#Orochi the Eight-Headed Dragon

[chernobog13]

King Ghidorah's older cousin, Orochi the Eight-Headed Dragon (1994).

[connor-dioda]

It's Smaugust again so to celebrate dragon month again here's some fanart of a massively underappreciated gem, "The Little Prince and the Eight-Headed Dragon"! Featuring the music of Godzilla composer Akira Ifukube and being the inspiration for Wind Waker and Samurai Jack, it's an oldie but a goodie that needs more love.

[monsterasia-zero]

This day Orochi The Eight-Headed Dragon was released

[by13x]

Traditional Dances -41

Japan-Iwami -Shimane prefecture

八岐大蛇 - Yamata no OrochI -Eight-headed serpent

[atomic-crusader]

Just in time for the 50th anniversary of Zone Fighter comes the Toho Kaiju Club Vol 2 keychains starring Godzilla, Zone Fighter, Gigan, Spyler (my beloved) and Wargilgar joined by Gunhed, Muba and....

...

Is that fucking Guyferd?

[godzilla-and-aang-monsters]

Kaishin Muba

Altura: 200 metros

Longitud: 420 metros

Peso: 40,000 toneladas

Primer Avistamiento: Oceano Pacifico [Tierra: Teratoverso]

Controles: Agua Control [Nado, Remolino marino] Aire Control [Gas toxico]

Guarida: Oceano Pacifico [Tierra:Teratoverso] Lago Drakenvor [Avatarverso]

Aspecto: Kaishin Muba (Era Heisei)

Aliados:

Humanos: Aang, Katara, Soka, Iroh, Zuko

Kaijus y otras bestias: Anguirus, Baragon, Behemoth, Yamata no Orochi, Mothra, Rodan, Godzilla

Enemigos:

Humanos: Ozai y Azula

Kaijus y otras bestias: King Ghidorah

[alephskoteinos]

Yamata no Orochi?

Eight-Headed Dragon by Kitao Masayoshi (1809)

[nanabansama]

Inspired by colowallocake's post, I searched through various Japanese legends about human sacrifice and wanted to offer some of my own suggestions as to the identity of the infamous "Pit God," as I like to call it.

First, let's recap what we know about it.

The god is heavily associated with water. The kannagi are sacrificed by being forced off cliffs and into a water-filled abyss. These kannagi wash ashore to a reservoir below the Red House, which was built on a well that taps into said reservoir. And when Tsukasa sacrifices himself, the God talks in watery speech bubbles:

It seems that whoever this god is, it's some kind of water god (水神 Mizugami) that dwells in Kamome.

And that's actually a common thing! After pouring through a few different articles about human sacrifice in Japan, I found that many of them are done to appease water gods. This is both a good and bad thing; good because there's so many and it's easy to find info, and bad because it doesn't really help us narrow it down.

That said, I have a few different stories I'd like to share with you. The first will be Mitsumata-fuchi.

Mitsumata-fuchi's story is remarkably similar to how the sacrificial ceremony works in TBHK. A beautiful maiden or otherwise a kannagi, aged about 15-16, is thrown into a pool of deep water for a festival thrown anywhere from once yearly to every 12 years to quell the anger of a wrathful god. That's crazy similar, isn't it?

And this "Mitsumata" is a real place! It's where the Numakawa and Wadagawa rivers in Japan join together. It's located in Fuji City in the Shizuoka prefecture. The Wadagawa river is also called by the name "Sacrifice River", funnily enough...

Anyway, there's another story about the Mitsumata I found interesting. A group of 7 girls were passing by when one of them, Oaji, was selected by the villagers to be sacrificed. The other 6 girls were spared and escaped, but feeling bad for the friend they left behind, they end up drowning themselves in a lake.

...But in an ironic twist of fate, the villagers had let Oaji go. Oaji ran after her friends, but when she learned they drowned themselves, she grew so sorrowful she threw herself into the water with them. Thereafter, the evil god was said to never demand a sacrifice again...

I'm not sure if AidaIro will ever reference this particular story, but I found the fact that 7 girls were sacrificed very intriguing in the context of TBHK.

Anyway, there are some interesting things in this legend that haven't been addressed in TBHK. For one, the god here is either a dragon or a giant (sometimes poisonous) snake.

We do have an illustration of this Pit God, which...

...was probably heavily stylized by some in-universe artist, but it is a valuable frame of reference nonetheless. Honestly, it really just looks like a nonspecific supernatural monster to me, but to call it a dragon or serpent isn't a far reach, either, I think...

