Centuries ago, the dragon Yamata no Orochi terrorized the land. With it came a swarm of yokai. That was, until seven diviners sealed the dragon away in a pocket realm. Eventually, the memory of the sealed spirits faded, and the two worlds developed separately, but concurrently...
Basically, Yokai City is a modern city in a pocket dimension that cannot normally be exited, as the "livable" area is surrounded by a seemingly-endless desert (think the Super Mario 64 endless stairs). It's inhabited almost exclusively by yokai. On the outside, a group of scientists discovered the pocket dimension, and started experimenting on the yokai inside - specifically, creating thirty-six yokai of their own, Experiments 1 through 36.
basically, where im logging a brief description of all 26 Chimeras (named after islands; this list doubles as the Newsprint phonetic alphabet)