Yokai Match Label Set
Data
Description
A set of ten silhouetted match label prints on a yokai theme, produced in the early Showa era. The sponsor, 南吉次郎 (Minami Yoshijiro), is known to have produced another twenty match labels, in colour, on the same theme.
The prints are numbered top-to-bottom, left-to-right.
Print 1: A chochin-obake (提灯お化け, "paper lantern ghost") yokai and hi-no-tama (火の玉, "ball of fire") yokai above a skull.
Print 2: A gaikotsu yokai (骸骨妖怪, "skeleton yokai") dances with a cloth.
Print 3: A yurei (幽霊, "ghost").
Print 4: A hone-onna (骨女, "skeleton woman") or gaikotsu yokai (骸骨妖怪, "skeleton yokai") plays the shamisen.
Print 5: An unknown "species" of yokai attacks a samurai.
Print 6: A kappa (河童, "river-child").
Print 7: An okubi (大首, "giant head").
Print 8: A three-eyed rokurokubi (ろくろ首, "long-neck") smokes a pipe.
Print 9: An ubume (産女, "ghost of a woman who died during childbirth") with a hi-no-tama (火の玉, "ball of fire") yokai.
Print 10: An unknown "species" of yokai emerges from a large pot.