Meet the Ogres!

The  Ogre-in-Chief we are hunting is Shuten Doji who can assume human form at will, is partial to human flesh and especially fond of sake....... He is the sixth devil of the 'World of Desires' and sometimes known as 'The Drunken Devil' It does seem curious that the artist chose to make the worst demon of all an overweight long haired blond?

The story is so old and well known that there have been numerous attempts to portray this particular ogre. Throughout the project we will be investigating how he has appeared elsewhere to compare this portrayal with  other paintings and prints.

Such is the  notoriety of Shoten Doji that just his demonic arm also features in this charming Japanese crepe paper book (These books are called chirimenbon and will be featured in a later blog) 

http://www.archive.org/stream/japanesefairytalse01no18thom