Ueda Akinari

“Tales of Moonlight and Rain” is a collection of classical Japanese horror/suspense stories. The stories are simple, but abundant with traditional fictional Japanese characters, such as the half-man half-bird Tengu, white serpents, fantastic carps, goblins and restless ghosts, driven by love or hatred.

"Ugetsu Monogatari" is a collection of ghost stories written by Akinari Ueda (Kyoho 19 - Bunka 6 \[1734 - 1809 AD]), and the first draft was written in 1939 (1768). It was completed, but after many revisions, it was published eight years later, in 1776. It consists of an introduction in Chinese and five volumes and nine chapters, and is based on Chinese white-talk novels. A white story is a colloquial sentence, and Akinari refined the storytelling technique of the original work and wrote it in elegant sentences that make use of the story's fantastical scenes, while also containing the meaning of a warning against a frivolous society.