In the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki genealogies Kuraokami is listed among the deities born in the aftermath of the killing of the fire-deity Kagu-tsuchi by Izanagi. Kojiki passages name Kura-okami (闇淤加美) as one of the deities formed from the blood that collected on the hilt of the august sword and leaked out between the fingers; Nihon Shoki presents related versions and orthographies (e.g., 闇龗) in its recounting of the same episode. Commentarial traditions group Kuraokami with other water-related progeny (such as Kuramitsuha / Kurayamatsumi) produced by that event.
Classical texts quoted in the provided sources give no extended iconographic description of Kuraokami. Later commentators and regional records cited in the sources interpret the okami element as snake or dragon, and summaries (e.g., modern encyclopedic entries) commonly describe Kuraokami as a rain- or snow-associated dragon; these draconic/serpentine images derive from later commentarial readings (such as De Visser's citing of Bungo Fudoki) rather than explicit physical portraits in the Kojiki/Nihon Shoki excerpts.
Primary classical attestations present Kuraokami as the named personification or tutelary deity of precipitation—rain and snow—and as part of the cosmological ordering of forces generated by the Kagu-tsuchi episode. Sources describe Kuraokami as associated with atmospheric precipitation and with water-related places in later commentary. Specific acts of agency (ritual miracles, canonical narratives of intervention) are not recorded in the provided Kojiki/Nihon Shoki excerpts; the attribution of mountain-, valley-, well-, or sea-associated behaviors follows later commentator inferences that align Kuraokami with water-dragons or serpents.
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]Kuraokami — Wikipedia. Wikipedia article 'Kuraokami' (summary of Kojiki/Nihon Shoki genealogies, name etymology, and modern descriptors).wiki
- [2]Kuraokami — Wikidata. Wikidata entry classifying Kuraokami as a mythological Japanese dragon and Shinto deity of rain and snow.wiki
- [3]De Visser — commentarial summaries (as cited in research notes). De Visser's commentary cited in the provided notes, identifying okami as dragon/snake and citing Bungo Fudoki examples (as summarized in the research material).academic
- [4]Amaya: Maiden of the Storm (Archive). Game blurb using Kuraokami as a legendary dragon whose absence causes storms; cited as a modern cultural adaptation in the provided notes.other
- [5]Amaya: Maiden of the Storm (Archive). Alternate version of the same modern cultural product cited in the provided notes.other