Hyaku Monogatari This is a mid-period masterpiece, serialized in "Shosetsu Shincho" from 1986 over a period of eight years. "Hyaku Monogatari" refers to a collection of stories that were passed around and read in Edo, with the first edited version appearing in the second year of the Manji era. The writing style resembles that of Anrakuan Sakuden, so it was likely edited by his disciples. In short, it's similar to a collection of rakugo stories. The title "Hyaku Monogatari" comes from the last chapter of Asai Ryoi's kana-zoshi "Otogiboko," which states that if one tells exactly one hundred strange tales, something terrifying and mysterious will surely occur. There's a particular setup for this: on a dark night with a moon, they would light a paper lantern with blue paper attached, and pull out the wicks of a hundred candles, one wick for each story. It sounds interesting, let's try it, they thought. So, a group of lively people from Shimogyo, Kyoto, gathered at the beginning of December and tried it. Around the time they reached 60 or 70 stories, countless fireflies flew outside the window. Suddenly, the fireflies entered the house, and they quickly grew to be as large as mirrors and balls, and then, like balls of fire, they hit the ceiling and fell, and the sound became like thunder. The comical and endearing figures of the demons and humans who lived in the Edo period. A story of apparitions, depicting nostalgic fear in the form of a collection of strange tales. From ancient times, it is said that at the place where one hundred strange stories are gathered, a hundred tales of the mysterious, a monster will surely appear—the Edo period, when people saw things they couldn't see and believed in things that couldn't be explained by reason. Before the humans who were floundering between life and death, the demons appeared, transcending time and space. This is a "story of apparitions" depicted in the form of a collection of strange tales, showing the comical and endearing figures of the strange beings and humans, and the nostalgic fear.