Remember back in elementary school when your teacher used to say that she had eyes in the back of her head? Well, you might not be surprised by this, but there’s a yokai for that!

Ushirome

Ushirome
eye in the back

Ushirome originates in the Matsui Bunko Hyakki yagyo emaki. As such, it is another mysterious yokai with no origin story. But we can extrapolate a bit based on its name and its depiction.

Quite literally, ushirome has an eye right smack in the back of its head. It wears a women’s kimono, and has the shaved bald head of a Buddhist monk. It appears not to have hands, but instead it has arms that end in single, hooked talons.

The original illustration only shows ushirome from the shoulders up, and only one of its arms. However, because it’s wearing a kimono I think it’s safe to assume it has more than one arm. It may be a one-legged yokai, but if that were the case its one leg would probably have been painted, so it’s probably safe to assume it has two legs as well.

So why does ushirome have only one eye, and what does ushirome mean besides having an eye in the back of your head?

Ushiro no me (eyes in the back) is a Japanese idiom which is similar in meaning to the English idea. It means that you’re not able to hide something or keep something secret because eventually it will be discovered. Other bits of wordplay have been suggested: the creature is pointing its large single finger backwards, which hints at the Japanese idiom ushiro yubi wo sasu (pointing a finger at someone’s back; meaning to say bad things about someone when they’re not around). Ushiro wo miseru (to show one’s back) is another idiom that is brought to mind. It implies cowardice and running away.

The Hyakumonogatari bakemono emaki (painted in 1780) includes a copy of this yokai, but renames it oyanirami (“parents’ glare”) and a later version which is in the collection of Kyoto’s International Research Center for Japanese Studies is titled oyashirome (the whites of parents’ eyes).

The early Edo Period book Ikoku monogatari (Tales from Foreign Countries) speaks of a faraway land called Kogankoku (“the land of back-eyed people”) inhabited entirely by people with single eyes in the backs of their heads. The people of Kogankoku were archers, and resembled the Tatars of Central Asia. There’s no strictly expressed connection between those people and this yokai, but it’s hard to ignore the very obvious similarity as well.

The kanji used to write ushirome can also be read shirime, which is the name of another ahem famous yokai. Perhaps there is some kind of relation between the two? Or perhaps one of them is a wordplay on the other?

There are plenty of other mysteries about this yokai. Are there other idioms that it evokes which we have skipped over? Is there a meaning to the kimono and even the design on the kimono which it is wearing? Does it have eyes on the front of its face as well? We’ll never know, but there sure is a lot to speculate about this grotesque-looking character!

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Yokai were often used as a way to poke fun at certain social topics that were taboo or illegal to talk about. The Edo Period, while relatively peaceful and prosperous, was still a military dictatorship, and the shogunate had the final word on what you could print or publish. Political cartoons were certainly off limits. However, a carefully designed yokai could skirt around those limits, and its message would still be understandable by educated readers, while maintaining plausible deniability about its true meaning.

Today’s yokai could be one such example:

Nadezato

Nadezato
stroking zato (a blind guildsman)

Nadezato is another mysterious yokai from the Matsui Bunko Hyakki yagyo emaki. For the most part it looks like a zato, and it joins the ranks of other zato yokai (umi zato, ozato). While we don’t know for sure what the artist intended by this illustration, it’s possible to make some educated guesses.

A zato, as you may know, was a member of a blind persons’ guild during the Edo Period. In order to ensure blind people could earn an income, the shogunate restricted a few professions to blind people (a sort of early experiment in social welfare). Among these were biwa & shamisen playing, massage, and money lending. While it may seem praiseworthy to reserve some jobs for the blind, it also allowed for a lot of corruption and stratification within the zato guilds. Particularly, the money lending aspect also caused zato to be viewed with fear and distrust, and for many a gambler or brothel-goer, the sight of a zato coming towards you was as terrifying as a monster! It’s no wonder that zato were a popular subject of yokai caricatures.

Nadezato’s main features are its oddly shaped ears which are pointed like a cat’s, and its razor sharp claws which are pointed… like… a cat’s…

Wait, could nadezato be the first cat cosplayer??

