In classical sources Ame-no-Koyane is a heavenly deity (Amatsukami) associated with Takamagahara. He appears among the generation of divine officials who manage the gods' affairs: Nihon Shoki describes him as “the first in charge of divine affairs,” and he is one of the deities who descend with Ninigi in the tenson kōrin, marking him genealogically as the ancestor of the Nakatomi clan and, by extension in clan tradition, ancestral to Fujiwara no Kamatari and the Fujiwara. Textual traditions differ about his parentage: the Kogo Shūi and Kashima Shrine genealogies name Kamimusubi as his parent, while the Nihon Shoki gives Kogotomusubi—both variants are preserved in the sources and reflect alternative clan-centered genealogical traditions.
Classical textual sources supplied do not provide a consistent anthropomorphic or portrait-style description of Ame-no-Koyane. Rather than focused physical traits, he is represented in literary and cult contexts by his office and genealogical identity. He appears in devotional and iconographic programs such as the Kasuga mandara (Kasuga Taisha visual traditions) where his presence is symbolic of ritual office and ancestral lineage; shrines that enshrine him (Hiraoka, Kasuga, Ōharano, Yoshida) present him as a venerated kami within standard Shinto shrine representations rather than through a fixed physical portrait in the supplied materials.
Sources frame Ame-no-Koyane's efficacy in terms of ritual office and liturgical competence rather than overt magical feats. Nihon Shoki records that he was “the first in charge of divine affairs” and that he performed the Greater Divination as part of his service. In the Ama-no-Iwato myth he performs the ritual prayer that lures the sun goddess Amaterasu from the cave, restoring light to the world; he is also commanded by Amaterasu to guard the divine mirror, indicating custodial responsibility for an imperial regalia. He thus embodies ritual authority, divinatory function, and custodial guardianship in the mythic-cultic order.
5 Ronin
5 Ronin is a 2011 Marvel Comics five-issue limited series that reimagines five Marvel superhero archetypes as rōnin (masterless samurai) in a fictionalized post‑Sekigahara feudal Japan. The work places Wolverine, Hulk, Punisher, Psylocke, and Deadpool analogues into period roles to explore displacement, revenge, and identity in an era of political upheaval.
Abumi-guchi
A Japanese yōkai classed as a tsukumogami: an animated stirrup (abumi) depicted in Sekien Toriyama's Gazu Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro. Traditional accounts say it is formed from a stirrup that belonged to a soldier who fell in battle and that it waits where the stirrup lies for its dead owner to return.
Abura-akago
An Edo-period yōkai depicted as an oil‑licking infant or a ball of flame. First recorded in illustrated compendia (notably Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki), the Abura-akago is tied to tales of oil‑stealing fires and functions in part as an etiological warning about wasting or stealing oil.
Abura-sumashi
A yōkai spirit from the Amakusa region of Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, said to inhabit mountain passes. Traditionally explained as the ghost of a person who stole oil, it appears to surprise travelers and is represented in modern media with a straw-coat body and a potato- or stone-like head.
Aburabō / Abura-bōzu / Aosaginohi (traditions)
Two distinct Japanese traditions appear under related flame imagery: Aosaginohi/Aosagibi is presented as a will-o'-the-wisp type luminous night phenomenon interpreted as reflections from herons; aburabōzu (abura bōzu, "oil monk") appears in a separate anecdote as a reported fire-breathing apparition in a 12th-century Yasaka Shrine tale. The sources treat them as separate portrayals rather than a single unified being.
Acala
Acala (Sanskrit: अचल, 'The Immovable') is a wrathful protective deity (dharmapala) in Vajrayāna and East Asian esoteric Buddhism, classed among the Wisdom Kings (Vidyārāja). He functions as a ritual focus for visualization and mantra practice intended to remove obstacles and bind or destroy hostile forces.
Agaru
Agaru (attested historically as Agarum) appears in the supplied sources as a Bronze Age Near Eastern toponym—often identified with Failaka Island—and as a modern personal or media name. The provided material contains no evidence that Agaru is a supernatural being in any traditional cosmology.
Ajisukitakahikone
Ajisukitakahikone is a kami in Japanese mythic literature (Kojiki/Nihon Shoki). He appears in the transfer-of-rule cycle between heaven and earth, is described as a son of Ōkuninushi, associated with the Kamo cult (called Kamo no ōmikami in some modern museum/catalog entries), and features in narratives that explain landscape formation and meteorological genealogy.
Aka Manto
Aka Manto (赤マント, "Red Cloak") is a Japanese urban legend and schoolyard ghost-story about a masked, cloaked figure who appears in public or school toilet stalls and forces occupants to choose between colored toilet paper; each choice in the tale produces a violent supernatural consequence. The legend is part of modern popular folklore recorded in school contexts from the 1930s onward rather than a formal religious myth.
Akaname
Akaname is a Japanese yōkai associated with baths, bathtubs, toilets, and other places where scum and filth accumulate. Traditionally depicted as a child-like creature that licks grime, it functions in folklore as a cautionary figure tied to cleanliness; a few narrative variants cast it as dangerously predatory.
Akashaguma
Akashaguma is presented in the available sources as a child-like house guardian spirit in the Japanese yokai tradition, closely comparable to the regional zashiki-warashi. It is associated with domestic interiors (parlors or storage rooms) and with bringing prosperity to households where it dwells.
Akashita
Akashita (赤舌, lit. “red tongue”) is an Edo-period pictorial yōkai commonly represented as a hairy, clawed face emerging from dark clouds with a wide open mouth and a conspicuous red tongue. The figure appears in yōkai emaki and Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyō; Sekien’s plate shows it atop a sluice, but the original pictorial tradition provides no explanatory caption. Later folklorists and popular writers (Shōwa and later) have variously interpreted the image as a punitive spirit linked to irrigation/floodgate justice or as a kidnapper in evening skies, though these narrative roles are post-hoc.
Community Record
- [1]Ame-no-Koyane. Wikipedia: Ame-no-Koyanewiki
- [2]Ame-no-Koyane (Wikidata). Wikidata entry for Ame-no-Koyanewiki
- [3]Hiraoka Shrine. Wikipedia: Hiraoka Shrine (lists Ame-no-Koyane as enshrined)wiki
- [4]Kasuga mandara (JAANUS). JAANUS: Kasuga mandara (notes on Kasuga visual-devotional program and enshrined deities)other
- [5]Amenokoyane | Kokugakuin Digital Museum. Kokugakuin University Digital Museum entry on Amenokoyaneother
- [6]Amaterasu and Susano-o – Yet Another Unitarian Universalist. Online retelling/analysis of the Ama-no-Iwato myth (references Ame-no-Koyane's ritual prayer)other
- [7]Kasuga Taisha, Nara's lantern shrine | Japan Experience. Kasuga Taisha context and shrine network (notes on deities venerated there)other