Based on Edo-period natural history notes and shaped by Toriyama Sekien’s pictorial intent. It is a tree that grows thick in mountain valleys and bears blossoms at the tips of its branches that resemble human faces. The flowers do not understand human speech, but are said to smile at calls or sounds. When laughter overlaps, the petals lose strength and eventually wither and fall. In Japan it was received as a tale of foreign curiosities, lacking specific local toponyms or anecdotes. The faces vary from old to young, often depicted grinning with teeth as they sway in the wind. Its true nature is unclear—treated either as a plant spirit or a rare anomalous tree—and it was recorded more as a curiosity than a source of fear.
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 - unworldly, taciturn yet smiles in response to human presence
Compatibility - prefers silence, responsive to human voices, not prone to attachment
Abilities - smiles back in response to voices and presences, forms colonies and bears many human-faced blossoms in season, drops its flowers under strong stimulus
Weaknesses - prone to withering under excessive stimulus, said to be weak to cold winds and dryness (details uncertain)
Habitat - mountain valleys (per sources), the Land of Great Eaters (per bibliographic accounts)
🔮Yokai Compatibility Test
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