The nade in nadezato means to pet or stroke something. Nademono (petting thing) is an old way to refer to a cat. A cat of course pretends to be your friend in order to get you to pet and stroke it, but will just as quickly claw and scratch you if it feels like it. This is where the idiom neko o kaburu (“to act like a cat;” i.e. to feign friendliness) comes from. Neko nade goe (“cat stroking voice;” to talk with a soft, coaxing voice) also sounds similar, and refers to that ingratiating voice you use when you’re trying to gain someone’s favor.

But wait, there’s more!

In Japan’s magical traditions (Shinto, Taoism, onmyodo, etc.) there is an item called a nademono. This is a small fetish or talisman that one can stroke or rub, and their sins and uncleanliness will be transferred from their own body and into the nademono. The nademono could then be burned, or washed away in a river, or otherwise purified, taking the owner’s sins away with it.

Some yokai-ologists have inferred that nadezato is a play on words between the idea of nade referring to a number of cat-related things, as well as a talisman for sin. The nadezato appears to be creeping around with his sharp claws outstretched, looking for prey. “To sharpen one’s claws” is a Japanese idiom meaning to seize an opportunity. Perhaps nadezato just acts like a helpless blind man in order to gain sympathy, when it is really waiting for the opportunity to pounce. Then it sinks its claws into its victim and transfers its own sins and uncleanliness to that person! Scary!

…but still none of it explains the webbed feet…

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Today on A-Yokai-A-Day we return to the Matsui Bunko Hyakki yagyo emaki for a look at one of the weirder yokai that we can find out there. This one raises so many questions that I really wish we could talk to the artist of the scroll to see what he had in mind when he painted it! It looks like it could easily fit into a tokusatsu type of movie or show as a monster-of-the-day.

Read on:

Hitotsume bo

Hitotsume bo
“one-eyed monk”

Plenty of yokai go by the name ____ monk, or ____ priest. It’s a common suffix, and as I’ve said before it doesn’t always denote that the creature is in any way related to the clergy (though sometimes they clearly are). This hitotsume bo is one example of a creature that doesn’t have any connection to Buddhism.

There is another yokai confusingly named mehitotsu bo (which also means “one-eyed monk!”). Mehitotsu bo looks completely different from this yokai—it actually resembles a one-eyed Buddhist monk! It looks very similar to a number of other one-eyed monk yokai like ao bozu, hitotsume kozo, and hitotsume nyudo. Be careful not to mix them up!

So what is hitotsume bo? Nobody knows. It’s depicted as a green creature with long arms, protruding fangs, a scruffy beard, human-like hands, and its namesake: a large, single eye in the middle of its face. It’s most amazing feature is located above its eye: a red dot on its forehead from which a beam of what appears to be light shooting out in a cone.

Hitotsume bo is only depicted in the Hyakki yagyo emaki from the shoulders up, so we don’t even know what its lower body looks like. Presumably that means it is relatively unremarkable. Looking at the position of its arms and the shape of its body and hands, I get the impression of a Japanese macaque, and so I depicted hitotsume bo with a long body and stumpy, monkey-like legs.

We don’t even know how tall hitotsume bo is. Looking at other one-eyed monk yokai doesn’t help either, because they range from child-sizes all the way up to gargantuan! To me, hitostume bo looks like he would be big. That eye-beam seems like it could be used as a search light, and I don’t think it would be particularly useful if he were a short yokai. It would be useful for spotting humans hiding among the underbrush!  My own impression is that it could be anywhere from slightly taller than a human, to as tall as a tree. I kind of like the picture I get in my head of this guy peering from behind a treetop that he has pushed aside and beaming light down onto a woodcutter.

Gleaming eyes are something we do see in a number of yokai—particular mountain spirits—so I would guess that hitotsume bo is some kind of mountain creature. Perhaps a fallen, degenerate kami-turned-yokai. This fits the pattern of other one-eyed monk yokai, particularly hitotsume kozo. One eye, or one foot, is another recurring theme we see in mountain spirits (see yamawaro, yama jiji). And with so many isolated mountain villages all over Japan, it should be no surprise that bizarre local mountain spirits are found all over.

Perhaps hitotsume bo is modeled after some village’s local superstition, or a long-forgotten kami. Or maybe the artist was just goofing around and came up with this bizarre-looking thing. We’ll never know!

