About this book
Nadai means a name so renowned it becomes the signboard itself. The yōkai world has its celebrities too — painted in scrolls, printed on karuta cards, summoned in comic storytelling, recognized on sight even by children: the lantern ghost, the umbrella ghost, the house child zashiki-warashi, the long-necked rokurokubi. This book invites one hundred of these renowned figures, and no others.
The stage is Shōwa-era Japan. Into the red lanterns of festival nights, the kotatsu gatherings, the iron goemon bathtubs, these famous creatures slip as if they had always lived there. They come to frighten — but the girl of this house does not startle. She laughs, she pokes back, and sometimes it turns into a footrace. The lore stays old; only the night is new.
In the tradition of hyakumonogatari — one hundred ghost stories told by lantern light — the real one appears only after the hundredth tale. That is why Ao-andon, the blue lantern spirit, waits on the final plate. Take your time. Count all ninety-nine nights before you turn the last page.
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