Female Ghost is an ukiyo-e woodblock print dating to 1852 by celebrated Edo period artist Utagawa Kunisada, also known as Toyokuni III.

This print belongs to a genre of Japanese painting and ukiyo-e known as yūrei-zu (幽霊図), ghost pictures, which peaked in popularity in the mid-nineteenth century.

Other terms include: obake (お化け), yōkai (妖怪), bōrei (亡霊), shiryō/ shirei (死霊), yūki (幽鬼), yōma (妖魔), yūkai (幽怪), rei (霊), bakemono (化け物), konpaku (魂魄), henge (変化), onryō (怨霊) and yūreijinkō (幽霊人口).

[2] There is a long tradition of belief in the supernatural in Japan which relates to various influences, including such imported sources as Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese folklore.

The most notable influence, however, is Shintō, a native animistic religion which presupposes that the physical world is inhabited by eight million omnipresent spirit beings.

"[7] The Tempō Reforms of 1842, which had banned depictions of geisha, oiran courtesans and kabuki actors,[8] began to be gradually repealed from the late 1840s,[9] which left Kunisada free to return to his favourite medium.

"[23] Like the female spirit in this print, they generally have longer faces with strong jaws giving an impression of "greater self-possession, if not outright aggressiveness.

"[26] The subject in this print corresponds to the typical depiction of female ghosts in Edo art: "a fragile form with long, flowing hair... dressed in pale or white clothing, the body below the waist tapered into nothingness.

"[27] The central area is dominated by the figure of a female spirit with extremely long, wildly flowing black hair, crowned by a pale blue and white decoration.

[32] The image depicts a scene from a kabuki play entitled Otogi banashi Hakata no imaori (御伽譚博多新織), which was staged at Edo's Nakamura-za theatre in 1852.