Bibliodyssey just published links to these amazing Japanese illustrations that look like 300-year-old sketches for a Hayao Miyazaki feature. Back in college I was obsessed with those descriptions by ancient Greek mariners of monstrous men that inhabited the far edges of the world: the Abarimon with backwards feet, the four-eyed Maritimi, the Panotii whose ears were so long they reached their feet, and best of all the Blemmyae, who had faces in their chests and no heads or necks. I don't know enough about Japanese culture from this time period to be sure if these are simply imaginative monsters or perhaps some kind of similar myth about the strange undiscovered creatures still left in the world. All I know is that these are really cool and I can't wait to show them to the kid.




































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