Quarterly Bestiary: Japanese Toilet Ghosts: Look Behind You

Japan boasts a robust collection of ghost stories, with one small group focused on an unusual habitat: the toilet. These specters are a variable lot. Some are relatively modern legends while others are quite old. Some are mostly irritating and some are downright deadly. Collectively, they represent centuries of anxiety around a place often treated as a necessary evil in Japanese culture. So let’s take look at the things that go bump in the stall.

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Liebster Award from Chocoviv

Chocoviv nominated me for my second Liebster Award! If you haven’t yet met Chocoviv, I encourage you to check out her lifestyle blog. She is a fabulous mommy blogger who posts on a variety of topics with a sunny, can-do attitude. Whether it’s notes and photos from her travels, reviews of books and shows, beauty product and green living advice, or updates on her bearded dragon, you’re sure to find something fun. Thank you, Chocoviv!

Thor and Loki in Modern Media, Part 2: So Far, So Close

Welcome to the second part of my discussion on modern media portrayals of Thor and Loki! Each of these movies, TV shows, and book series could easily take up a whole post, so I’ve split things into two. The first part looked at brotherly depictions from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Norwegian show Ragnarok. These next two works put them in the same story, but they never directly interact. Even without a close relationship, however, they still reflect how their writers approached bringing mythology to modern viewers. For the overview on the original Thor and Loki, see Part 1. Now, let’s take a look at a couple classic Thor and Loki stories before we see how their modern versions work at a distance.