Given that the traditional Shinto religion of Japan taught that the world was full of animistic spirits, it is no wonder that ‘ghosts’ played such a large part in Japanese folklore, literature, Noh and Kabuki theatre, and in woodcut prints.
Encounters with the supernatural were felt as a real experience, and many, like Yoshitoshi, had affecting sightings of ghosts. The word for ghost, kai, actually means strange, monstrous or weird, so the supernatural beings included a variety of demons and monsters as well as the spirits of dead humans returning from hell to haunt the living.
