About this book
Nothing heavy appears in this night parade. No stones, no rice bales, no laden carts. One hundred invented yōkai — born from the weights of three eras of Japanese life, from the installment ledger and the matchmaker's fan to the thirty-five-year mortgage and the party organizer's notebook, to the late-night work chat and the list of unsettled payments — and each one presses down with its own body: a shell scored with twelve moons, a stone belly fattened on discarded paper, arms grown longer by every reply left unsent.
At the center is Suzune, the girl with a small red bell at her throat. On the first plate the Installment Turtle has already laid its millstone belly across her shoulders, its calendar tail wound through both forearms and one ankle. Plate by plate her expression changes: not yet noticing, counting, searching for the words to refuse. Only the soles of her feet keep pushing back against the floor.
This book does not draw the one who carries as weak. The weight is simply what happens when the nets of duty, of goodwill, of the system itself all settle onto a single person at once. At plate ninety-nine the night thins toward morning, and on the hundredth waits Momoe Nushi, the Hundredfold Master — one great yōkai wearing every weight of the three eras at once. Whether what is set down at the end is the weight, or the woman who has grown used to carrying it, only the one who turns the last page will know.
All one hundred yōkai are the artist's original creations; what presses down is always the yōkai's own living body — never ropes, never gear
For personal enjoyment only.
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