Today and for the next couple of days we’ll be looking at some aquatic yokai from Ainu folklore! Ainu lore is an often overlooked part of the world of yokai. The Ainu have suffered a fair deal under Japanese rule, similar to how Americans treated the American Indians. Efforts were made to “civilize” the Ainu and “Japan-ify” them by erasing their language, religion and heritage. Fortunately, those trends have been reversing in recent decades, and today great effort is being made to protect and revive Ainu culture. Likewise, the yokai of Ainu folklore are becoming a bit more well-known, although they are still relatively obscure. So I’m excited to feature a few Ainu creatures this week.

Where I live we have had an insane October heat wave for a couple of days… 80 degrees outside and we’re almost in November! I can’t believe it! I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but today all I wanted to do was slip into a pool and cool off. So today’s yokai is kind of a cool drink of water. Looking at those deep blues and the underwater scenery helps me to deal a bit with the heat while painting the rest of the yokai for this month.

The amemasu is a gargantuan fish yokai from Hokkaido. And unlike the shusseuo who we discussed last night, this one doesn’t get a new name based on its size—ironically, because it gets so big it certainly deserves one!

One thing that I find quite interesting about this guy is the concept of fish causing earthquakes. In eastern Japan’s lore, giant catfish are quite commonly blamed for causing tremors. However, in northern Japan, the amemasu takes on that role. I don’t know if there is any deeper connection between those myths, but it’s a really interesting parallel.

Anyway, to read more about this amazing Ainu fish, click on the image below:

Amemasu

Today on A-Yokai-A-Day, we continue aquatic week with another Patreon request: a cute little guy named shussebora. It’s not just cute, though, it’s an amazing just-so-story! But first, it will take some explaining, because it’s not readily apparent to people like us today.

In Japan, there are kinds of fish called shusseuo. This is the same shusse as we see in shussebora, and it means “promotion” (uo means “fish” and bora comes from hora which is short for horagai, or “giant triton“). Shusseuo are a strange concept: they are fish who are called by different names at different stages of their lives. As they age, they “promote” from one creature to the next.

A few examples of shusseuo are the amberjack, which sushi lovers will know as buri. Depending on its size and the region, this fish has a number of different names. When it is under 15 cm it is called an wakashi. When it is over 15cm but under 40 cm it is an inada. Around 60 cm it becomes a warasa. And at around 90 cm it become a buri.

The Japanese sea bass, or suzuki, does this as well: oboko -> subashiri -> ina -> bora -> todo. As do a number of other fish, including koi, and tuna. (In case you ever wondered why when you go to a sushi restaurant all the fish have different names but when you look in your dictionary they all say “tuna,” there’s your answer.)

This would probably be a much stranger concept to non-Japanese if not for Pokemon, which of course has made the idea of animals changing from one kind into another very common over here as well. If charmander, charmeleon, and charizard are each different creatures but technically the same too, then why not fish? It’s a concept that is reflected in plenty of yokai as well, which start as one animal and transform into another once they reach a certain age or size. One of my favorite examples of these would be bat -> nobusuma -> yamachichi or momonjii. Another fun one is badger -> nodeppo.

So your average Edo period yokai fan, upon hearing “shussebora,” would immediately recognize the “shusse” part as similar to shusseuo. And the “bora/hora” part would remind him or her of the horagai.

So this reader could figure out that this is some kind of horagai that “promotes” into a different creature. The illustration depicts a dragon, and to evolve from giant triton -> dragon seems like a pretty awesome upgrade to me! It’s a play on words that would seem natural and probably be instantly understandable to the yokai fans of old Japan.

The only question that remains is why on earth would anyone come up with a sea snail that lives in the mountains and migrates to the sea to become a dragon? Well, part of that goes back to a play on the word hora. Hora is also a word for caves that are left behind after mudslides and avalanches. With earthquakes being quite common in Japan, and with the whole country being covered in mountains, it’s easy to imagine that new caves would be uncovered relatively frequently. The hora (shell)/hora (cave) pun would not be lost of clever yokai readers back in the day. The implication is that the caves were the nest spots of big horagai, and are left behind as the tritons migrate from mountain to sea.

