Heiroku is one of the Japanese yokai portrayed in Sekien Toriyama’s yokai art collection book Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. Heiroku is a strange yokai brandishing a gohei (wooden Shinto ritual wand with a pair of white zigzag paper streamers). It is regarded as a tsukumogami. Since Sekien did not leave any description on the Heiroku in the book, details are unknown. According to some researchers, including cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki, Heiroku is a yokai which brandishes a Kotobure paper (a piece of paper with a handwritten message), claiming it an oracle, and spreads false rumors to confuse people. Kenji Muramaki, a yokai investigator, has insisted that the Heiroku should be modeled on a red ogre-like yokai that holds the gohei which is depicted in “Hyakki yagyo emaki” (a Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ picture scroll) of the Muromachi period.
Description Heiroku is one of the Japanese yokai portrayed in Sekien Toriyama’s yokai art collection book Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. Heiroku is a strange yokai brandishing a gohei (wooden Shinto ritual wand with a pair of white zigzag paper streamers). It is regarded as a tsukumogami. Since Sekien did not leave any description on the Heiroku in the book, details are unknown. According to some researchers, including cartoonist Shigeru Mizuki, Heiroku is a yokai which brandishes a Kotobure paper (a piece of paper with a handwritten message), claiming it an oracle, and spreads false rumors to confuse people. Kenji Muramaki, a yokai investigator, has insisted that the Heiroku should be modeled on a red ogre-like yokai that holds the gohei which is depicted in “Hyakki yagyo emaki” (a Night Parade of One Hundred Demons’ picture scroll) of the Muromachi period.