Something about the multiple mouths reminds me of another story, though. And while I can't really get a specific name or detailed description for the Mitsumata-fuchi god, I do have one for this next one.

Yamata-no-orochi!!!

This tale is a lot more famous, so I'll be quick. Yamata-no-Orochi is an eight-headed serpent legendarily defeated by the brother of the great Amaterasu, Susanoo-no-Mikoto. When Amaterasu's fail brother was kicked out of Takamagahara, he wound up in the land of Izumo and met a crying old couple and a young girl. The old couple explains that they once had 8 daughters, but Yamata-no-Orochi devoured the other 7. It comes down once every year to eat one of their daughters, and soon enough their last daughter will be eaten, too.

Hearing this, Susanoo agrees to help them under one condition: that they let him take their last daughter as a wife. They agree, and Susanoo turns their daughter into a comb and asks them to prepare 8 tubs filled with sake. They comply, and when the serpent comes, each one of its eight heads greedily drink up the sake. Now drunk, the serpent is easily slain by Susanoo and his mighty blade.

...it kind of reminds you of how Minamoto no Yorimitsu got the oni Hakubo lived with drunk and slaughtered them, doesn't it? All these stories and making me afraid to drink sake... *shiver*

Anyway, Orochi is also a Water God, and probably the most famous of the ones that eat young maidens. While I'm unsure if our Pit God is Orochi, it wouldn't exactly surprise me! The fact that Yamata-no-Orochi (八岐大蛇) has eight heads while our protagonist Yashiro Nene (八尋寧々) has the kanji for 8 in her name is also an interesting connection.

As for our last story, I'll try to keep it brief. This one involves a dog, though, so I hope that keeps it fun and fresh for you.

This is the story of Shippeitaro, the legendary dog who, spoiler alert, saved a village from an evil spirit that demanded human sacrifices. In this story, girls are chosen to be sacrificed by a white arrow, and whoever's house is hit by the white arrow has to offer up their daughter. The girl is then sacrificed by being left at a shrine inside of a box/cage. Hmm, intriguing...

Anyway, long story short, the dog hides inside of the box instead and when the evil spirit comes to eat it, it springs out and defeats it! Good boy.

One of the interesting things about this story is that there are many variations. You'll notice I said "evil spirit" instead of something specific. That's because the spirit takes many forms. One of the more popular variations is that of a cat, but it can also be a monkey, fox, wolf...mostly different animals, from what I'm seeing.

Overall I think this story has a weaker connection than the other two, but on the whole, it wouldn't surprise me if AidaIro is taking inspiration from multiple stories instead of any specific one. Which brings me to my next point...

It's totally possible that our Water Pit God is just an original creation by AidaIro! In case you're not in the know, Japanese kami (gods) are basically infinite. Considering TBHK takes place in a made-up town, it's not too surprising if this kami is made-up, too, hm? :)

But hopefully you still found this post to be of help. I had a lot of fun researching for it. And if any of the stuff I mentioned here ever happens to show up in TBHK, that would be really cool! Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for reading. ☆

[ask-morpho-knight]

To The Dark-Winged Disaster:

Wanna show off your collection of souls?

One of my most notable but also my hungriest warrior, Amaterasu! The suns themself bow to her will! Together with her brother and his wife she defeated m- … MIGHTY Orochi, the eight-headed dragon that escaped Yomi and threatened to consume the stars themselves. Naturally I had to add a soul of such magnitude to my collection! Although she tends to listen to her father, the Dream Eater, more than she does to me���

My sleepiest warrior, Suanoo the storm mage. Discipline may not be his strong suit, so much so that he was kicked out of the heavenly circle, yet he more than makes up for it with raw battle power. When he found out that a young water mage went up against Orochi on her own he did not hesitate to rush to her aid, such is his bravery. Unlike Amaterasu, he is loyal towards me and I tend to call him to my aid more than her.

Once but a humble sake brewer who stood up against Orochi on her own to protect her home. Kushinadahime used her hydromancy to weaken the beast by filling its belly with sake. She serves me to this day as my closest assistant, especially during the gloomy days.

Ah, Tsukuyomi… sibling to Susanoo and Amaterasu, the moon to her sun and his storm. They have a bit of a… quarrel going on with Amaterasu ever since they disrespected food. As a result I hardly get to call upon them without offending her. Although they tend to be… rather unpleasant to be around with their cynical attitude. They’re an ice mage like no second.

[gethoce]

I saw a thing on Discord about OC kill counts and Valfrey was somehow discounted for being a reaper in my absence, but let's try to take ALL of her lore into account!

