Bakeneko the Demon Cat..

             -----------Bakeneko or Changing cat is a type of yokai (Sprite / demon) -----------




Cat's are often seen as sly and mysterious creatures..

Cats depicted as yōkai in Japan date back as far as the Kamakura Period  (1185–1333).

In the collection of setsuwa (oral tradition of folktales before the 14th century), the Kokon Chomonju   from this period, there are several descriptions of cats that do odd and suspicious things, noting that "these are perhaps ones that have turned into demons.
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One of the more well know legends regarding a Bakeneko...
 is the story of Takasu Genbei...

 In this story  a man named Takasu Genbei, whose mother's personality suddenly changed  after his pet cat went missing for many years. His mother avoided interactions with old  friends and even family and would  often eat alone in her room. Untill one day when the family peeked in on her, they saw a cat-like monster in the mother's clothes, chewing on animal carcasses. Takasu, still skeptical, slew what looked like his mother, and after one day his mother's body turned back into his pet cat that had been missing. Takasu then tore up the floorboards of his mother's room to find her skeleton hidden there, her bones gnawed clean of all flesh.


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Folk lore:.....

The Bakeneko myths from arond Japan....


In Yamagata District, Hiroshima Prefecture, it is said that a cat raised for seven years or longer would kill the one that raised it. There are also many regions where when people began raising a cat, they would decide in advance for how many years they would raise it because of this superstition.

 Also, depending on the area, there are stories in which cats that were killed by humans in a brutal manner would become bakeneko and curse that human. The stories of bakeneko are not only about aged cats, but are also sometimes stories of revenge against cruel humans.

 
The abilities attributed to the bakeneko are various, but include shapeshifting into humans,  wearing a towel or napkin on the head and dancing, speaking human words,  cursing humans manipulating dead people, possessing humans  and lurking in the mountains and taking wolves along with them to attack travelers.

 As an unusual example, on Aji island, in  Oshika District, of the Miyagi Prefecture and in the Oki Islands, Shimane Prefecture, there's a story of a cat that shapeshifted into a human and wanted to engage in sumo.

 
However the legend of cats with the ability to speak, may have arisen because humans simply misinterpring the cat's meowing as human language, and for this reason some would say that the cat is not a type of yōkai. In 1992 (Heisei 4), in the Yomiuri newspaper, there was an article that argued that when people thought they had heard a cat speak, upon listening a second time, they realized that it was simply the cat's meowing and that it was only coincidence that it resembled a word in human language.

In the Edo period (1603–1867), there was a folk belief that cats with long tails like snakes could bewitch people. Cats with long tails were disliked and there was a custom of cutting their tails. It is speculated that this is the reason that there are so many cats in Japan with short tails nowadays, because natural selection has favored those with short tails.

Folk beliefs that cats can cause strange phenomena are not limited to Japan. For example, in Jinhua, Zhejiang, in China, it is said that a cat, after having been raised for three years by humans, would then start bewitching them. Because it is said that cats with white tails are especially good at this, there arose the custom of refraining from raising white cats. Since it is said that their ability to bewitch humans comes from taking in the spiritual energy of the moon, it is said that when a cat looks up at the moon, whether its tail has been cut or not, it should be killed on the spot
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The reason that cats are seen as yōkai in Japanese mythology is attributed to many of the characteristics that they possess: for example, the way the irises of their eyes change shape depending on the time of day, the way their fur seems to cause sparks due to static electricity when they are petted (especially in winter), the way they sometimes lick blood, the way they can walk without making a sound, their wild nature that remains despite the gentleness they can show at times, the way they are difficult to control (unlike dogs), the sharpness of their claws and teeth, their nocturnal habits, and their speed and agility.


There are many yōkai animals other than cats in old tales that have similar attributes: the deep tenacity of snakes, the ability of foxes (kitsune) to shapeshift into women, and the brutality of tanuki in eating humans depicted in the Kachi-kachi Yama folktale from the Edo period. Cats in particular, however, have acquired a great number of tales and superstitions surrounding them, due to the unique position they occupy between nature and civilization.

As cities and towns were established and humans began living farther apart from nature, cats came with them. Since cats live close to humans yet retain their wild essence and air of mystery, stories grew up around them, and gradually the image of the bakeneko was formed^.
 
