Yotaro and the Tanuki by Yumeno Kyūsaku

Biggest problems:
1) 「オヤ、鬼になった。お節句の人形によく似てる。」 Would like to know for definite which dolls he is talking about or at least which "osekku."
2) Giants and ogres are fairly generic, but I really couldn't think how best to handle the "rokurokubi." Giving an explanation about the long neck would make Yotaro's comment repetitive.

Overall, I wanted to make it accessible to people who don't know much about Japanese folklore, but it's difficult to find the balance. And the word 化ける is tricky. And speech, in general, is usually challenging. So quite a few problematic elements really, but I thought I'd put it up for people to look at.

The lamia is a women's head (or perhaps torso) on a snake's body, but I don't recall anything like the rokurokubi.
Rubbernecking?

A picture would certainly help here...
www.kurodahan.com/mt/img/big.illos/J0008L22.gif

You can take out "itself."



I don't know about in Japanese, but at least in English "made his way back" sounds weird to me if he hasn't even gone a few paces yet.

By the way, I think "funny" is okay for 面白い. It's clear that it's not "haha" funny.

"one-eyed giant" --> "cyclops"? "Giant" already seems a simplification and the height is given, so it would vary the language more (Yotaro comments about one eye in the next line...)

Yotaro sounds like a little kid if he's going to play in the neighboring village, but "My god" makes him sound quite a bit older. Maybe something like, "Yikes!"

Nice find, btw! This is a cute story.

I took on board most of the comments in my edit. For the moment, I've added a brief description of what a tanuki is in an introductory sentence, if that's OK. So here is the version I have gone with.


A “tanuki” is a Japanese animal that is something like a raccoon and often portrayed as having magical powers, as in this story by Yumeno Kyūsaku.

Every day Yotaro went to the next village to play and he always came back through the forest before the sun set.
This was because his mum had told him, “There’s a tanuki in the forest that can transform into all kinds of monsters, so if you don’t come back before sunset, who knows what terrible thing will happen.”
But one day, Yotaro was having so much fun he lost track of time and it was dark when he started making his way back through the trees. Before he had got a few paces, a cyclops, around three meters high, suddenly stepped into the path.
“Hey. That’s a big man come out of nowhere. And he’s only got one eye. That’s funny. Say, do you want to come along to my house?”
Right in front of his eyes, the giant became a rubberneck demon.
“Oh. You’re a woman now, with a lovely long neck. That’s odd. Why is it so very long? Try stretching it even more.”
Next, the creature turned into an ogre.
“And now you’re an ogre. Just like the ogre dolls you get. How amusing! Can you try turning into lots of other things?”
But finding that Yotaro was not at all scared of any of its transformations, the ogre in the path got bored and turned back into a tanuki.
On seeing this, Yotaro went very pale.
“Yikes, it’s the tanuki. If it transforms into a monster, I’ll be in real trouble. Help! Help!” he cried, running away as fast as he could.