Kwaidan characters

Also known as Mimi-nashi Hoichi

Appears from the start

A blind musician famed for performing the history of the Heike clan. While living at the Amidaji temple, he is summoned at night by what seems to be a samurai retainer and plays before a silent, aristocratic assembly he cannot see.

Appears from the start

The priest responsible for the temple where Hoichi lives. When he discovers that supernatural listeners are drawing the musician away each night, he devises a religious protection for Hoichi's body.

First appears in chapter 2

A hunter who kills a male mandarin duck despite a companion's warning. A disturbing dream and the surviving bird's response force him to confront the suffering caused by the act.

First appears in chapter 3

A young man whose dying betrothed, O-Tei, promises that she will return to him in another life. He lives for years with the memory of that promise before meeting a woman who knows things no stranger should know.

First appears in chapter 7

A traveling priest who accepts shelter in an isolated dwelling near the place where a funeral is being held. The strange conduct of his host leads him to witness a hungry spirit feeding on the dead.

First appears in chapter 9

A former samurai who has become a traveling priest. He lodges with a family in the mountains and wakes to discover that his hosts' heads can leave their sleeping bodies and hunt independently.

First appears in chapter 11

A young woodcutter who survives an encounter with a deadly woman of the snow after promising never to tell anyone what he saw. He later meets and marries a mysterious woman named O-Yuki.

Also known as Yuki-Onna

First appears in chapter 11

A beautiful, pale woman associated with a deadly snowstorm. She spares the young woodcutter Minokichi on the condition that he never reveal their encounter; years later he has reason to reconsider the identity of his wife, O-Yuki.

First appears in chapter 12

A young samurai who encounters Aoyagi at an isolated house and is moved by her grace and learning. His determination to remain with her carries them away from the place where they met.

First appears in chapter 12

A young woman whose name means green willow. She forms an immediate bond with Tomotada and shares a life with him, though her existence remains mysteriously tied to the rural home where he found her.

First appears in chapter 14

A man who falls asleep beneath a cedar and dreams of being received by a royal court, marrying a princess, and governing a distant province. The scale of the life he experiences is challenged by what he finds on waking.

Also known as Riki-Baka

First appears in chapter 15

A gentle, intellectually disabled boy known in his community by a pitying nickname. After his death, an unusual mark on a child born elsewhere appears to preserve both his identity and an unmet obligation to his memory.