But if horagai are sea creatures, why would people think they originated in the mountains? This isn’t explained in the old books, but here’s a theory: the tops of Japan’s mountains were once located underwater, and it is possible to find shell fossils high up in the Japan alps, so 150+ years ago, someone digging in the mountains and coming across a shell would have no idea how it got there. If he or she found enough shells, they’d think they were the shells of creatures that naturally live in the mountains. Adding a bit of credence to that theory, yamabushi—the ascetic monks who live deep in the mountains—often carry large conch shells which they use as trumpets. A lay person seeing such a monk might just assume that the monk got the shell from deep in the mountains as opposed to the sea… And thus, you have things like shellfish and tritons originating deep in the mountains!

Click below to read more about the shussebora. And if you like this story and my explanation above, you should join my Patreon project—its just like A-Yokai-A-Day, but year-round!

Shussebora

Last weel’s hell theme is now officially over, I hope you enjoyed it! This week we’re starting a new theme. This has been a popular theme among my Patreon backers, and we even had a few “theme months” where people request more of this type of yokai. So let’s take a look at some of the rarer and weirder ones that you don’t see as often. This weeks theme is: aquatic yokai!

The vast majority of yokai live in the wilds, on the edges of civilization. In Japan, that usually means the uninhabitable forested mountains which cover 73% of the country. A lot of yokai really are like the creatures in Princess Mononoke—strange, scary things that live just out of the realm of civilized knowledge. This is natural; a common theme among folkloric monsters in every culture in the world is that they are creatures that we don’t know or understand. So what better place to come from that the dark and scary forests, where dangerous bears and wolves lurk? Who knows what else might be living in there, where humans cannot go?

Naturally, then, the ocean is a prime place to find monsters, for the same exact reason. Sea monsters are found just about in every culture. We can’t know for sure just what is in lakes, rivers, and the sea, so there might just be a monster there, right? In Japan, there is no shortage of aquatic yokai. There are a lot of giant sea monsters, like bakekujira, isonade, ayakashi, and koromodako. And there are a lot that have strange or silly stories, like wani and sazae oni.

Today we’re going to look at one in particular, the kōjin, aka samebito. One really cool fact about this yokai is that it is mostly known to the world thanks to the work of an Westerner, not a Japanese person. If you guessed Lafcadio Hearn you’re right! Hearn included this story in his book Shadowings, and attributes it to an old Japanese tale he discovered in another book, although his version is the main one that is known today. Kōjin are still quite well known in China as a variant of mermaids, but there are not many Japanese stories about them. Thanks to Hearn, this story became popular and wasn’t forgotten. Unfortunately, like in his story Mujina, he messed up the name a bit in his translation, so the incorrect reading of the name—samebito—is now more common than the actual reading—kōjin.

Click on the illustration below to read about kōjin, and join my Patreon project if you’d like to learn more about awesome aquatic yokai!

Kojin/Samebito

Today we take our final look at hell week on A-Yokai-A-Day.

Today’s entry is another two-fer, because these guys go hand-in-hand like peas and carrots. Gozu and Mezu are the guardian demons of the underworld, though unlike Datsueba and Keneou they don’t guard the entrance; they guard the exits!

Gozu and Mezu are basically hell’s thugs. Their day job is to run around and abuse the residents of the various levels of Jigoku. You know, making sure the molten metal is hot enough when poured into peoples’ mouths, and make sure the stretching racks are tight enough, or the poking sticks sharpened enough. They also get to trample and crush pathetic souls beneath their giant feet or with their iron clubs, only to have them reincarnate and be crushed over and over again. It’s a tough job, but someone has got to do it!

Gozu and Mezu’s other job is to capture people trying to escape. Although they aren’t the only animal-headed demons in hell (there are boar, deer, tiger, and other animal-headed demons), they are the most famous. I don’t know why that is; if perhaps they were just coincidentally the most painted characters and thus became the most famous, or if they are just more entertaining than other demons, or some other reason… But Gozu and Mezu stand out among the demons in hell as pretty much the coolest. I love them. When I see them I can’t help but think of Bebop and Rocksteady, who of course fill a similar role in the Foot Clan… but I digress.

