Minogame (mee-noh-gah-meh): Ten-thousand-year-old turtle with a long trailing tail of hair that is a symbol of longevity.

Mononoke (moh-noh-noh-keh, spirit of a thing): Every material object, both animate and inanimate, embodies a spirit energy, which is how man-made objects can come alive when they are one hundred years old.

Mukashi-banashi (moo-kah-shee bah-nah-shee): Story or tale about long ago, or a folktale.

Ningyo (neen-gyoh, mermaid): Eating the flesh of a mermaid will make a person young again and immortal.

Dugong, species Dugong dugong. Senses of hearing and taste are highly developed; poor eyesight.

Noppera-bō (nohp-peh-rah boh): Faceless ghost that looks like an ordinary human from the back. In Kwaidan, Lafcadio Hearn tells a story of a frightened man who has just seen a woman with no face. The man runs toward the safety of a street vendor’s soba cart and excitedly relates that he has seen a ghost. “Was her face like this?” the vendor asks as his face disappears and the cart’s lantern blows out.

I've seen a noppera-bō in Aldrich Park at University of California, Irvine. It was an early evening in 2008, and I was walking across the park toward the main library. Another path intersected the path I was walking on, and I glanced to the side to see a young student of likely Asian ancestry approaching me from the left. Her long black hair hanging in front of her fair face and the twilight darkness made it appear that she had no eyes, no nose, and no mouth. I hurried along after a few more furtive glances, startled by the illusion I had seen.

O-Bon matsuri (oh-bohn mah-tsoo-ree): Summertime Festival of Lanterns (aka Festival of the Dead) usually held in mid-July (13th-15th, or 13th-16th) or mid-August depending on the region. It is a time to welcome back one’s ancestors for their annual visit home. Traditional folk dances are performed by the community to celebrate. Lanterns are floated down the river, out to the ocean, in a poignant good-bye to the ancestors on the last day of O-Bon.

O-Kiku (oh-kee-koo): In one version of the ghost story, Kiku was a young maidservant who was loyal to the lord of Himeji Castle, but her employer was a traitorous samurai who wished to be lord himself. When Kiku refused to cooperate, she was blamed for breaking a dish from a rare set of ten. She died of her injuries from being beaten, and her body was thrown down a well. Her sad voice counting the dishes could be heard at night. After she counted to nine, she would break into loud sobbing after that. The well is still there at Himeji Castle, and there is a signboard nearby that recounts the tragedy. If you have seen the J-horror movie Ringu (American remake The Ring), Stevenson writes of the ghostly star that she is "'pure' Ghost of Okiku" (12).

Omamori (oh-mah-moh-ree): Amulets sold by shrines and temples for good luck in areas of life such as love, health, school exams, and business. The amulets are often in the form of a small rectangular brocade bag.

"The ghosts of the Edo period came in a variety of forms. This essay examines this diversity of forms and images among ghosts, basing its observations on the illustrations for a collection of mysterious stories published in the latter half of the 17th century. Ghost forms gradually were standardized, and the article enumerates the forms and traces their transformation. Ghost types are noted in the following order:

1) ghosts who appear in their original living forms,

2) ghosts who have the form of a dead person who has been revived (clad in their white shrouds),

3) ghosts who appear as women holding or near a freshly severed head,

4) often women, ghosts who appear in fearsome, malevolent forms such as demons or serpents,

5) ghosts who are raising children, and

6) ghostly 'ubume,' women who have died in childbirth (they are soaked from the hips down in blood)."