Aoandon

What it is

Aoandon is a yōkai, one of the many strange beings gathered in Japanese picture books of the supernatural. It is shown as a woman whose skin is blue, with a pair of horns rising from her brow and a mouth of sharp teeth. The creature sits in the world of story rather than in any working rite: it is said to be the spirit that comes when a company has finished telling one hundred ghost stories. Its name points to the lamp that lit those gatherings, a paper-shaded light in blue. Toriyama Sekien drew it for his Konjaku Hyakki Shūi, an illustrated collection of apparitions.

Where it comes from

The figure comes from the brush of Toriyama Sekien, who placed it in his Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. The picture was meant to give a shape to the spirit believed to arrive at the close of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, the meeting where a hundred tales are told in one sitting. That setting supplied the name. Such meetings were often lit by candles set inside andon, lamps whose flame burns behind a paper shade, and the paper used was blue, chosen to make the room feel eerie. So ao, blue, was joined to andon.

How it is done

The custom behind the creature is a storytelling game. A group gathers for Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, the hundred-story meeting, and each person takes a turn with a tale of the dead. One hundred stories are told in all. When the hundredth has been finished, the spirit is said to appear. The room is lit with the mood in mind: candles are set in lamps shaded with blue paper. The colour does the work of atmosphere, and the final tale is the moment the creature belongs to.

Tools and materials

The chief object is the andon, a lamp built as a frame with paper wrapped around it, so the flame inside shows as a soft glow rather than a bare point of light. At these meetings the paper was blue and candles were placed within. The blue shade gave the room its colour and its uneasy feel, and the creature carries the lamp in its name. The picture adds the being's own marks: a blue face, two horns at the brow, sharp teeth.

What people believe

Behind the figure sits an idea from Japanese ghost-story custom: that a night of tales about the dead can call something up. When the hundredth story ends, a visitor is said to arrive, and Aoandon is the shape given to that visitor. Blue light and the count of one hundred are the fixed parts of the setting. The creature stands where a parlour amusement meets the belief that talk of the dead can draw them near.

Compare and confuse

English readers meet the name in two spellings, Aoandon and Aoandō, and in Japanese it is written 青行灯 or 青行燈. The second element is the andon, the paper-shaded lamp, so the creature's name is also the ordinary phrase for a blue lamp. The being is tied to Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai, the hundred-tale gathering, and to the blue lighting used there.

Today

The creature keeps a life in games and in taxonomy. Onmyōji, a game played on phones, lists it among its shikigami, the spirit helpers of that series, and gives it a fondness for stories. A marine worm, Polycirrus aoandon, borrows the yōkai's name, and the fit is neat: the worm is bioluminescent, giving off its own light. The 2025 release Assassin's Creed Shadows also uses the being, as an optional opponent in a quest titled "The Yokai".

Questions people ask about Aoandon

Good reading and sources

• Aoandon on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• Wikidata recordOpen data