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.
Yokai Type - Traditional Yokai
Category - Natural Phenomena Spirits
Rarity - Rare
Personality - serene, tests devotion
Compatibility - 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
