The fifth, final and rarest of the Nitto Yokai Monsters!

Shortly after returning home from Japan with my four other yokai toys, I was informed that there was one more that I needed to get to complete the set. That toy was Ikkaku Daioh, commonly referred to as the "Blue Demon", although according to Club Tokyo, the term actually means "One Horned King".

Like most of the others in the series, Ikkaku Daioh features only one single point of articulation, that being at the waist. His arms are permanently in a fixed upright pose. He looks like he might be casting, or warding off, a spell.

Although he is roughly the same height as the Abura Sumashi and Hitotsume-Kozou toys, he looks smaller since it is his horn is nearly one inch tall. His appeal lies mainly in his dark blue color which is nicely contrasted by the bright yellow of his clothing. Some brown and red round out the color scheme.

Two other factors may make Ikkaku Daioh appealing to the yokai collector. First, he's probably the rarest of the Nitto Yokai toys, so one might enjoy hunting for him and treasuring the toy more once it's acquired. However, even though he's the hardest to find, he does turn up. It took me nearly one year to get one, and even in that time I passed on at least two specimens while waiting for one at a price I liked.

Secondly, this is the only character in the set that does not originate in traditional Japanese folklore. Daiei Studios created this character specifically for their late 1960s series of yokai movies.

Like most of these vintage yokai toys, Ikkaku Daioh is best enjoyed when displayed with the others. Unfortunately, there are only the 5 vintage yokai vinyls. Some more recent toys have been released, but not many. Perhaps the most notable recent yokai toys are the Daimon standard size vinyl by M1 and several smaller yokai vinyls from companies such as M1, Tomy and Bear Model. There is also a very nice doll of Abura Sumashi by Tsukuda Hobby, but overall the yokai seem to have gone somewhat neglected in toy form, which is a crying shame, in my opinion.

If you are interested in learning more about traditional Yokai monsters, be sure to check out the upcoming book Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. It's available this summer in Japan and later this year in both the US and the UK. The book is written by good friend Matt Alt (of ToyboxDX fame) and his wife Hiroko Yoda, both stars of the "Great Yokai War".

As my appreciation for Ushi-Oni grew, Hitotsume Kozou came to be my least favorite yokai toy. With the exception of his cyclopean appearance, there's really nothing else monstrous or frightening about the character. He's just a one-eyed bald kid who likes to taunt people, hence the outstretched tongue.

Perhaps the most appealing thing about the toy is it's colors. Featuring a caucasian flesh tone with white and black clothes, he provides a nice visual contrast to the rest of the characters in the set.

But taken on it's own, this one doesn't really offer much. It is just a hair over 6.5" tall. (Ok, maybe not a hair, but a pointy cranium.) There is just one point of articulation as you can turn the head side to side. Everything else is molded in place. The paint job is a bit sloppy on this one, too, with black overlapping over onto the bottom of the hands and some white blending into the forearms. That doesn't bother me too much though. It just makes it feel a bit more like an old knick-knack instead of a toy.

Mine even has a few spots of brown paint on the head and shoulders. No idea where that came from.

Perhaps because it's arguably the least desirable of the Nitto yokai toys, Hitotsume Kozou is probably the most common and inexpensive of the bunch.

If you are interested in learning more about traditional Yokai monsters, be sure to check out the upcoming book Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. It's available this month in Japan and later this year in both the US and the UK. The book is written by good friend Matt Alt (of ToyboxDX fame) and his wife Hiroko Yoda, both stars of the The Great Yokai War.

One of the rarer Nitto yokai vinyls, Ushi-Oni overcomes his diminutive size to be an appealing part of the set.

At first blush, I considered Ushi-Oni to be the runt of the Nitto's yokai toys. Standing at a mere 5.5" tall (or closer to 6 if you measure to the very tip of the horn), he's easily the shortest of the set so he was immediately behind the 8-ball, so to speak. But over time, his impish grin and distinctive coloring would begin to win me over.

His outstretched hands and big, wide eyes are reminiscent of a ugly but playful puppy. He may not be much to look at, but he'll win you over with his charm.

Much like Abura Sumashi, Ushi-Oni has a very natural looking paint scheme (which has seen better days on my specimen, as you can see above). He looks like he's jumping out at you from a tall, dense grass. The hands, feet and horn are spotted with a contrasting brown paint, which then continues to run the length of the back, all the down to the end of the tail.

Ushi-Oni has only one point of articulation, but it is a waist joint. It comes from the Daiei Yokai films of the late 1960s.