Want more yokai? Visit yokai.com and check out my yokai encyclopedias on amazon.com! Still want more? You can sign up for my Patreon project to support my yokai work, get original yokai postcards and prints, and even make requests for which yokai I paint next!

One of Japan’s popular fall foods is chestnuts. You can find it in the form of roasted chestnuts, boiled chestnuts, chestnuts baked into cookies and desserts, even chestnut ice cream and chestnut custard. Seeing hordes of chestnuts piling up on the ground, and the empty husks which once contained them, is a sure sign that fall is in full swing!

So it’s no surprise that there should be a chestnut yokai! Perhaps the tragedy of falling to the ground and not turning into a tree or being eaten by a squirrel or a person is enough to animate some of the unlucky ones and cause them to dress up as a priest and march around snarling at people. What do you think?

Iga bo

Iga bo
“iga* priest”
*possibly “chestnut burr priest”

Iga bo appears in the Matsui Bunko Hyakki yagyo emaki. Though it is called a priest, like the other yokai that end with -bo, -bozu, -hoshi, -nyudo, -zo, it is not necessarily one. Yokai with monk and priest names are fairly often just a way of saying “guy,” so it’s possible instead of being “iga priest” that this yokai could better be called “iga guy.”

It has blue skin, and a face that looks reptilian, or perhaps like a blowfish… It’s most stunning feature is the mass of protuberances which stick out from its lower jaw. There’s no way to tell if these are soft nubs, hard spikes, or even a beard from the illustration.

Iga bo’s pose looks a bit a hostile, with its shoulders raised above his head like a snarling beast. Its kimono dangles half off its body. Is actually it mad? If so, why is it so mad? We don’t know, because nothing was ever written about it.

Today’s top yokai scholars have invented a little theory about iga bo. While it can’t really be considered folklore, there is no actual folklore for this yokai, so their description is as good as any. Using the name iga as a starting point, they claim that iga bo is snarling and snapping at humans (to snarl = “igamiau“). His chin hair resembles the burrs (iga) of a chestnut burr. Since igabo was not originally written with kanji, we don’t know for sure what the “iga” part of its name means. However that description covers some bases, and is sufficiently punny.

Whatever igabo is, there seems to be a general, if weak, consensus that it is probably a chestnut burr yokai.

Want more yokai? Visit yokai.com and check out my yokai encyclopedias on amazon.com! Still want more? You can sign up for my Patreon project to support my yokai work, get original yokai postcards and prints, and even make requests for which yokai I paint next!

Typhoon #25 is hovering overhead as I write this. Painting and translating is a nice distraction from the storm. Normally I’m a big fan of stormy weather, but this year has been too much. We’ve had the heaviest snowfall in 36 or so years, one of most dangerously hot summers on record, and the most recent 3 typhoons have been among the strongest to ever hit Japan. This year has been full of terrible floods, earthquakes, and landslides, and just all around bad weather. So it makes me a little nervous to hear the wind roaring and the feel the house shaking violently in the storm. Focusing on yokai is a fun way to take a break from reality.

Gotaimen

Gotaimen
“whole body face”

Gotaimen is a yokai who consists of an oversized human face with stumpy arms and legs protruding from it. He has no body. He also has no clothes, but then again, without a body, there’s nothing to cover up. Overall, he’s got a bit of a crab-like appearance.

Gotaimen comes from the same Matsui Bunko Hyakki yagyo emaki that we’ve been looking at so far. Just like the other yokai on that scroll, there is no indication as to what he does, so his secrets likely died with the artist. Still, that hasn’t stopped yokai researchers from speculating on the meaning of this yokai.

Gotaimen literally means whole body face. “Men” means face, and “gotai” means the five limbs, i.e. the arms, legs, and the head, but in general refers to the whole body. So his name is quite a literal description of the yokai.

It’s been speculated that gotaimen is a yokai similar to nigawarai, who causes people to behave in a certain manner. Because of the way his limbs are oriented, he probably has to sidle back and forth the way a crab walks. “Kani no yokobai” (crab walking) is a Japanese idiom for a person who speaks in a way that avoids the matter at hand, sidestepping the conversation, and changing the subject.

