In his prologue to "Civilization and Monsters," Gerald Figal defines Meiji modernization within the context of the fantastic and supernatural elements found in folk beliefs and practices. As he sees it, these "objects of fantasy and folk belief -- ghosts, goblins, monsters, and mysteries of every sort -- played fundamental roles in the constitution of modernity in Meiji Japan."
He goes on to suggest that the fantastic "is the constant condition of Japanese modernity in all its contradictions and fluidity" and that "whether configured as negative impediment to national-cultural consolidation or as positive site of alternative new worlds, the fantastic allows the modern to be thought."
Specifically, Figal believes that Meiji modernity "was accompanied by an effort to displace or identify diverse spirits with a Japanese spirit," and this "was ultimately embodied by the newly constituted emperor, a modernized supernatural being."