#Why Do Yoma Exist

Contents

After the question of what a yoma is — comes the question of why they exist.

#Seeing Through Three Lenses

There is no single answer to why yoma exist. One must see them through multiple lenses.

The Social Lens — yoma are the way society speaks what it cannot say aloud.
The Psychological Lens — yoma are the human heart erupting outward.
The Faith Lens — yoma are part of another world that truly exists.

These three are not mutually exclusive. One can see the same yoma through all three lenses at once.

#The First Lens — What Society Cannot Say

#Yoma Are Warnings

Many yoma stories take the form of social warnings.

"Go to the mountain alone at night and oni will carry you off." → An education for children: do not wander alone.

"Try to deceive a fox and the fox will deceive you far worse." → A lesson for merchants: beware of lies.

"Eat a cucumber carelessly by the riverside and kappa will be angry." → A fable to keep children away from the dangers of rivers — drowning, disease.

"Listen to a courtesan's words and you will become a yoko." → A warning against customs that harm the household.

Old Japanese society used yoma to say what it could not say directly. In an age with no police and loose laws, yoma were agents of morality.

#Yoma Are Exclusion

There are also cases where society turns people it cannot accept into yoma.

Stigmatized women — women who left their husbands, women who grew old alone, women who fell ill. Such women were described as "yamauba" — mountain monsters. Society pushed beings it would not accept out in the form of yoma.
Wandering groups — those without land who drifted the roads. They were spoken of as "the mob of yokai (Yako — the Night Procession, Hyakki Yako)". The story that a hundred yoma walk in procession through the night. In truth — a farmer's fear of some wandering group becoming a painting.

Seen through this lens — yoma stories are social history. Who was excluded, who was feared — all of it is carved into the face of yoma.

#The Second Lens — The Human Heart Erupting Outward

#Yoma Are Crystallized Emotion

This interpretation fits especially well for onryo and ikiryo (living spirits).

Onryo are the crystallization of an unresolved grudge. Even when a person dies, if their resentment does not fade — that resentment takes form. That is an onryo.

Ikiryo are even more startling. A powerful obsession held by a living person taking form. The person lies asleep in their own home, yet a fragment of their soul stands before the door of the one they are fixated on.

This interpretation sees yoma as a part of ourselves. Yoma are not enemies coming from outside — they come from within us. One who harbors great resentment risks becoming an onryo after death. One whose obsession runs deep sends out an ikiryo without knowing it.

#Yoma Are the Shape of Fear

Why do yoma appear so often at night? Why do they inhabit mountains and deep forests? Why are they so often encountered at the water's edge?

Those places are spaces humans cannot control. Night makes us blind; mountains make us lost; water swallows us whole. Where fear is great, yoma are many.

The same is true of yoma's faces. The oni's horns are the qualities of beasts — a reflection of the brutish nature we fear. The courtesan yoko is the figure of the fear of being seduced. Yuki-onna's beauty and coldness are the union of sexual desire and the death that follows.

Seen through this lens — every yoma face is a map of the human interior.

#The Third Lens — Another World That Truly Exists

#Why This Lens Matters for This Game

The first two lenses belong to anthropology and psychology. They treat yoma as human creations.

This third lens sees yoma as real. Not something humans invented, but something that genuinely exists. Beings from a world different from ours overlap with this world and sometimes seep through.

The world of Konsei Reiyotan (混世霊妖譚) is built on this lens. The Spirit Realm is real, yoma are real, and that reality became visible in the chaos of the Sengoku era.

#The Terrain of the Spirit Realm

In this lens, the Spirit Realm is another map laid over the map.

Yoma are numerous in the mountains → The mountains have many gates to the Spirit Realm standing open. Sacred mountains like Ise, Kumano, and Hiei in particular.
Yoma are numerous at the water's edge → Water is a boundary line — the border between this world and the next. The depths of rivers and seas reach the Spirit Realm.
Spirits dwell in old things → Spiritual density accumulates in things that have endured long years. A house of 100 years, a tool of 100 years, a tree of 100 years.

#Neighbors in the Spirit Realm

Yoma are residents of the Spirit Realm. They live normally in their own world. They appear to us as yoma only in the places where their world and ours overlap.

From their perspective — we might be the yoma. Strange beings who suddenly step into their world.

This interpretation makes negotiation with yoma possible. If they are not monsters but neighbors with different rules — we can learn their rules. Not accepting food carelessly, not calling names carelessly, not looking back — these taboos are the etiquette of a neighbor.

#When the Three Lenses Overlap

See the same yoma through all three lenses.

Take oni as an example:

Social lens: Foreign peoples (Ainu? Emishi?) who lived in the mountains of old Japan, mythologized. The image of those who were conquered.
Psychological lens: A projection of the violence and wildness within humans. What we do not want to become but could become.
Faith lens: Real inhabitants of the mountains. A different people who were there before us.

All three lenses are each correct. There is no need to choose one. See them simultaneously. This is the richness of the word yoma.

#The Meaning of Yoma Changes

The meaning of the same yoma changes with the age.

The oni of the medieval age was a terrifying enemy. Something to be cut down.
In the Edo period, oni became mischievous beings. Smiling oni began to appear in folk tales.
In modern Japan, oni became manga characters. More cute than frightening.

What of oni in the Sengoku era — the age of this game? Frightening. Genuinely frightening. Because the blood of war has awakened the mountains. In this age, yoma are not stories but daily threats. That is why the yoma of this age wear such grave faces.

#So Why Do Yoma Exist — One Answer

When the three lenses are laid over one another — one answer emerges.

Yoma are the way humans understand what lies outside themselves.

Outside society (foreign peoples, the fallen)
Outside the mind (emotion, desire, fear)
Outside the world (other dimensions, other beings)

These outsides appear before us wearing yoma's faces. They are not entirely different from us. They are things connected to us but in a different place. That connection — is the meaning of yoma.

#Closing With One Scene

A deep winter night. A farmhouse somewhere in the countryside. A grandmother and her granddaughter sit beside the hearth.

"Grandmother, why do yoma exist?"

The grandmother looks at the girl. She thinks for a moment.

"Because they do, child."

"That's not an answer."

"There are questions without answers."

The grandmother takes the girl's hand.

"What matters is — if you know they exist, you can bar the door at night. You can hang a talisman. You can scatter salt at the well. Your grandmother's grandmother did the same, and your grandmother does the same, and so will you. That is what matters."

The granddaughter nods. She seems not to understand, and yet she seems to.

The hearth fire dims. The grandmother places another branch in. The fire rises again. In that firelight, both their faces become clear to one another.

Outside is darkness. In the darkness there will be something. But in here — in here it is warm.

That is the wisdom of this age.