Valfrey cares about nothing more than their purpose and the first purpose they saw in their life was to reap souls, that is true. The souls that were unwilling to come with them I would count as a kill, personally, but maybe you people don't.

They eventually found a new purpose after their wife died and began to send demon beasts to kill every living being, which was to kill all the demons. After all, they had killed a lot of her children! About half of them were wiped out. It really depends on whether killing demons counts to you I suppose but they were intelligent beings, if perhaps not innocent beings. Most of them that is. Not that it mattered to Valfrey, demon is demon.

After Valfrey sealed away their wife and its brother they assumed their negatively charged form upon… dying the honourable death of a samurai. In this form they are known as Yamata No Orochi, an eight-headed dragon large enough to swallow planets and swallow planets they did! Their hunger for souls was unparalleled. They ate 7 out of 8 forks of a galaxy until the legendary heroes Susanoo, Amaterasu and Kushinadahime defeated them, causing Valfrey to return to their positively charged form.

Then, after Twinkle Popopo had perished, Valfrey found their third purpose, which was to exterminate all dark matter. They went on a crusade, killing all dark matterborn they came across and everything that contained dark matter to a degree such as NZs, Scarfies and those who were infected. Valfrey pulled Demon Star (or Dämmerstern) into Yomi which killed everyone who was on that planet. They wiped out the Demon Tribe, caused the Dark Rooms to spread and cause massive destruction on a galactic level and continued their crusade for many decades erasing lineages and traumatising survivors until they attacked the wrong person and the Dark Nebula incident occurred.

Since their return they've been looking for a new sense of purpose. No notable killings occurred, though some probably died by their hand here and there. Conclusion… Out of every character in my AU they probably have the second highest kill counts after Baal Hadad.

[rex101111]

More stuff for the Baiken Game I Will Never Make. This time some funny Achievement names because those are always fun and some extra gameplay ideas.

Okay first, building on the idea for a Super Meter, each Demon Tool has a Special Attack (Overdrive) that costs half a meter and does something unique for each Tool. You can increase how much Meter you have by collecting stuff (Prayer Beads maybe? Increase Health by collecting Statues of various creatures, probably Asuras.)

The Claw pulls you in for a whirling attack you can follow up with a combo, the gun fires multiple shells with bigger AOE, the big sword (Yozansen) does two slashes instead of one as a good combo ender to send enemies flying etc etc.

With full Meter you can string specific Supers together one after the other. Using the same Super more then twice in a row halves the power and then again until you do at least two other different supers.

The main katana also has a Super based on her usual three hit Overdrive that takes full Meter and does a ton of damage, holding the input during boss fights when a boss' health is below about 15% or so lets you do an instant kill, based on Baiken's IK from Rev2 but rendered uniquely for each boss. You're wide open during the activation so choose your moment carefully.

Okay enough gameplay stuff time for Funny (citation needed) Achievement Names!

1. Get The Gears Turning: Wake up and finish Anji tutorial.

2. You. Over Here. Get.: Receive the Chain Claw.

3. Feelin' Lucky: Receive the Fireworks Musket.

4. Speak Softly: Receive the Spike Mace.

5. Slab Of Iron: Receive the Great Sword.

6. Give 'er A Spin: Receive the Spinning Blade.

7. Nothing Up Your Sleeve: Use three different Demon Tools to beat a single enemy.

8. SLASH!: Defeat an enemy with an Overdrive.

9. Predictable: Perform a counter/parry a total of 50 times.

10. Living For The Moment: Perform a parry 15 times in a row. (AN: Remember that one achievement in Bayonetta 1 where you had to perfect parry 3 times in a row. And it was ass because the input was like frame perfect? Feel my pain. Anyways there's an enemy type that has a flurry attack that hits 15 times exactly and if you go full Daigo and follow up with a Super you kill it on the spot.)

11. DESTROYED!: Perform an Instant Kill on a boss.

12. Seven Golden Letters: Beat a boss without taking damage.

13. A Momentary Peace: Beat the game on Normal.

14. Six Mon For Lord Enma: Beat the game on Hard.

15. Mirror Of A Broken World: Beat the game on Very Hard.

16. Strike and Sheath: Beat the game on Instant Kill difficulty.

17. Eternal Karma: Beat the game on Road To Naraka.

18. Skin Of Your Teeth: Beat a level using the Broken Katana.

Some Boss Achievements~ (a few scattered half baked Gear boss ideas plus a few interesting match and bonus stuff)

19. No Sake Needed: Slay the Eight-Headed Gear. (Gear that looks like Yamata-no-Orochi. Natch.)

20. Flash Of Lightning: Humble the young Crusader. (Young Ky boss fight where he tries to preach to Baiken about the Cause, very quick and agile, cutscene after boss is Baiken punching him in the nose.)

