Manta-Man by Chad Sell

This is the second installment of my weekly illustration series Year of the Yōkai. The lovely lady is O-Yuki, Woman of the Snow. She’s not as freakish as some of the other Yōkai I’ve encountered. In both stories I’ve read, she preys upon some woodsmen sleeping in a rickety old shack. One she kills, the other she lets live, as long as he never tells anyone about meeting her. Years pass by, he marries a beautiful young lady, they have kids, etc. One night, he mentions the crazy lady from the shack, spurring his wife to reveal that she, in fact, is that woman, and because he’s broken his vow, she must leave.

A lot of Japanese folklore seems to revolve around women’s hidden, mystical nature and the dire consequences of their discovery. Odd, that. I need to find some tales about sexy men soon. Seriously.

After completing this image, I realized that it bears a striking similarity to an album cover by one of my favorite bands, Wye Oak. This certainly wasn’t intentional, but is kind of interesting, right?