J.P. Takahashi's debut picture book is a multilayered story, both jubilant and poignant, that captures a girl's return to the hyakkiyagyō (the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) in her former home of Tokyo.
Tokyo Night Parade features a brown-skinned girl living in New York City who returns to Tokyo, her former home, to visit her grandfather. There, she participates in the hyakkiyagyō, in which supernatural creatures, the yōkai, celebrate in the streets. Eka--dressed as a kitsune, or wild fox spirit--meets the kappa, an old friend and her guide for the parade. By book's end, Eka joins the "glorious racket" of the revelry with "her monsters": "They sing. They speak. They hoot. They screech. And," as the sun peeks over the horizon, "they dance."
Takahashi based Tokyo Night Parade on her own "experience growing up African American and Japanese in the US," conveying with poignancy Eka's momentary sorrow that "Japan is too far away to keep visiting." She depicts Eka describing the yōkai to her baffled American classmates, expressing the struggle of many immigrants to capture the cultures they leave behind. It is clear that illustrator Minako Tomigahara is also an animator: her cinematic, atmospheric illustrations, dominated by lavender and indigo shades of night, look like the stills of an animated film and reveal surprises for observant readers (such as creatures in the clouds). Her imaginative depictions of the unconventional yōkai--a two-headed pheasant, a "lion dog," and more--are beguiling. This deeply felt and nuanced story leaves much for child readers to ponder. --Julie Danielson, reviewer and copyeditor