“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” is a world-traveling exhibition produced by the prestigious Tokyo-based Japan Foundation. The exhibit presents Japan’s fascinating yokai culture through Japanese scrolls, woodblock prints, toys and films curated by Koichi Yumoto, regarded as one of Japan’s foremost experts on the subject. “Yokai Parade” traces the transformation of these supernatural beings from fearsome monsters to less scary – even charming – figures through contemporary media arts.

This exhibit is a collaboration between the renowned Japan Foundation, the Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu, and the Hawaii Japanese Center in Hilo.

A fascination with yokai traveled from Japan to Hawaii along with the thousands of Japanese immigrants who traversed the Pacific Ocean to work as laborers on Hawaii’s sugarcane plantations in the 1800s to the early 1900s. Taking on a form and identity of their own in Hawaii, yokai are better known in the islands as “obake.”

The importance of legends, myths, ghosts, and the supernatural in general was shared by the many ethnic groups in Hawaii, from the indigenous Hawaiians to Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican, Filipino and other immigrants who settled in the islands.

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” will run from August 2 to August 30 at the Hawaii Japanese Center, 751 Kanoelehua Avenue in Hilo. Public viewing hours are Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, email info@hawaiijapanesecenter.com or call (808) 934-9611.