If you are interested in learning more about traditional Yokai monsters, be sure to check out the upcoming book Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. It's available this month in Japan and later this year in both the US and the UK. The book is written by good friend Matt Alt (of ToyboxDX fame) and his wife Hiroko Yoda, both stars of the The Great Yokai War.

The wise old leader of the yokai!

When I made the decision to buy my 4 yokai monsters, it was based largely on the belief that Kara-Kasa was the coolest and most desirable of the set. I mean, if he wasn't included, I likely wouldn't have bit. But later, I really came to appreciate the appeal of Abura Sumashi ( 油すまし). This character was the wise leader of the yokai in their battle against the evil Daimon in the film "Yokai Dai-Senso" from 1968. If yokai were Jedi, this guy would be Yoda.

Standing 6.5" tall, this toy features just one single point of articulation, with the head being able to turn. That's it. No other action features. But it's the sculpt of that head that is the real appeal. Pointed at the top with outstretched ears on the sides, the head of Abura Sumashi appears made out of stone and had numerous subtle bumps and ridges that are best appreciated in person. The sly, mischievous grin belies the serene look of wisdom set into the large, dark eyes. It's quite unlike any other Japanese toy I have, most of which are either ferocious monsters or inanimate robots.

A long coat made out of straw (or vinyl depicting straw, of course) covers the rest of his body, down to the bare legs. Abura Sumashi wears no shoes. The character is known to carry a staff, but the toy did not come with one. There are indentations in the hands (not holes, mind you, just indentations) but I do not believe that the toy ever came with any accessories, even though the shopkeeper I bought it from pointed there and said, in broken English, "missing part". Regardless, no specimen I've ever seen had anything in the hands so if I am missing a part, I'm certainly not alone in that regard.

Between the stony head and the straw coat, this toy is the most "Earthy" toy I have, which really sets it apart from the rest of my vinyl collection. Although the character is supernatural in essence, it seems far more natural when placed next to space creatures and nuclear mutated giant monsters.

If you are interested in learning more about traditional Yokai monsters, be sure to check out the upcoming book Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. It's available this month in Japan and later this year in both the US and the UK. The book is written by good friend Matt Alt (of ToyboxDX fame) and his wife Hiroko Yoda, both stars of the "Great Yokai War".

My first exposure to Japanese Yokai came not from the original trilogy of Daiei movies released in the late 1960s or even from the recent Takashi Miike film "The Great Yokai War". Nope, sandwiched in between those more famous offerings was "Sakuya: Slayer Of Demons". I thought that the movie was fun, but the strange monsters within it really stole the show. They were quite unlike any others I'd seen elsewhere. At the time, I had no idea how famous they really were. Nor was I aware of any toys based on them. A chance discovery at a famous Japanese toy store would change that.

It was December 2006 and I was in Godzilla-ya, hunting for Jumbos as usual. No luck on that front so naturally I focused on plan B...scoring some vinyls. Now, usually I just get contemporary vinyls. Vintage is great, but too expensive. However, something caught my eye in one of the cases. Isn't that..? It is! It's that crazy umbrella monster from that movie!

At the time, I had no idea what the actual name of the character was and of course, the toys were new to me as well. But since these guys are so bizarre, it was easy to tell that there were 3 more toys with him that were all from the same line. I had my friend ask the shopkeeper if he would give me a discount if I bought all four and he agreed.

Even with a 15,000 yen discount, I had just dropped 70,000 yen on 4 toys I knew nothing about from a genre I didn't really collect. Later, it occurred to me just how dumb and out of character that was and for awhile, I really agonized over whether or not I truly wanted these things. But when I finally returned home and put them on my own vinyl shelf...oh man, I was hooked. They really stood out and added a flavor to my collection that I didn't realize it was missing. A year later, the fifth and final piece in the set would be obtained.

Kara-kasa ( からかさ) was released in 1968 by Nitto, thus making it my oldest Japanese character toy. It stands 8" tall and is articulated at the shoulders. The single leg also turns but doesn't move smoothly and there's really no reason to do it anyway. Of course, with just the one leg, and a Tengu-Geta sandal on the foot, this toy is nearly impossible to stand up on it's own. Of course, when it was originally released, the toy had an elastic through the head that could make it "bounce". You could have easily used that to hang it, but most specimens today are missing that.

If you are interested in learning more about traditional Yokai monsters, be sure to check out the upcoming book Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide. It's available this summer in Japan and later this year in both the US and the UK. The book is written by good friend Matt Alt (of ToyboxDX fame) and his wife Hiroko Yoda, both stars of the aforementioned "Great Yokai War".