黄表紙（きびょうし）
Kibyōshi
The yellow-covered comic booklets of Edo, where monsters became characters.
Kibyōshi were cheap illustrated booklets with yellow covers, sold in Edo from 1775 into the early nineteenth century: ten or twenty pages of pictures with the text written into the spaces, satirical, topical and aimed at adults. Monsters were a favourite subject, played for comedy. Santō Kyōden and his contemporaries wrote booklets in which bakemono run shops, fall in love and fail at being frightening.
The tōfu-kozō, the small boy under a large hat carrying a block of tofu, appears in these books from 1779, follows people along the road at dusk and does nothing worse; in one story he drops his tofu and runs away from a human. He is a yokai born in print and comedy, with no village behind him.
Related yokai
Tofu-kozō
豆腐小僧（とうふこぞう）
Tofu-kozō, a big-headed child under a large hat carrying a tray of tofu, appears in Edo comic picture books from 1779. He follows people and does no harm, and in one story he drops his tofu running away from a human.