One folk belief concerning the bakeneko is that they would lick the oil of oriental lamps, and in the Edo period encyclopedia, the Wakan Sansai Zue, it is said that for a cat to lick this oil is an omen of some strange event about to occur.

 People in the early modern period used cheap oils from fish, like sardine oil, in the lamps, and that could explain why cats would want to lick them.

 The diet of most  Japanese people at that time was based primarily on grains and vegetables, and the leftovers would be fed to the cats.

 However, since cats are carnivores, such a diet would have been lacking in protein and fat, and therefore they would have been even more attracted to the oil in the lamps.

Furthermore, the sight of a cat standing up its hind legs to reach the lamp, with its face lit up and eyes round with anticipation, could have seemed eerie and unnatural, like a yōkai.

The mysterious air that cats possess was associated with the image of prostitutes who worked in the Edo period red-light districts. This was the origin of a popular character in kusazōshi (among other publications), the bakeneko yūjo

Iso Onna:The Coast Woman.

 

 

 

 

 

 The Iso onna is a dangerous vampire like yokai  from Kyushu and Western Japan they feed on fisherman and travelers. 

 

They are closely related to nure onna, despite having no serpent like  features at all. Iso onna wander rocky beaches, hunting for prey.

They  are occasionally encountered far out at sea, but they otherwise act the same as they do on land, capturing their human prey and draining their victims’ blood using their long hair.

Iso onna are most commonly encountered during the holiday seasons of Obon and New Years Eve, when the border between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead can be more easily crossed. 

They occasionally cooperate with ushi oni to catch their prey the same as nure onna. 

 

 When she appears on the  beach or shore, she looks like beautiful young women, staring far out to sea. 

When somebody approaches and tries speak to her, she will turn around and let out an ear-piercing shriek, which stuns their victim. Then attacks with her long hair and drag her prey into the sea, where she drains her victim’s blood with her hair. 

 

On rocky coasts without sandy beaches, iso onna appear sitting on the cliffs and calling out to passersby in an eerie voice. Their victims are mesmerized into walking straight towards them, ignoring the dangers posed by the rocky cliffs. They walk off the cliffs and fall to their deaths, leaving the iso onna free to feed on their bodies. 

 

 Individual accounts of iso onna vary from one telling to the next  when it comes to her appearance. 

 

In most cases, they appear as beautiful women who have just come out of the water, dripping wet. Their hair is long and matted, reaching almost all the way down to the sand. 

Their eyes are heavy with sultry, sexual energy, and their wet clothes stick, nearly transparent, to their skin. From the waist up, they appear like ordinary human women, albeit soaking wet, while from the waist down, they are slightly blurry and transparent, hinting at their spectral nature. In some regions, iso onna are said to have snake like bodies similar to nure onna, while in other regions they are said to be large enough to crush ships out at sea, like umi-bōzu. 

 

They also have the ability to disguise themselves perfectly as large beach rocks when they don’t want to be seen. 

 

 

Namahage the new years oni..

 

 

                                         

                                                              Namahage




生剝
なまはげ
Namahage


Japan is full of fascinating legends and folklore, yokai, oni, fox spirit's and so much more.



Today's post is about a norther mountain dwelling creature called  Namahage.

While the name namahage is unique to Akita Prefecture, very similar yōkai are known by many different local names in neighboring regions: in Yamagata Prefecture they are known as amahage, in Ishikawa Prefecture they are known as amamehagi, and in Fukui Prefecture they are known as appossha. What they are called just depending on the region the story is being told,


                                             
They are  Oni like yōkai that  live in the mountains along the northern coast of the Sea of Japan.


They look like oni, with bright red or blue skin, wild hair and eyes, large mouths full of sharp teeth, and usually have horns coming from their forehead.


They wear straw leggings and raincoats, and carry large blades.

             


Once a year, during koshōgatsu the first full moon of the New Year the namahage come down from the mountains to scare villagers.
                               
They go from door to door and brandishing their knives, saying things like, “Any bad kids here?”

They particularly enjoy scaring young children and new brides.

Despite their frightful appearance and behavior, they are actually well-meaning yōkai.

They are sent down from the mountain as messengers of the gods to warn and chastise those who have been lazy or wicked.



