Part of Series
Yokai …Japanese spirits. Most people fear them, and a few people even hunt them, thinking they are horrible monsters to be destroyed at all costs. But young Hamachi wants to be friends with them! He sees them as mischievous creatures that could coexist peacefully with humans if only given a chance. When his grandmother dies under mysterious circumstances, Hamachi journeys into the Yokai realm. Along the way, he encounters an ogre who punishes truant children, an angry water spirit, and a talking lantern. Will Hamachi be able to find his grandmother's killer, or will he be lost forever in another world?
Author
Nina Matsumoto is a Japanese-Canadian Eisner Award-winning comic book artist. A Japanese-Canadian born in BC, Nina has always loved fantasy, science fiction, comics, Japanese art, and, of course, The Simpsons. Over the last decade, she’s spent much of her time drawing things and telling stories. In 2007 she uploaded a manga-style remix image of the Simpsons entitled “The Simpsonzu,” not expecting anything special. It became an overnight success. The appearance of “The Simpsonzu” on deviantART‘s front page caught the attention of the news aggregator Digg and the picture’s appearance on Digg caught the attention of everyone else. Suddenly she was being featured in numerous newspapers and magazines from all over the world and within a week, she got a call from Bongo Comics. They had a manga-style Simpsons story written and wanted her to draw it. Nina is still drawing Simpsons regularly for Bongo, and her Death Note parody “Murder She Wrote” (from Simpsons Treehouse of Horror #14), received an Eisner Award for “Best Short Story,” one of the most acclaimed award in comics. In addition, she created the graphic novel Yokaiden for Del Rey Manga, illustrated The Last Airbender Prequel: Zuko’s Story, and regularly designs for video game apparel companies like Fangamer, The Yetee, and Meat Bun.
