In classical Chinese texts cited in the sources, mōryō appear as a class of animate non‑human beings associated with landscape and with the dead; the Huainanzi furnishes a physical description while the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu) supplies behavioral notes linking them to corpses. Japanese folkloric usage absorbs and adapts these Chinese descriptions: by the Edo period mōryō appears in anecdotal collections (e.g., Mimibukuro by Negishi Shizumori) where the term is applied in accounts of corpse‑stealing and other uncanny occurrences. The term functions as a flexible collective category rather than a single uniform entity across periods and sources.
A Classical Chinese description preserved in cited sources (Huainanzi) says mōryō have the shape of a three‑year‑old child, are dark red in color, have red eyes, long ears, and beautiful hair. Compendial texts summarized in the sources focus less on visual detail and more on behavior (for example, corpse‑eating) rather than providing alternate standardized appearances.
According to the Compendium‑derived summary cited in the sources, mōryō are said to 'like to eat the innards of the dead' and to go underground to consume the brains of corpses; this behavioral characterization underlies later Japanese conflations of mōryō with corpse‑stealing yōkai. Japanese anecdotal material (Edo‑period Mimibukuro) uses the label in stories of corpses disappearing at funerals. The sources do not provide evidence of cosmic or deity‑scale powers; descriptions emphasize grave‑afflicting and nature‑tied agency.
Weaknesses
- substanceoak (pressing oak to the neck kills mōryō)
- otherfear of tigers (recorded as a trait in Compendium summary)
Wards
- substanceoak (Compendium of Materia Medica notes oak can kill mōryō; the sources record this as a vulnerability rather than a documented ritual use)
- symboltiger imagery or invocation (sources record mōryō are fearful of tigers; no prescribed ritualic use is given in the provided materials)
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]Mōryō — Wikipedia (summary of Huainanzi and Compendium of Materia Medica; Edo‑period anecdotes). Wikipedia: Mōryō (articles summarizing classical Chinese descriptions in the Huainanzi and Compendium of Materia Medica and Japanese folkloric uses including Mimibukuro anecdotes)wiki
- [2]Mōryō — Wikidata. Wikidata: Mōryō (structured data entry linked to articles on mōryō / 魍魎)wiki