A female yokai illustrated by Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Gazu Zoku Hyakki, depicted with countless eyes embedded along her arms. She is said to have been a woman with a habit of stealing coins; because she constantly pilfered holed copper cash (torime), the spirits of those coins manifested as eyes on her limbs. Sekien cites a source titled Kankangai-shi, but that work is unverified and likely a playful pseudobibliographic joke. The name Dodomeki may be a wordplay tied to old nicknames for copper coins and to place-name spellings.
Folklore & Legends
In Edo-period printed books and paintings, Sekien’s image set the template, and close contemporaneous variants are few. A yokai karuta card labeled “Dodomeki” depicts a figure covered in many eyes, echoing the motif. Hand-painted works titled “Dodogan-ki” (Hundred-Eyed Demon) also survive, though their details differ. No specific locale or oral tradition can be firmly identified; most explanations interpret the yokai allegorically through the wordplay of stolen cash and torime (holed coins).
Following Toriyama Sekien’s note, this version centers on a moralizing motif warning against theft. The many eyes along the arm relate to a pun likening the holes of copper coins to birds’ eyes, externalizing the habit of hands reaching to steal. The source Sekien cites, “Kankangai-shi,” is of uncertain reality; his wordplay on Hakone as a boundary and his own remark calling it a curious book suggest the citation itself is part of the artistic conceit. The Dodomeki’s image concentrates on a female form, yet no concrete personal names, family lines, or local legends are preserved, pointing to an urban allegory where image and wordplay outweigh regional lore. Postwar explanations vary in reading and interpretation, but the archetype is traced to Sekien’s original.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
The diagram below is a diagnostic evaluation chart for Sekien Iconography Standard. The higher the value of each item, the stronger that characteristic is expressed.
Meet your guardian yokai at the shrine
Draw an omikuji fortune and discover the yokai watching over you today.
