These wide-ranging stories are a great reminder that behind the glitzy veneer of modern Japan's super-cute Hello-Kitty convenience culture lurks the primeval landscape of Shinto and Buddhist folklore, inhabited by malevolent demons, macabre phantoms of the night and deviously shape-changing prankster foxes. These tales also reveal how present-day Kyoto remains inseparably connected with this medieval nether-world (and it's good to remember too how well-received these stories were at the old "Kyoto Connection" open mike event when Harold and Jonatha used to participate).

Tico Sase's hauntingly evocative sketches give just the right suggestion of the ambience conjured up by traditional Japanese ghost stories, as told on sultry summer evenings when the storyteller's finely-honed art was guaranteed to chill the air significantly enough to produce sudden goosebumps, impromptu shivers and sheer cold sweat...

Fortunately, the bloodcurdling horror and Kabukiesque melodrama is balanced by a characteristically sly and down-to-earth sense of humor. Clearly there are elements of the classic Appalachian tall tale in these stories from the shadows of the Rashomon Gate...

Ken Rodgers,
Kyoto

Hello Harold and Jonatha!

I just wanted to write and tell you that yesterday, after work, your book was in my mailbox. I just finished reading it and will read it again when February gets here. I had heard "Snow Woman" before but not exactly like your version. Which I think I like yours better! I had never heard the "Bravest Samurai." I really like that story too. The artwork is worth framing... I love those drawings, did Tico Sase paint them for you? I assume she did. Please tell her that I stared that the Monster and Samurai drawing for ten minutes admiring the delicate lines and the others are so lovely.

I laughed out loud at the idea of a naked Harold hugging a new roommate... ha ha! I am still laughing! Spectacular! I think Buck P could manage that predicament too, I was really primed for a boogie man. So good. Lovely writing, I love the Japanese words for sound effects and I love the gentle beauty I imagined in that mysterious place called Japan. I loved the fox tales and the Monsters arm. Great stories. Once or twice, I felt like I could hear your voices... if not your voices... your rhythm and cadance as you tell. I caught myself wondering which lines Harold would tell and which Jonatha would tell. I just plain ole love you two.

I feel certain the one you helped imagine and the one that is there today are not the same kind of Japan. But I LOVE the images you gave me. I hope you sell a million of them. The stories and the book are (is?) wonderful. As soon as I finish the Chronicles of Narnia again this January, I will read your book again. Thanks for letting the world have these tales to read.

Buck P Creacy, Storyteller