Get to Know Your Local Tsuchi-no-ko

It's almost May, and you know what that means? It's Tsuchinoko season!

Huh? What's a Tsuchinoko?

A mysterious, mythical, legendary... snake with a weight problem.

No, seriously. An enduring Japanese folk legacy, something like an alpine version of Nessie, the Tsuchinoko is said to inhabit Japanese mountain areas. They're from one to two feet long, usually a mottled gray or tan color, sport bulbously distended bodies, tiny tails, and -- here's the clincher, the reason why they're definitely mysterious and not, like, say, a drunken mis-interpretation of a garter snake -- they move by jumping or rolling in a hoop rather than slithering. Some reports say they even tumble end-over-end (as seen in the illustrations at the bottom of this page.)

I can hear you now. Yeah, yeah, whatever -- rice wine plus country bumpkins equals the birth of an obscure local legend nobody cares about, right? Wrong. Because the Tsuchinoko is big business in Japan. Well, sorta. Similar to the clione (which has the advantage of being a real organism), the Tsuchinoko has a serious cult of personality over here, complete with its own merchandise. Kaiyodo sculpted Tsuchinoko gashapon figures for Furuta's Choco Eggs (the limited-edition black version will set you back 15,000 yen on Yahoo Auctions these days.) Here's a Tsuchinoko hot water bottle. The city of Aikawa bottled its own Tsuchinoko-label wine. And you know the Tsuchinoko's hit the supernatural big-time when there's even a Hello Kitty pen-topper available.

Tsuchinoko sightings have been around for about as long as the Japanese have been around. They're called "Nozuchi" and "Bachi-Hebi" in Akita prefecture, "Tsuchi-Hebi" in Osaka, "Koro" in Fukui, and have been sighted all over Japan save for Hokkaido and the Okinawan islands. Some even claim that there are references to them in Jomon-era (10,000 B.C. - 300 B.C.) art. A few reference sources categorize them as yokai, those ethereal monsters of premodern Japan's nights, but most fans nowadays classify them as UMA, "unidentified mysterious animals" along the lines of Bigfoot.

If you're feeling lucky, the Tsuchinoko Search Team is offering a cool one million yen to anyone who brings evidence of one of the creatures back from an expedition to Niigata prefecture in June of this year. Want to join up? The details are right here, the entry fee's a paltry 3,000 yen, and the deadline's May 31, so time's a-wasting.

Comments

[Roger]

Love that Tsuchinoko conga beat.

[Tengu Leavings]

Who can forget the joy of catching one (twice), carrying it about whilst resisting the urge to eat it until the end, and finally reaping the reward of the Infinity Face Paint in Metal Gear 3?

[Tim]

I recall a TV report featuring some geezer in Mie-ken who has devoted the remainder of his life to catching the elusive beast.

[pepsirockstar]

lol i remember catching one of them in mgs and saying wtf is this thing!?!?!?!