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.

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 kappa1, and wrote many novels, children’s stories, and essays about them. He published a collection of forty-three kappa stories called “Kappa Mandala”2, and other collections like “Kappa Ascension3, “Kappa Conference” 4, and “Twelve Kappa Stories”5. 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]