16) Japan - 6. Kerakera-onna

Meaning 'a giggling woman,' this yokai appears as a giant woman who surprises people by giggling, just as her name suggests. When you're walking down a quiet street, a middle-aged woman in a huge kimono suddenly appears over a fence or wall taller than a human, cheerfully waving her hand and opening her thickly rouged, red lips wide to laugh. The sound of her laughter is only audible to one person, unsettling their mind, and it's said that those with weak hearts can lose consciousness. She appears in Toriyama Sekien's Edo-period yokai collection, 'Gaikotsu Hyakki Yūki.' According to Sekien's commentary, she is a yokai originating from the ancient state of Chu in China. In 'Dengudōzihoseki,' a collection of poems from the Northern and Southern Dynasties period in China, there's an anecdote about the Chu poet Song Yu being tempted by the most beautiful woman in Chu but remaining unmoved. Among the descriptions, it mentions that the beauty climbed over Song Yu's fence every day for three years to peek at him. Sekien seems to have speculated that this story was transmitted to Japan and took the form of this yokai.