Pictorial Sources of the Images of Mythological Creatures in the Video Game Nioh

The purpose of this article is to review the characters in the two-part Japanese video game series Nioh so as to identify their origins and artistic relationships with the visual arts. Based on the names and appearance of the characters created in the game, the author attempts to perform a comparative analysis of the images in the game and those known in Japanese art. The subject of the research is identifying and studying the connection between the art of the past and modern video game character design on the example of the Nioh video game series, using the methods of art analysis. Modern researchers consider video games to be one of the forms of interaction between modern culture and cultural heritage. Therefore, this study is relevant as it reveals the cultural significance of video games and demonstrates the method of working with the artistic heritage in building game worlds. The article provides a comparative analysis of the characters yoki and one-eyed oni, kappa and kamaitachi and the pictorial sources of the 8th–12th and 17th–19th centuries. The author comes to the conclusion that the video game Nioh is a modern catalogue of Japanese demonology, based on well-known pictorial and written sources.