Edo-period encyclopedic and illustrated sources treat the nobusuma as a kind of yōkai linked to nocturnal mammals: some entries and images identify it with musasabi (flying squirrels) while other textual traditions describe a life-cycle in which bats age into nobusuma and later into a yamachichi. Sources present these identifications and transmutation ideas side by side rather than as a single canonical origin.
Descriptions vary across sources and illustrations. Toriyama Sekien's Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki depicts a flying-squirrel–like creature with fleshy wings that, when folded, resemble bat wings; other texts and illustrations render it more batlike or rat-colored and small in form. Woodblock depictions sometimes show a small winged beast that can come to lie upon or cover a person's face with its forepaws.
Sources report a range of behaviors: some accounts say it will latch onto a human and cover the eyes and mouth, in some variants to feed on blood; other traditions (via a later form, yamachichi) say an aging bat will suck the breath from a sleeping person, potentially causing death if unwitnessed. Illustrated and textual sources also record a behavior of biting off or extinguishing the tip of a torch carried by a traveler and seemingly 'breathing' or consuming the flame. Other reports identify attacks on animals (for example cats) in local legends.
Weaknesses
- conditionbright torch or lantern light (may blind or deter musasabi/flying-squirrel forms)
- conditionbeing observed by others (some accounts suggest an attack witnessed by another human produces a non-lethal or life-lengthening effect)
Wards
- conditionmaintain visible flame or witness presence (implied by accounts noting light affects flying-squirrel forms and that being observed alters outcomes)
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Abumi-guchi
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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)
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Acala
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Agaru
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Ajisukitakahikone
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Aka Manto
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Akaname
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Akashaguma
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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]Nobusuma (Wikipedia). Wikipedia entry summarizing Edo-period sources and traditions for nobusuma / tobikurawiki
- [2]Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (Toriyama Sekien, 1779). Toriyama Sekien's illustrated Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki (1779), depiction and caption identifying a flying-squirrel–like nobusuma and noting batlike features and fleshy wings.literary
- [3]Wakan Sansai Zue (encyclopedic entry). Wakan Sansai Zue entry conflating musasabi/momoka with nobusuma and describing bat/flying-squirrel identifications.literary
- [4]Ehon Hyaku Monogatari (Takehara Shunsen, 1841). Ehon Hyaku Monogatari account describing a life-cycle in which an aging bat becomes a nobusuma and later a yamachichi that can suck the breath from sleepers.literary
- [5]Kyōka Hyaku Monogatari (1853 depiction). Illustration of a tobikura covering a person's face, part of the Edo-period pictorial tradition.literary
- [6]Baiō zuihitsu (local legend citation). Local legend cited in sources reporting a winged, weasel-like beast identified as a nobusuma responsible for attacks on cats and dwelling in deep mountains.folk