Kidōmaru

Multiple, alternative etiologies appear in the sources rather than a single unified origin. In Kokon Chomonjū Kidōmaru is presented as an oni who ambushes Yorimitsu (textual episode focused on the ambush rather than a natal origin). Local oral tradition of Kumohara relates that a woman taken by Shuten-dōji bore a child who grew to be Kidōmaru ('the child of Shuten-dōji'). The medieval war chronicle Zentaiheiki offers a different account, describing Kidōmaru as an abandoned or ruined child associated with Mount Hiei who later migrated to a mountain cave and became a bandit. These accounts are treated in the literature as alternative narrative explanations connecting Kidōmaru to the Shuten-dōji cycle or to banditry in marginal landscapes.

Textual sources provide sparse anatomical description; narrative emphasis is on concealment and action. Kokon Chomonjū relates Kidōmaru hiding inside a slain cow; Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Hyakki Shūi image (titled 'Kidō') depicts him in snow wearing the skin of a cattle while waiting for Yorimitsu. Beyond these motifs (cow carcass concealment, cattle-skin clothing in Sekien's print), classical setsuwa do not supply a consistent catalog of physical features.

Sources record cunning, ambush tactics, great physical strength, and banditry. In Kokon Chomonjū he kills a free-ranging cow and conceals himself within its body as a trap; he is able to tear off chains when bound at Yorinobu's house, indicating exceptional strength. Zentaiheiki and related accounts describe him living as a mountain bandit operating from caves. Edo-period literary/print treatments (e.g., Takizawa Bakin's Shitennō Shōtō Iroku and related ukiyo-e) portray scenes of skill-contests between Kidōmaru and bandit figures like Hakamadare, framing him as a notable antagonist within a roster of brigand-supernatural figures. Modern fictional usages (e.g., Naruto) rework the name and add shinobi/web abilities, but these are derivative and not part of the classical setsuwa descriptions.