A Study about Hino Ashihei’s “Stone and Nail” and “Ghost” in Comparison with Mizuki Shigeru’s Comic “Urine” Based on Legends from the Kyūshū Region
A Study about Hino Ashihei’s “Stone and Nail” and “Ghost” in Comparison with Mizuki Shigeru’s Comic “Urine” Based on Legends from the Kyūshū Region

Summary/Abstract: Hino Ashihei served the longest time for Japan, in the Pacific War, and was widely known as a war writer. Also, he greatly loved one kind of Japanese goblin (yōkai) called kappa, and wrote many novels, children’s stories, and essays about them. He published a collection of forty-three kappa stories called “Kappa Mandala”, and other collections like “Kappa Ascension, “Kappa Conference” , and “Twelve Kappa Stories”. However, this group of works by Hino about kappa has not been studied yet. In this paper, from the many works about kappa which Hino wrote, I will discuss “Stone and Nail”「石と釘」, a story based on a folktale from the author’s birthplace. Although an absurd children’s story, “Stone and Nail” carries within it Hino’s longing for peace. Here, I will also discuss the comic titled “Urine”「小便」, based on two of Hino’s stories, “Stone and Nail” and “Ghost”「亡霊」, and drawn by Mizuki Shigeru, a Japanese cartoonist who loved yōkai.

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