21. An Old Blade: Repel the Veteran Crusader. (Kliff boss a few chapters after Ky, wants to see what his protege was going on about. Heavy damage lots of health, second phase has him going Young and being much faster. Ends with Baiken knocking him away and running.)

22. Eye For An Eye: Lose yourself to the blood, the anger, the pain. For the first time, and not the last. (The chapter where bandits ambush an exhausted Baiken, break her one arm and sword, and she goes feral. Ends with her ripping the bandit leader's throat out.)

23. Never To Meet Again: Survive Justice. (Hopeless Boss against Justice. Gotta have that gut punch.)

24. Fire Of Corruption: Strike out against The Original Gear. (Final Boss Sol. Win and he goes Dragon Install and forces Baiken to retreat. Her goal of revenge still hanging heavy after failing to kill Justice herself.

Secret boss Achievements~~

25. A Promise Kept: See how serious a friend can be. (Anji bonus boss where he actually tries to beat you.)

26. Symphony After Dark: Fight a Gentleman. Ferocious and quick and strong. How Very Dandy. (Slayer bonus boss. As ridiculous and difficult as you would imagine.)

27. In Awe Of The Dawn: Face The Maiden Of The Grove. (Dizzy bonus boss. Though technically its a fight against Necro and Undine while Dizzy tries to help you calm them down.)

28. Requiem For The Midnight Carnival: Overcome the onslaught of the Witch. (I-No bonus boss. Absolutely insane bullet hell bullshit in an action game. Deliberately and explicitly unfair. Just like she always is.)

29. Time Exile: Confront an image of your past self. Accept, and overcome. (Mirror Baiken bonus boss babyyyy)

Now for a few special secret bonus things I thought of~

30. The Other Side Of The Mirror: Listen to Anji's side of the story. (Beating the game on Very Hard unlocks a short Anji Campaign! Mostly just battle areas for you to try his moveset out. Doesn't have Demon Tools but has his dodge from Strive with all the follow ups and a ton of I-Frames.)

31. Bedtime Story: Wake up from a very sweet dream. (After finishing both the main game and Anji's campaign on Very Hard, you unlock Delilah's What If. Another side campaign where you fight as the Very Broken Delilah in a boss rush where it ends with Delilah musing on how she wished Baiken had someone who helped her like she helped Delilah.)

32. The Lonely Blade: Get every other Achievement.

[chernobog13]

Orochi the Eight-Headed Dragon by Nobuhiko Ito (@itonobuhiko/X/Twitter).

[creativefandomminds]

OMG! I'm really proud of this piece! So this was something I worked on for oof some time ago, I wanted to draw an outfit for Violet and then my bestie showed me a mask that she saw and well, it got a little crazy lol I swear don't give ideas on what outfit to draw my ocs in or design them, because I will go crazy with it XD It was a lot of fun designing Violet's outfit, I really wanted to make the outfit go with her powers, that being the user of Orochi hehe ;3 So you can see the skirt have a longer skirt cape with all eight pieces of fabric representing the heads of Orochi. They are all different elements in each of the piece, Poison, Wind, Lightning, Fire, Water, Earth, Darkness and Light. :3 And also, I of course added the moons and stars for her. You may also see a little feather on her earring, it represents her lover (You know who) and a scale of the eight headed serpent dragon. I have to thank my bestie @gorefolk the mask she sent me, I really love it and it looks so beautiful on her. Honestly, it's my new headcanon that this mask belonged to her mother Sorrow and she passed on to her youngest daughter. X3 I hope you guys like it, honestly I'm so happy to have it finally finished and the final results look so beautiful! Enjoy! X3 Art, Violet@ Mine

[scalproie]

It's pretty interesting how I think they're gonna manage to finally connect Azazel to the Hachijos/Mishimas and Possibly Kazamas

Like the creature in the murals at the end of the first chapter of tekken 8 is OBVIOUSLY Azazel, look at the purple skin color, look at the chest pattern and the green and blue jewelry, look at the head gear.

But if you're familiar with japanese mythology, the murals are also obviously a reference to the myth of Susanoo killing the eight-headed dragon Yamato-no-Orochi.

All Mishimas have the kanji meaning the number eight in their names, Kazuya is no exception.

