No? Too bad, because manga artist Shigeru Mizuki went and did it for you, taking pictures and writing a book about it, entitled Youkai Daizukai.

This pretty awesome book shows off excellent (and more than a little creepy) cutaway drawings of eighty-five creatures that populate Japan's rich folklore. Some of the creatures also appear in Mizuki's own manga, GeGeGe no Kitaro. It's not unlike a similar book that Mizuki created that covers the famous kaiju giant monsters, including Godzilla and Mothra.

This book feels like a published form of the daydreams I used to have while bored in high school, wondering exactly what makes a dragon breathe fire or how vampires obtain sustenance from blood. A call back to those days when "It just does" wouldn't do for an answer when it came to Cool Things. I'd totally buy it if it were translated.