by Chris MaGee
Recently I was speaking to a friend and member of the organization I work with, The Canada Japan Society about various things Japanese. The topic of conversation somehow ended up being how the summer is the traditional season in Japan for ghost stories, ghouls and the supernatural as opposed to here in North America when the walls between our world and the spirit world grow thin around Halloween. He said that when he was growing up in Japan it was believed that seeing a scary film during the height of summer would in fact “chill you”.
Well, fans of those scary critters, the yokai, who’ve been featured so prominently in films like “Kitaro”, “Pom Poko” and of course Takashi Miike’s “The Great Yokai War” will be pleased to hear that our friends from the spirit world are being given free reign this summer just outside of Kyoto at the The Toei Uzumasa Eigamura (also known as Toei Movie Land).
If you haven’t heard of Toei Movie Land it’s one of the many theme parks that have opened up in the past decade or so, but this is of particular interest to us fans of Japanese films; it is made up of actual films sets, mostly of Edo period houses and streets where film and television programs are still filmed. You can check out their website here.
Between July 19th and August 31st the park/ studio will be featuring special yokai related events as well as hosting the two day World Yokai Conferencein which scholars, storytellers and special guest “Gegege no Kitaro” creator Shigeru Mizuki will tell stories and discuss the importance of these traditional Japanese spirits.
Thanks to the newly resuscitated Hoga Central for this story. Hopefully if any of you are in the Kyoto area in the next month you can check this out… and by all means send us pics!
Recently I was speaking to a friend and member of the organization I work with, The Canada Japan Society about various things Japanese. The topic of conversation somehow ended up being how the summer is the traditional season in Japan for ghost stories, ghouls and the supernatural as opposed to here in North America when the walls between our world and the spirit world grow thin around Halloween. He said that when he was growing up in Japan it was believed that seeing a scary film during the height of summer would in fact “chill you”.
Well, fans of those scary critters, the yokai, who’ve been featured so prominently in films like “Kitaro”, “Pom Poko” and of course Takashi Miike’s “The Great Yokai War” will be pleased to hear that our friends from the spirit world are being given free reign this summer just outside of Kyoto at the The Toei Uzumasa Eigamura (also known as Toei Movie Land).
If you haven’t heard of Toei Movie Land it’s one of the many theme parks that have opened up in the past decade or so, but this is of particular interest to us fans of Japanese films; it is made up of actual films sets, mostly of Edo period houses and streets where film and television programs are still filmed. You can check out their website here.
Between July 19th and August 31st the park/ studio will be featuring special yokai related events as well as hosting the two day World Yokai Conferencein which scholars, storytellers and special guest “Gegege no Kitaro” creator Shigeru Mizuki will tell stories and discuss the importance of these traditional Japanese spirits.
Thanks to the newly resuscitated Hoga Central for this story. Hopefully if any of you are in the Kyoto area in the next month you can check this out… and by all means send us pics!
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