“Taimen” is also a word which describes concern for one’s honor or appearance in front of others. It’s possible that gotaimen is a yokai who causes people to be overly concerned with their appearance or the way they are perceived by their peers.

Another theory is that gotaimen is a yokai who brings out joy in people. In this case, he is more related to haradashi (he resembles haradashi in a way as well). According to this theory, gotaimen haunts the receiving rooms of large manors and palaces belonging to daimyo or aristocrats. When visitors arrive, he makes his appearance, dancing around and causing the guests to laugh. If the visitors don’t laugh at his antics, he begins to cry and rampage all throughout the manor. If he is thrown out of the manor, he’ll just lie down and go to sleep right there.

So there you have it… I’m not sure I find any of those explanations overly convincing, but they are interesting theories! I would like to think of gotaimen as a yokai who finds joy in making others laugh, as there are too few of those; and we could definitely use more spirits like that these days!

Want more yokai? Visit yokai.com and check out my yokai encyclopedias on amazon.com! Still want more? You can sign up for my Patreon project to support my yokai work, get original yokai postcards and prints, and even make requests for which yokai I paint next!

It is day 5 of A-Yokai-A-Day! I hope you’re enjoying the rare and mysterious yokai we’ve been looking at, because I’ve got another one for you today!

To be honest, while I absolutely love the yokai which are strongly connected to folk tales and have many stories associated with them, something about the “random” yokai found in the old picture scrolls excites me even more. They seem to represent the artist’s unbridled creativity, often being based on puns, but just as often based on nothing. Some of these yokai are just pure silliness.

I have to wonder how some of these artists’ patrons reacted upon seeing creatures like a goat with scissors for horns, a geisha’s head on a spider’s body, a deer skeleton with a human skull, and a centipede with human heads sprouting from its body.

No, I didn’t make any of those up!

I imagine the patrons must have reacted the same way I do: with delight. Otherwise these scrolls probably would not have been preserved as they are. But it goes to show that there’s no limit to the world of yokai, the creativity of the artists who invented them, or Japan’s appetite for new and weird monsters.

Now, on to today’s yokai:

Akagashira

Akagashira
“red head”

Akagashira is a yokai which is very accurately named for its flaming crimson coiffure. It’s a glorious wave of straight and curly ginger tresses which poofs out and shouts “I’M HERE!” Once your eyes adjust and you’re able to look away from that fabulous mane, we can also see that he’s got a dull grey body, very sharp teeth and claws, and red markings on his face which could possibly be horns, or stripes, or something…

While the origin of akagashira’s name is no mystery, that’s unfortunately the only thing about him that isn’t. No description was included with his name and portrait, and there’s no folklore which matches his appearance.

There are, in fact, plenty of red-headed yokai. Some of them have very similar names: another unrelated yokai from Kochi Prefecture shares the name akagashira. Aka atama (which also means “red head”) and aka shaguma (“red hair”) are also closely named but different characters. The shojo and shishi are depicted in noh and kabuki with wild, unkempt bright red hair just like the akagashira. Okinawa’s kijimuna also is famous for its red hair. However, despite similar names and features, there is nothing solid to connect akagashira with these other red-heads. It may just have been a doodle that the artist invented, or perhaps it is a formerly known yokai who has been lost to time…

But that’s ok. Yokai are all about mystery, and sometimes half the fun is making up our own guesses as to what their true nature is. You might describe akagashira as a troll doll with what looks to be silicone butt injections, doing something that resembles dabbing—and nobody could tell you that you’re wrong!

To me, he resembles a bright fuzzy caterpillar. Which is why I chose to depict the red marks on his face as dangling eye-stalk-like protuberances rather than horns or just color patterns (also because they look similar to how dangling eyeballs are frequently depicted in other yokai). The sharp teeth and claws kind of remind me of a caterpillar’s mandibles and prolegs. The stripes on his belly and the bulging limb sections also resemble a caterpillar’s puffy body.

Want more yokai? Visit yokai.com and check out my yokai encyclopedias on amazon.com! Still want more? You can sign up for my Patreon project to support my yokai work, get original yokai postcards and prints, and even make requests for which yokai I paint next!