Hone-onna

Hone-onna are female yōkai that appear as beautiful, young women, just as they were when they were alive, even though their true form is that of a decaying skeleton, from which their name comes, which can only be seen by those who have never fallen in love and by those whose religious beliefs are very strong. According to folklore, Hone-onna have their origins in women who died while having a relationship with a boyfriend, and their love for their boyfriend is so intense that they can't rest in peace. Instead, they become one of these beings and awaken from their graves during the night to reunite with the men they loved. Initially, the boyfriend is shocked to see his late girlfriend, but the shock is quickly replaced by positive emotions, preventing the young man from knowing or suspecting something is wrong, and most Hone-onna don't even realize what they are, and some of them don't even know that they are dead, as they only return to be with their loved ones. All Hone-onna spend the night with their boyfriends by having sexual intercourse with them, leaving before dawn, and this intercourse continues for a long time until someone peeks and sees the woman in question is a skeleton. Otherwise, if someone doesn't notice, the boyfriends will be killed and join their girlfriends in death, as Hone-onna feed on the life forces of those they love, unintentionally and without realizing it, which makes the boyfriend grow weaker and sicker as time passes. However, in most cases, a friend or servant of the boyfriend will tell him about his girlfriend's true form, and even though the boyfriend may be disgusted at the Hone-onna after learning the truth, the girlfriend, due to not realizing she is a Hone-onna, continues to come to the boyfriend's home. The home can be protected by religious charms (ofuda) by placing them in the entry, but the charms only work as long as the boyfriend decides to keep them there and as a long as he resists his girlfriend, because as a Hone-onna enters further states of decay, she only becomes more seductive in human form, and eventually most men succumb to the allure, beauty, and seduction of their girlfriends and let them enter one last times, taking their own lives.^[1]

In modern times, this type of yōkai was used as the inspiration and namesake for Hone-onna, one of the main characters in the anime series and franchise Hell Girl. Just as the traditional Hone-onna, Hone-onna appears as a beautiful, young woman, but she also has the ability to expose one or more bones of her body and to transform entirely into a skeleton. She also doesn't like to be called old lady, even though she claims to be over 200 years old. In Hell Girl, Hone-onna's origin is that of a Geisha named Tusyu, and was very skilled at making paper balloons. Tsuyu fell in love with a young man named Shinsaburo, and he told her that he also had feelings for her. Tsuyu and Shinsaburo planned to run away together, but Shinsaburo ended up betraying Tsuyu by selling her to a Yūkaku to pay off his debts, not even looking at Tsuyu, who was filled with tears, while performing the deed. Later on, Tsuyu became friends with another prostitute named Kiyo, and a young man named Tetsuya came to really fall in love with Tsuyu. Tetsuya and Tsuyu planned to escape together so Tsuyu could gain freedom, but Tsuyu thought of them escaping along with Kiyo. Despite Tsuyu putting Kiyo above herself, Kiyo was extremely jealous of Tsuyu, and thus told the brothel owner of the planned escape. When the meeting time arrived, Kiyo arrived to the meeting, but accompanied by the brothel owner and a friend of his, who always did dirty work for him. Due to the shock of Kiyo's treason and not being able to think, Tsuyu and Tetsuya were killed easily by the owner's friend while the owner and Kiyo watched, and Tsuyu's body was thrown into a river by the friend after being mortally wounded, being watched drifting away by both the friend and the owner without them doing anything. After a while of drifting away, Tsuyu came across the skeletons of other women who were killed similarly in the past, and the souls of said women merged with Tsuyu, turning her into a yōkai.

Even though Hone-onna were first depicted in the Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, they were formally introduced in Botan Dōrō through the famous character of Otsuyu. This is proven by Sekien's explanatory text in the Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, which states that there is a story called Otogi Bōko, in which a young female skeleton (Otsuyu) that was carrying a lantern decorated with peony flowers would visit the house of an elderly and widowed samurai, and then have sexual intercourse with the samurai. In other words, this refers to Botan Dōrō, within the collection of writings called Otogi Bōko by Asai Ryōi,^[2] which was a collection composed as a sort of moral-free version of the Chinese work Jiandeng Xinhua written in 1378 by Qu You. In Botan Dōrō, the samurai, named Ogiwara Shinnojō, meets Otsuyu and they become entangled almost every night, but one night an old neighbor of Ogiwara from next door catches a glimpse of it and sees the strange scene of Ogiwara embracing with a skeleton.^[3]

According to Tōhoku Kaidan no Tabi by Norio Yamada, there is an odd tale in the Aomori Prefecture about a yōkai under the title of "hone-onna". It says that in the Ansei period, a woman who was said to be ugly by those around her became a good-looking skeleton after death, and walked around town as a skeleton to let everyone see. It is said that she likes fish bones and would collapse upon encountering a high priest.^[4]

• Obake
• Succubus