Image: Ōta Memorial Museum of Art, Tokyo
The Ōta Memorial Museum of Art has supervised a new children’s picture book built around ukiyo-e prints of ghosts, monsters and spirits. The book, titled 'Search Picture Book: Scary Ukiyo-e Ghost House', invites readers to find supernatural figures hidden within its illustrations, turning classic Japanese woodblock images into a searching-and-seeing activity for children and adults alike.
According to the museum’s own description on the book’s Amazon listing, the project is intended to combine art appreciation with cultural education. Rather than presenting ukiyo-e as a subject to be studied only through captions or essays, the book frames the prints as an interactive puzzle. Readers are encouraged to look closely at the images and spot figures drawn from Japanese tales of the supernatural, an approach that links visual observation with imagination.
The museum is known for its focus on ukiyo-e, and the book draws on works by artists including Katsushika Hokusai and Utagawa Kuniyoshi. The listing says the title is designed as an 'art plus education' picture book and that it is meant to be enjoyed by both children and adults. It also includes explanatory columns on topics such as how ukiyo-e were made, the work of Tsutaya Jūzaburō, and aspects of Edo-period culture, extending the project beyond the search game itself.
The Amazon page identifies Kodansha as the publisher and gives the book’s release date as 2025/7/17. It is a 32-page Japanese-language large-format book, listed at 1,870 yen for the print edition and 1,705 yen for the Kindle edition. The Amazon description recommends it for children around age five and older, while the museum’s involvement is credited to its chief curator, Kenji Hinohara, in the role of supervision and commentary.
The book’s pitch emphasizes that the supernatural figures in ukiyo-e can appear playful as well as eerie. Its promotional text describes them as sometimes humorous and charming, and suggests that the act of searching through the pages can help build attention and interpretive skills. That approach places the museum in the role of guide as well as lender of historical images, using a contemporary children’s format to introduce material rooted in Edo-period print culture.
The title is available through the museum reception and on Amazon. The museum’s supervision and the publisher’s presentation position the book as a bridge between family reading and the study of ukiyo-e, with Hokusai and Kuniyoshi’s images reworked into a format built around looking closely, comparing details and spotting the ghosts hidden in the prints.