The name namahage comes from another taunt the namahage use: “Have your blisters peeled yet?” In the cold winter months, a lazy person who spent all of his or her time in front of the fireplace would get blisters from being too close to the heat for too long.

Namomi is a regional name for these heat blisters, and hagu means to peel.



The combination of those words became namahage.



Today, the namahage play a major part in New Year’s festivities in Akita Prefecture (old Dewa Province).

Villagers dress up in straw raincoats and leggings, wear  oni masks, and wield large knives. They go from house to house and play the part of namahage.
     

Residents visited by these namahage give presents such as mochi to their “guests,” while the namahage chastise kids and warn them to be good. Newlywed couples
 are also harassed by these namahage.

They are expected to give an account of all of the evil deeds they did during their first year together, as well as serve sake and food to the namahage before  sending them off.

Japanese Myth's: The Oni 👹

 

                                                   👹   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 origins.

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.


[[[[[[[[[[[
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.

Monster's, Cryptid's and Yokai: The Jorogumo

 

 

 Today we talk about
Spider Woman....

aka  the Jorogumo..

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The Jouogumo is a Japanese spider yôkai  that can change its appearance into that of a attractive young woman in order  to lure in her prey, human men.

However even when she's in her human form her reflection will still show a giant spider.

She is immune to all kinds of poison and aside from shapeshifting is believed to have other magic ability's as-well...

The  Nephila Clavata, Or Golden Orb Weaver is  a real kind of spider and can get quit large.

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Stories of this lethal eight legged yokai can be traced as far back as the edo Period.

The name Jorogumo when written with kanji mean's “entangling bride.” though these characters were later added to her name  to change it from the original meaning: “whore spider.”


 
According to the myth, a beautiful woman would entice a man into a secluded shack of private room at an inn, she would then  begin to play a Biwa, a type of Japanese lute this was just a destruction.

While her soon to be victim was focused on the sound of the instrument, she would bind him in spider silk threads in order to devour the unsuspecting person as her next meal.
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The Orb Weaver spider is considered to be the spider form of this yokai.

According to most legends, when a spider turns 400 years old, it gains magical or supernatural powers.

Famous Edo period stories can be found in  "Taihei-Hyakumonogatari" and "Tonoigusa".

                                                   
In many of these accounts the Jorogumo changes its appearance into that of a beautiful young woman and would ask a samurai to marry her,
in other versions she will take the form of a young woman carrying a baby (which may turn out to be a spider's eggsack).

Drawings, like the one in Toriyama Sekien's book Gazu Hyakki Yako, depicts Jorogumo as a half-woman/half-spider surrounded by her spider children. 

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The jorogumo is the most well-known of the spider yokai.

They can be found all over the Japan, except for Hokkaido.

The golden orb weaver's body size averages between two to three centimeters long, though they can grow far larger as they age; some are so big  they can catch and eat small birds.

These spiders are well known for their large size, eye catching colors and the large sturdy webs they weave.

                             

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Her favorite prey is young men.

When a jorogumo sets her sights on a man she desires, she will invite him into her home, he is usually never seen again.
 

They can spin silk threads strong enough to trap a grown man and keep him in place.

She also has a strong venom that can slowly weaken a man day by day, allowing her to prolong her victims inevitable death  so she can savor his suffering.

In some versions she is believed to have the ability to control other, lesser spiders, even using magic fire-breathing spiders to burn down the homes of anyone
that grow suspicious of her.

If she is careful enough a  jorogumo can operate in secret  like this for years without detection, even in the middle of a busy city,  while the skeletons of hundreds of men eventually build up in her home/ nest.

They usually make their nests in old caves, forests, or empty abandon homes and buildings.

Jorogumo are highly intelligence but also very cold hearted , she see's humans as no more valuable then common insects only there to feed on.

They are powerful shapeshifters and usually spend  their lives in the form of a young attractive women.
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Jorogumo also appear in various manga and anime..

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                                                         Kirue ITOSHIGE - Yokai Girls Manga

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                                               Monster Musume/ Monster Girls Encyclopedia

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                                                  Jorōgumo from  Rosario + Vampire
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                                               Jorōgumo in NURARIHYON NO MAGO

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alright that's all for now, next post will be up soon. :)