Takemikazuchi is a deity in Japanese folklore, from Japan. A Japanese Shinto kami associated with thunder, swords, martial prowess, and the subjugation of terrestrial deities. Chiefly venerated at Kashima Shrine, he appears in the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki as an envoy from the heavenly plain who enforces heavenly order in the terrestrial realm and is later syncretized in medieval devotional art with Buddhist imagery.
In the classical chronicles Takemikazuchi belongs to the generation of deities emerging from primordial episodes. Sources record variant traditions: in some accounts he is produced in the Izanagi/Kagutsuchi episode associated with sword-blood (Kojiki/Nihon Shoki material), while other texts relate him to or identify him with the ten-fist sword (Ame-no-ōhabari/Itsu-no-ōhabari). These accounts are presented as alternative or complementary mythic origins in the supplied sources rather than a single, uniform genealogy.
Visual and literary sources treat appearance variably. Medieval and Heian-period art (Kasuga Deer Mandala; incised mirror design) commonly depicts Takemikazuchi riding a spotted deer, sometimes shown in honji-suijaku guise as the Buddha Shakyamuni wearing a red robe and riding on clouds. Mythic narratives emphasize emblematic actions and objects (e.g., seated upon or standing by a ten-fist sword; the wrestling episode describes a hand turning 'as if into an icicle and then a sword') rather than a fixed anthropomorphic portrait.
Mythic texts and later popular imagery present Takemikazuchi as a powerful martial and thunder deity: an enforcer of heavenly will who subdues local deities and secures territorial transfer, a god associated with swords and the martial success of rulers (mythically his sword aids Emperor Jimmu in legend), and a figure used in popular folk imagery as a restrainer of dangerous natural forces (e.g., Edo-period prints showing Kashima/Takemikazuchi pinning the namazu to stabilize the land). He figures in the mano-a-mano contest with Takeminakata, a narrative demonstrating overwhelming physical strength and providing a mythic origin for ritualized physical contest (sumo). He also appears in honji-suijaku contexts merged with Buddhist iconography.
5 Ronin
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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
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Agaru
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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
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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
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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]Takemikazuchi (Wikipedia). Wikipedia entry 'Takemikazuchi'wiki
- [2]Wikidata: Takemikazuchi. Wikidata item Q1502690other
- [3]Kasuga Deer Mandala (Cleveland Museum / Archive). Kasuga Deer Mandala (archive catalog description)other
- [4]Mirror with incised design of Takemikazuchi (Archive). Heian-period mirror description, Cleveland holdings (archive)other
- [5]Kasuga Deer Mandala (alternate archive record). Kasuga Deer Mandala (alternate archive record)other
- [6]Futsunushi (Wikipedia). Wikipedia entry 'Futsunushi' (noting frequent pairing with Takemikazuchi)wiki
- [7]Symbol Sage: Takemikazuchi – The Japanese God of Swords. Popular secondary summary of Takemikazuchi's sword and martial associationsother