The long Pax Tokugawa was founded on the blood of 40 000 severed enemy heads. Indeed 1600
marked the end of the period of wars that saw the defeat of the troops opposed to General
Ieyasu Tokugawa. The absence of wars banishing the memories and horrors of past massacres
favoured the development of epic tales that gave rise to dark and terrifying atmospheres such
as the game of the hundred candles a test of courage in which a handful of warriors meet on a
summer night to tell each other scary stories populated by monsters from the national
tradition. So we have the Joro¯ gumo comely women who reveal their true nature as enormous
spiders to their victims the Tanuki endearing badgers able to transform themselves the
Bakeneko monstrous cats the Kappa aquatic beings that pester women the Ningyo mermaids
whose fragrant flesh can give men renewed youth or an excruciating death. The macabre ritual of
the hundred candles is the great idea behind this original project that presents 200 works from
the 18th and 19th centuries including prints rare antique books clothes weapons swords a
samurai suit of armour as well as seventy-seven precious netsuke small ivory sculptures from
the Bertocchi private collection and a ten-metre long scroll that tells the story of Shutendoji
a mythological creature (Oni) at the head of an army of monsters that haunted Mount Oe near
Kyoto. Published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Villa Reale in Monza the book is a
real journey of discovery of Japanese imagery ranging from Hokusai¿s famous manga notebooks
(alongside his other masterpieces) to the works of Loputyn the contemporary illustrator well
known to hotaku manga enthusiasts.
