NOO-ree-boh-TOH-keh
Their soul is listening — speak, and they will answer.
NOO-ree-boh-TOH-keh
A black, monk-shaped apparition from Edo-period yokai picture scrolls, shown with protruding eyes drooping downward. Examples appear in Sawaki Suushi’s Hyakkai Zukan and Toriyama Sekien’s Gazu Hyakki Yagyo. These sources provide no captions, so its origins and traits are unknown. In Sekien’s version it emerges from a household Buddhist altar (butsudan), leading later writers to interpret it as a spirit of altars or ritual implements, though historical proof is lacking.
The name and image appear in picture scrolls and board games, with little accompanying narrative. Sekien depicts it coming out of a butsudan, and later explanations claim it leaps from altars to frighten people. In the Bakemono-zukushi Emaki, a similar image is retitled “Umi-bōzu,” with a caption about attacks at Shido Bay in Sanuki; however, this does not clearly belong to Nuribotoke’s original tradition.
Painted Buddha across multiple art-style decks
Displaying the Maya calendar KINs that Painted Buddha protects.
This yokai is included in the following collections:
The Illustrated Night Parade of a Hundred Demons
Toriyama Sekien’s 1776 yokai art book presenting one creature per leaf, the first in the “Gazu Hyakki Yagyo” series.
Hyakkai Zukan (Illustrated Scroll of a Hundred Apparitions)
A 1737 yokai picture scroll by Sawaki Suushi. Thirty yokai in a catalog-like format that shaped later works like Gazu Hyakki Yagyō.
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
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