Your face, your voice, your image, which only exists inside me.
— Who are you?❞
The second act of Nopperabō is presented in this way. I think that's a way of saying how our hearts carry different hurts, and that this also applied to Ochou, who had created such an unthinkably huge will to be free, that she no longer recognized that part of herself, and only within from Ochou's heart, it became a whole another person.
Yokai with a penchant for mobilizing in large groups in order to frighten unsuspecting people.
They are quite dramatic in doing so, "I saw a person with no face," the victim might say, and the response "You mean like this?" as they wipe off their own disguise.