Nyoi Jizai (Will-at-Will Scepter Spirit)Emaki Edition

A consolidation based on the nyoi monster depicted in Muromachi-period Night Parade of One Hundred Demons scrolls and on Toriyama Sekien’s Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro images and captions. Following the tsukumogami belief that tools gain spirit with age, the nyoi’s original function of “reaching at will” is exaggerated as occult power. Two iconographic lines exist: one shows a humanoid with a tea-brown body and long claws that scratch a person’s back with extended arms, the other shows the nyoi itself sprouting wings and drifting in midair. Both appear late at night in bedrooms or Buddhist rooms, said to seek out itchy spots and places the hand cannot reach. Some readings hold that the morally wanting are left with claw marks, yet region-specific oral lore is scant, and the figure relies mainly on pictorial sources and later yokai commentaries.