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Akaname
Translation: The Filth Licker or Scum Licker
Appears in the middle of the night to lick the accumulated dirt and scum from your bathtub — the dirtier the better. Large goggling eyes, wild mussed-up hair and an incredibly long tongue.
Amabie
A glowing scaled sea creature with a beak and long hair. The yokai suddenly appeared off the coast of Japan in the mid-1800s and warned of a widespread illness. In modern times returned because of the COVID-19 challenge where people began sharing their creative works of Amabie. Japan’s health ministry quickly made amabie the face of their campaign, and the design was everywhere: on signs, masks, cookies, amulets and many more.
The most common story makes fufillment of Amabie’s desire to have its likeness recreated as a way to stave off plague.
Some Survey of Sirens overlap.
Bakeneko and Nekomata
Both cat yokai, known for their shapeshifting abilities and propensity for mischief and mayhem. They start off as regular cats, that age and then become the yokai forms.
Some questions you can ask your cat to tell if they have changed into this yokai:
- When it is dark and you pet your cat against the line of the fur, does the skin glow?
- Have you caught your cat licking the oil from your lamps?
- Has its tail gotten longer and have unnatural movements?
- Does your cat prefer to be around dead people?
- Does your cat have two tails?
- Does your cat start your fireplace?
I had read this book on cat yokai, one thing that stuck out for me was this probably apocryphal explanation of the origin of the bakeneko. Lanterns would use fish oil as a fuel. This would cause cats to reach up to lick. As they stood on their hind legs to reach, they would appear to be dancing, especially when viewed through their thrown shadows onto screens.
Baku
A patchwork beast that eats dreams, often with a long nose and tusks. Children who woke from nightmares would say “baku-san come eat my dreams” or “I give this dream to the baku” three times and the Baku would emerge and goggle up your distressing dreams.
Futakuchi Onna
Translation: The two-mouthed woman
Appears like a nice young lady, but has a hidden second mouth on the back of her head or nape of her neck. Only when it is time to eat does her hair part to reveal this. She will eat all edible provisions of the house, but her appetite is limited to food and not humans.
Related: the no-mouthed woman, or the wife who didn’t eat.
Hashihime
Translation: The Bridge Maiden or Bridge princess
She was a woman whose husband cheated on her, and in order to get revenge on him she became an evil ogre.
Once upon a time a young woman fell in love and a married man who she trusted and adored. They moved away from her family and friends to Kyoto. For a time things were wonderful but often she husband’s job kept her away from him. She trusted him, till she found out he had a mistress.
Consumed by rage, she walked for hours every night across the city and up the steep slopes of Mount Kurama to visit the shrine where a powerful water dragon goddess, Takaokami was enshrined. She prayed until well after midnight, imploring the deity for help since she was weak and wanted to be come strong like an oni (ogre).
On The seventh night the goddess responded telling her to rub vermillion paste all over her face and body. Then she should put on a red kimono, tie her hair up into five horns and tie small pine torches to them and light them. Then she should put two into her mouth, so they would hang from either side.
The husband was having nightmares and was instructed by a powerful diviner to make two life sized straw dolls and place them in their futons. He summoned magic to make the two effigies look like sleeping lovers.
Later that night the young woman, carrying a club swept the room like a violent storm. She was now fully transformed, and her kimono blew about her fiery red skin and black eyes. Before she struck her husband, she noticed the trick. She fought with the diviner but she was defeated. She laughed at her husband, hiding, saying “You underestimate me. My resent will never end. Somewhere, somehow we will meet again.”
Her presence softened, she turned into mist and disappeared.
Jimenso
Translation: The human-faced tumor
It is a growth that mysteriously appears on your body, but doesn’t go away. Somewhere along the line you notice it has a face and it can eat, drink and occasionally talk.
In 1819, a 35 year old merchant in Sendai came in for a suspicious looking growth on his knee. It has been there since he was 14. The growth had grown to look like a smiling face, with a pale red mouth, two nostrils and closed eyes. It even had ears.
Jorogumo
Translation: The Harlot Spider or Entangling bride
A beguiling woman who hangs out near a waterfall, then this is the entangling bride variant. If it is a giant spider which has captured you with a sticky thread, it is the harlot spider.
She has six legs protruding from her silken robes. On the ends of each of these appendages is a fire breathing baby spider being whipped about the air.