FUKUSAKI, Hyogo -- Tourists gathered around a murky pond in a park in Fukusaki in southwestern Hyogo Prefecture, despite the extremely hot weather on a weekend in early August.
They were intently watching the surface of the water, which soon began to bubble. Then three red kappa monsters with large mouths emerged from the water.
"They're so real!" yelled a parent and a child in amazement. There were even children who started crying.
"It's a little scary, but kind of fun," said 10-year-old Shunon Kazayuki. The fourth-grade elementary school student came to Tsujikawayama Park, about a 30-minute walk from JR Fukusaki Station, with four other members of her family from Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture.
Fukusaki is the birthplace and home of folklorist Kunio Yanagita (1875-1962). In 2014, the town decided to attract more tourists and put the kappa statues in a pond the town had had difficulty purifying. The statues include one named Gajiro, inspired by a kappa appearing in one of Yanagita's books. Taking advantage of the cloudy water, the town government created a mechanism to hide the statues underwater most of the time.
The pond is also surrounded by statues of yokai otherworldly beings that were chosen as the best works at the annual Yokai Creative Contest in Fukusaki, organized by the town.
The yokai figures and statues in the town are realistic representations of their characters, made with great attention to detail in their poses and facial expressions. They appear as if they really exist in the place.
"We thought the more realistic they are, the more they would be talked about," said Tomoo Ogawa of the town government's regional development division.
Making good use of his hobby of model-making, Ogawa, 44, designed some of the yokai himself.
Since last year, the town government has been working on a yokai bench project. Nine benches where people can sit with a yokai monster were placed in front of the station and shops along the road to the park.
The nine yokai figures are human-sized and made of fiber-reinforced plastic. The figures all look special and have personalities. There is a kappa pondering its next move in the game of shogi and a tengu wearing a business suit.
"It's great fun. I feel like I'm sitting with yokai, which I love very much," Katsutoshi Hirata, 49, who, together with a friend, had driven more than an hour from Mimasaka, Okayama Prefecture, to visit.
The yokai benches attracted public attention through social media, such as Instagram and Twitter, as people posted their photos with the yokai. As a result, the number of tourists visiting the town each year has increased from about 250,000 in fiscal 2013 to about 400,000.
Local shops also support the yokai boom, helping tourists take photos that look great on social media. A yokai bench with Hitotsume Kozo, a one-eyed child monster, is placed in front of Les Baux Provence, a patisserie. The shop has been selling rare cheesecake that looks like the yokai since March this year. In July last year, it sold cakes featuring Gajiro the kappa, which turned out to be very popular with customers.
"I hope [those cakes] will help promote Fukusaki," shop manager Hiroshi Yamasaki said.
Essentially, yokai are scary beings that are beyond human understanding, said Masanobu Kagawa, a curator at the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History.
"But yokai in the Heisei era [1989-] make people feel close to them so that people want to take their pictures. They also inspire nostalgia," he added.
Five more yokai benches are in the works. Now, the yokai exert their magical power through social media. Will they fascinate people even more in future?
Memo
Fukusaki is a 25-minute train journey from JR Himeji Station on the JR Bantan Line.
If arriving by car, exit the Fukusaki Interchange on the Chugoku Expressway, or use either the Fukusaki-Kita or Fukusaki-Minami ramp on the Bantan connecting road.
The underwater kappa in Tsujikawayama Park make appearances every 15 minutes from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
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