👹 Today's post is all about Oni 👹
Oni's
Oni are considered very large, strong and violent beings, By modern standards Bigfoot Ogres and other giants could be classified as a type of Oni..
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Oni are believed to be born when evil humans die and end up in one of the many Buddhist Hells, there they are transformed into Oni.
They become the ogreish and brutal servants of Great Lord Enma, the ruler of Hell, wielding iron clubs with which they crush and destroy humans solely for enjoyment. An oni’s job is to mete out horrible punishments such as peeling off skin, crushing bones, and every other torture imaginable to those who
were evil (but not quite wicked enough to be reborn as demons themselves).
Hell is full of oni, and they make up the armies of the great generals of the underworld.
Occasionally, when a human is so utterly irredeemable and down right evil with a soul that is beyond any redemption, he transforms into an oni during life, and remains on Earth to terrorize the living.
These transformed oni are the ones most legends tell about, and the ones who pose the most danger to human's.
These oni are the stuff of nightmares the source legends and fairy tails ind the inspiration for countless stories threw out Japan.
No two stories about oni are exactly alike except for one thing: oni are always the enemy of mankind.(Except in some Manga and Anime)
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Some villages hold yearly ceremonies to drive away oni, mostly at the beginning of Spring. During the Setsubun festival, people throw soybeans outside their homes and shout "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" Oni go out! Blessings come in!"). Monkey statues are also thought to guard against oni, since the Japanese word for monkey, saru, is a homophone for the word for "leaving". Folklore has it that holly can be used to guard against Oni.
In Japanese versions of the game tag, the player who is "it" is instead called the "oni".
In more recent times, oni have lost some of their original wickedness and sometimes take on a more protective function. Men in oni costumes often lead Japanese parades to ward off any bad luck, for example. Japanese buildings sometimes include oni-faced roof tiles called onigawara, which are thought to ward away bad luck, much like gargoyles in Western tradition.
Oni are prominently featured in the Japanese children's story Momotaro..the little Peach Boy(see previous post)
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The word "oni" is sometimes believed to be derived from (on), the on'yomi reading of a character meaning to hide or conceal, as oni were originally invisible spirits or gods which caused disasters, disease, and other terrible things.
These nefarious beings could also take on a variety of forms to deceive (and often devour) humans.
The Chinese character (pinyin: gui; Jyutping: gwai) meaning "ghost" came to be used to describe these formless creatures.
The invisible oni eventually became anthropomorphized and took on its modern, ogre-like form, partly via synchronicity with creatures imported by Buddhism, such as the Indian rakshasa(a large shapeshifting bigfoot like creature) and yaksha, as well as the hungry ghosts called gaki, and the devilish underlings of Enma-O who punish sinners in Jigoku (Hell).
They also share a few similarities with the Arabian Jinn.
Another source for the oni's image is a concept from China and Onmyodo.
The northeast direction was once termed the kimon (demon gate), and was considered an unlucky direction through which evil spirits passed. Based on the assignment of the twelve zodiac animals to the cardinal directions, the kimon was also known as the ushitora , or "Ox Tiger" direction,
and the oni's bovine horns and cat-like fangs, claws, and tiger-skin loincloth developed as a visual depiction of this term.
Temples are often built facing that direction, and Japanese buildings sometimes have L-shaped indention's at the northeast to ward oni away.
Enryakuji, on Mount Hiei northeast of the center of Kyoto, and Kaneiji, in that direction from Edo Castle, are examples. The Japanese capital itself moved northeast from Nagaoka to Kyoto in the 8th century.
There is also a well known game in Japan called kakure oni, which means "hidden oni", or more commonly kakurenbo, which is the same as the hide-and-seek game that children in western countries play.
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Other media
Anime, Manga etc.
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liru the werewolf was dressed as an oni in the series during one episode......
Peach Boy Riverfront anime and manga.
Yozakura quartet
Dagashi Kashi Manga Chapter 172
Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken/ That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime
Yuna and the Haunted hot Springs
Fate Series ....shuten douji and Ibaraki Douji
Monster Girls Red, Blue and Gren Oni
Peter Grill and the Philosophers Time
Princes Connect Re-Dive ...Eriko
Onizuka-chan and Sawarida-kun.. manga series.
Kemono Jihen, The manga features a few oni in a "food processing factory"..
Urusei Yatsura, the female lead, Lum Invader, is an oni alien depicted wearing a tiger-skin bikini and the entire alien race to which she belongs is fashioned after the classical concept of oni.
Ao no Fuuin uses oni as a main theme when the female protagonist is a descendant of a beautiful oni queen who wants to resurrect her kind.
In Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z, an Oni called King Yemma runs the Check-In Station in Other World, where he decides which souls go to Heaven and which to Hell.
Hellboy: Sword of Storms, Hellboy fought a giant Oni. Before the final blow can be struck with the Sword of Storms, the Oni fades away so that Hellboy can break the Sword of Storms on the statue releasing the brothers Thunder and Lightning.
Yo-Kai Watch, many of the creatures found are based on oni. Oni themselves appear as a class of boss enemies. They are distinct between each other, but all have horns. Some also have either claws, horns, or both.
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