Burabura (不落不落)

Burabura is a lantern specter and one of Japanese yokai (ghosts, spirits and monsters) that was portrayed in Sekien TORIYAMA's yokai art collection book: "Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro" (The Bag of One Hundred Random Demons; the term 'hyakki' in its title is a pun on the usual hyakki, replacing the character for demon which is written as "鬼" in Japanese with a character for vessel written as "器," and sure enough, most of the yokais shown in this book are tsukumogami [a type of Japanese spirits that originate in items or artifacts that have reached their 100th birthday and become alive]).

According to Sekien's commentary in the "Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro," the Burabura looks like a lantern light, however, it is actually believed to be a Kitsune-bi (a Japanese will-o'-the-wisp). There are few references on lore of the lantern yokai despite its popularity. However, the lantern yokai has often been reported not as a Chochin Obake (literally, lantern ghost) but as a fire of mysterious or suspicious origin, such as the kitsune-bi and chochin-bi (lantern light).

Since it is portrayed as a yokai of items and artifacts, some say that it should not be considered as a kitsune-bi yokai as described in the commentary but as a variation of the so-called Chochin Obake.

[Original Japanese]