The Contributors: Juri H. Chinchilla

Website: http://jurithedreamer.com/

Juri H Chinchilla came to United States from Japan in 2004 to attend the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She graduated 2008 with the Marcel Vertie award and was nominated for Society of Illustrators Annual Student Award in 2009.

Juri currently works as a Fantasy/anime/comic artist and is located in Washington State.

Juri donated this piece to book 3, called "Okikurumi with Iwa-koshinpu"

This image is based off of an Ainu myth. The Ainu are the aborigines of Hokkaido, Japan, and have a complete different culture, belief and language from the Japanese.

“Okikurumi” is a half god, half human hero while “Iwa-Koshinpu” means a spirit of mountain animals in the Ainu language, usually in a form of beautiful women. These spirits can posses a man, giving him great luck if he is a good person, but if not, they will haunt him until he is miserable. In this illustration, Iwa-koshinpu is giving Okikurumi more power to hunt a bad spirit.