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The Upside:
Asian Bestiary 2 picks up where Volume 1 left off. Volume 2 contains write ups for Japan, the Phillipines, Burma, Korea, Malaysia, and Tibet. Japan is by far the largest section of this book, taking up about a third of it. It also contains, as Volume 1 did, numerous variants and notes on creatures it didn't have space to detail.
The format and information layout is much the same as in Volume 1, a complete description of the creatures ecology, name variations from region to region and small portions of the original myths and legends.
Each country has a short section at the beginning that details the main religions and how they had an effect on the various legends and lore.
A short note on Japan: Many creatures of Japanese legend were taken, or co-opted from Chinese legend, and so many creatures encountered in Japanese folklore are actually written up in the China section of Volume 1.
The Downside:
As with the first book, it would have been nice to see Plot Hooks inserted in the margins for each creature on ideas to incorporate them into your game.
The only downside to Volume 2 that I have a nit to pick is that the bibliography is not included in this book as well. Also missing that is in the first book is an alphabetical listing of each country with a quick list of the creatures there in, and an alphabetical list of each creature with the country they are from. It would have been nice to have all three items in both books for reference, as is you need to get Volume 1 for these items.
The Otherside:
This book is an excellent source of Asia folklore for any game, not just Hero. Conversions would naturally be required to get the creatures statted out in your preferred system. But even without converting the stats the write ups contain enough information to give any game an authentic Asian touch.
All in all, The Asian Bestiary is one of the best monster books I've seen for any system at any point in time. Thoroughly researched, well done and cleanly organized, any game library would be improved with this book.
For more Asian creatures see Volume 1.
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