A figure-name found in Edo-period yokai picture scrolls. It is shown with short bristles covering the body, the torso in profile, lips or mouth jutting forward. It appears in works like Bakemono-zukushi Emaki, Bakemono Emaki, and Hyakumonogatari Ka-e Emaki, but lacks accompanying captions that explain its behavior or origins, so its nature remains unclear. The wording of the name varies—mino-ke tachi, mino-ke yodatsu—and it largely survives as a pictorial motif in art rather than as a narrative character.
Folklore & Legends
No concrete anecdotes are recorded, but it sometimes joins the procession of the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons as a type of uncanny image. The essay Kiyū Shōran notes the name “Mino-ke tachi” in Kōhōgen Motonobu’s “monster pictures,” suggesting the label spread as an image-title. In the Matsui Bunko Yatsushiro version of the Night Parade scroll, a similar figure is titled Jūjū-bō, showing how naming differs between scrolls.
An image-based yokai originating from picture scrolls without accompanying text, making its function and temperament hard to define. Its bristling, hair-standing posture suggests a visual motif of fear or dread, yet sources provide no explanation and no firm conclusion can be drawn. Names vary by source, and related figures may appear under different titles. Here, characterization is kept minimal, grounded only in the image’s form and the extant manuscripts.
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 Emaki Iconographic Type: Hair-Raising Figure. 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.
