Greeting yokai fans!
I have really fallen in love with this yokai over the research and painting it, just because it is so ridiculous. I think at some point I will have to revisit the Kujirazashi shinagawa baori and do some more of the yokai whales in that book.
It was a bit hard to figure out the second pun in this name; mainly because I am not a whale eater (I tried it once, it was disgusting). I had never heard of “kujira no hyakuhiro.” Neither had my wife, so she couldn’t figure out the joke either. But sometimes when you read something you just get the sense that there is something more to it… “namekujira no hyakuhiro” was just too specific and too weird to mention on its out without having some kind of secondary meaning.
Eventually after some searching around we found it. I can’t imagine many people eat whale intestines today, but in the Edo period I suspect it would have been a common enough dish that the readers of this book would have gotten the reference instantly and had a chuckle at the oh-so-stupid dad jokes within. Of course, now I can’t hear that phrase without rolling my eyes and laughing either.
Enjoy!
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