In Arcade Quest, the guy who going to be your player character's rival and possibly finale challenge and who is obviously kazuya-coded (and mains kazuya, even) is named literally Orochi.

As for Susanoo, well he is dressed in white, for starters, tho I dont think it holds any real weight... BUT. Jun has moves called "Tsukuyomi", "Amaterasu" and her rage art is even called "Amatsu Izanami", all are goddesses relatives of Susanoo. Susanoo is also the god of storms among other things, and the name Kazama roughly means "while the wind is blowing".

[yuki-shipnoda]

During a photography shoot, Pierre gets kidnapped by a cult that venerates Yamata no Orochi. They plan to sacrifice him to the eight headed serpent since they noticed Pierre's connection to the kyuuketsuki and growing awareness of the supernatural.

The Yurem has to quickly track him down and stop the cult's plans. They do manage to stop Pierre from being killed but Orochi is still summoned.

There's tension thick enough to cut with a chainsaw as the daiyokai hisses to the Yurem and they respond with their bird calls in return. Pierre is completely inebriated from the sheer amount of sake and he keeps seeing Yamata no Orochi shift from snake heads to dragon heads.

I pity the Yurem for whatever bullshit the yokai wanna pull on Pierre next

The Yurem follow the tracks left by the cult members and found their hideout in the middle of the forest, where they took Pierre.

Once they found their main man, Kazuto drags a now inebriated Pierre out of there, allowing the other members to attack the daiyokai in their human forms and by extension Yamata no Orochi... which ended with Toshiki slaying the eight-headed serpent with the Kusanagi no Tsurugi (yes, the actual one from the imperial family's collection; do not question how he obtained it)

[maoam]

"Speaking of which, it amused me greatly that both Kishimoto and Gege used Kushinadahime for Sasuke and Megumi."

Can you talk more about that ☺ I know Kushinadahime marries Susanoo but nothing more

Sure.

Kushinadahime was the youngest of the eight daughters of Ashinazuchi and Tenazuchi. Kushinadahime was to be offered as a sacrifice to the eight-headed serpent Yamata-no-Orochi who had a sword inside of him, and who had already devoured seven beautiful maidens, but she was saved by Susanoo, who defeated Yamato-no-Orochi by cutting it to pieces with the Totsuka Sword.

Kishimoto used the legend of Kushinadahime as an influence during the confrontation between Orochimaru, Sasuke and Itachi.

The Eight-headed Serpent is obviously Orochimaru in the manga. His eight branches technique and the sword inside of him are clear references to the mythology. In the first panel we literally see Susanoo jutsu and Orochimaru facing each other. Orochimaru is shown here as eight-headed serpent who is trying to get Sasuke's body.

Yamata-no-Orochi was dragon-serpent, and later on Kishimoto made Kabuto "dragon" who also wanted Sasuke.

The Totsuka sword wielded by Susanoo jutsu is what defeats Orochimaru, just like in the mythology.

So who is the princess/goddess/maiden that needs to be saved from Yamata-no-Orochi? Well it is our Sasuke of course. Just like Kushinadahime is saved from her fate unlike the other maidens, Sasuke is saved from Orochimaru unlike all the other bodies the latter obtained.

As for Megumi.

Megumi is about to be sacrificed to Mahoraga. Just like all the previous daughters of the mountain god died as sacrifices to Yamata no Orochi in the mythology, the previous inheritors of the Ten Shadow Techique all died as sacrifice in order to summon Mahoraga.

What's kinda interesting is that Susanoo's role is given to the villain... Sukuna notes that Mahoraga bears resemblance to Yamato no Orochi. Gege brought up this mythology reference rather clearly.

Susanoo is a Japanese god representing natural disasters and calamities. Gege also mentioned once that Sukuna is like a natural disaster. Susanoo is a god that has unrivaled strength and power but is also very mischievous and pisses other gods off quite often. Sounds familiar...

However, when Susanoo learned that the mountain god couple's daughter Kushinadahime was about to be sacrificed to Yamata no Orochi, Susanoo decided that he will fight Yamata no Orochi to save Kushinadahime and take her as his wife. When you know Gege said Sukuna desires to have Megumi's existence for himself... and the Japanese meaning to what he said in the last screenshot (and an earlier one in season 1) what Sukuna said is like "you have bewitched me/you have made me fall for you Fushiguro Megumi"...

Susanoo then proceeded to fight Yamata no Orochi and cut it to many pieces. Kind of like Sukuna kept repeatedly cutting Mahoraga with his Malevolent Kitchen.

Surprising way Gege chose to use this legend... but I am impressed how these writers wove things like these in their stories.