There is a Takashi Miike movie called Gozu, which is remarkably strange. If you like weird movies that take a watching or two to actually understand, I would recommend it. It is named, of course, for this particular Gozu, who does make an appearance in the movie, although I’m not exactly sure why he does… I digress again.

Anyway, today’s entry is the final in the hell series, and like the others can be found in The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits, which if you don’t have yet, you should get it while it’s 25% off on Amazon.com! Or get the ebook version, which is much cheaper than the paperback. Anyway, click below the read the entry:

Gozu & Mezu

Hopefully you were able to locate all of the characters in the large Meido illustration, including last night’s Ono no Takamura. If not, go back and play Where’s Waldo before moving on to today’s illustration, because it’s another big one!

Today’s A-Yokai-A-Day is also from The Hour of Meeting Evil Spirits. It’s a refined version of a pair of blog posts I made a while back detailing Meido and Jigoku. In case you haven’t figured it out yet, while Meido is the Japanese path of the underworld, Jigoku is hell itself, where everyone who doesn’t get a quick reincarnation goes.

As with Meido, Japanese Jigoku is based on the Chinese Taoist/Buddhist syncretism imported from India via central Asia. For the most part, the cosmological realms in Japanese Buddhism are very similar to the realms in China and India. There are a few minor differences, and of course each Buddhist tradition has its own variations as well.

In general, Japanese Buddhism has 6 realms of reincarnation: Ten-dō, the realm of gods and demigods; Ningen-dō, the realm of humans; Shura-dō, the realm of ashura, Chikushō-dō, the realm of animals; Gaki-dō, the realm of hungry ghosts; and Jigoku-dō, the realm of hell. Of these, only two realms are considered to be “happy” rebirths—Ten-dō and Ningeon-dō. These are the only two realms where you get to feel pleasure. Of the remaining realms, the realm of Jigoku is obviously the worst, followed by Gaki-dō. The realm of animals is not considered all that good because animals are ruled by their desires and thus cannot obtain enlightenment. They’re not exactly suffering, but the life of an animal is to eat or to be eaten. Shura-dō is an unhappy realm because these demigods/demons have great power, but are always fighting each other and plagued by jealousy that they aren’t in one of the better realms.

But Jigoku is the focus of the day, and it’s much more than just one realm. In fact, Jigoku, and each of the realms of rebirth, could be viewed as an entire separate universe from the one we live in. There are generally said to be eight hot hells and eight cold hells, and each of these levels has countless sub-levels and mini-hells. Other counts list many, many more hells than just the 16 main ones—hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. However, the eight hot hells are generally considered the “main” hells, and are the main focus of tonight’s entry.

This should be another fun illustration for those who like tiny details. Zoom and and take a close look at everything that’s going on! Click below to read the entry on yokai.com:

Jigoku

Welcome back to A-Yokai-A-Day: hell edition! This week we are looking at folklore related to hell and the underworld. We’ve so far seen Meido, King Enma, and Datsueba and Keneou. Today we’re going to look at something really unique: a human who travels back and forth between the underworld!

You may remember from earlier this week that the kings of Japanese hell are based on Chinese Buddhist/Taoist syncretism. They wear the clothing of bureaucrats because they are basically viewed as such; they are the civil servants of the dead.

The supernatural world is essentially a mirror of the human world (or is it the human world that is a mirror of the supernatural world?). Specifically, it is a mirror of the human world as it was when Buddhism was brought from India, through Central Asia, to China and later Japan. China was the Tang Dynasty at that time, and it was a pretty stable and organized society, a golden age of civilization and cosmopolitanism. (Much of Japan’s government and society was modeled after Tang China, which is why a lot of Japan’s folklore has that same visual style.) Tang China was also a highly meritocratic society, and so it makes a lot of sense that even a human could somehow get a political position in the government of the dead if he had the right qualifications.

Well, Ono no Takamura is that man.

Click the image below to read his story.

Ono no Takamura