A spirit said to dwell in the leaves of the banana plant (basho), or the vital essence of an aged plant taking human form. Illustrated by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shui, whose notes cite Chinese anecdotes and the Noh chant-play Basho. Tales across Japan describe it appearing as a beautiful woman to test monks or startling travelers on night roads; many accounts say it rarely causes direct harm.
Folklore & Legends
The essay Churyo Manroku records encounters with uncanny figures late at night in Ryukyuan banana groves and claims that carrying a blade wards them off. It also warns that women walking through banana thickets after dusk may meet a handsome man or a specter and become pregnant. In Shinshu, a monk reading at night is tempted by a beauty; when he slashes her with a dagger, the next morning a banana plant in the garden is found cut, revealing a plant spirit in disguise. The Noh piece Basho, based on Chinese lore, explores whether plants can attain enlightenment.
Yokai Cards1
Banana-Plant Spirit across multiple art-style decks
A整理 based on the plant-spirit of banana (bashō) as pictured in Toriyama Sekien’s Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. The broad leaves rustle and cast uncanny shadows in wind and rain, thought to summon the strange, with the belief that an aged clump comes to harbor a spirit. It takes the form of a beautiful woman to unsettle both clergy and laity, posing the riddle of whether grasses and trees can attain Buddhahood, and vanishes depending on one’s response. Tales include encounters in Ryukyuan banana groves, an apotropaic rule that those who carry blades are spared, and Shinano stories where striking it leaves the bashō stalk wounded by morning. It is not consistently harmful, more often serving as a warning through shock and confusion. Typical settings are temple gardens, banana plots, and manor yards.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
evenly matched with monks and itinerant ascetics whose discipline it tests
Abilities
shapeshifting into a beautiful woman or youthbewilderment and temptationintimidation through wind-borne soundstesting by debate on the Buddhahood of plants
Weaknesses
avoids those who carry blades, retreats at dawn, retreats before sutra chanting
Habitat
banana groves in Ryukyu, temple gardens, clumps of bashō in manor yards, temple precincts in Shinano
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