#tanuki 狸

[kohanakonohana]

狸ふたたび。

哀しそうな顔の子狸。

A tanuki comes...maybe it's a kid and having a sad face......

[rhetthammersmithhorror]

Monster Heaven: Ghost Hero | 1990

[intothebackwood]

A friend of the Forest, a postcard I made a couple of years ago with a spooky lil tanuki on it

[japansapporowalk]

🇯🇵さっぽろ夏まつり 2024 第71回 狸まつり ナイトバーゲン 散歩／日本 北海道 札幌市 中央区 [4K HDR Binaural ASMR]

[straycatj]

Ｊ：通称Ｊさん、時にＪ氏、またはおっさん

2015年２月末に縁の下から出てきたところを家主に発見され、5ヶ月の餌付けを経て家猫化された元ボス。特技は脱走で、ケージからも出られる。時に病院でキャリーから脱走し、獣医さんやスタッフの皆さんを慌てさせる。

家主とある程度の意思疎通ができ、呼べば来るところから、中に犬が入っている疑惑がある。魚を好み刺し身と鰹節に目がないが、最近納豆にもハマっている。なお草も好み、猫に擬態した新種の羊ではないかとの疑いもある。

気難しく縄張り意識も強いためパトロールを欠かさず、気に入らない匂いがすると家を破壊してでも外に出ようとするが、狸やアナグマなど他種族には寛容で番猫として有用なの��否か定かではない。

子猫のような高い声でよく喋り、キャリー内を覗いた人をよく驚かせることから子猫詐欺と言われている。

J:known as Mr.J, J-san, or ossan

The exhstray boss cat found by the landlady appeared from under the floor if her house the end of Feb.2015, and got a housecat after 5 months feeding. He is good at escaping, so he can escape from the cat cage by himself. Futhermore, he sometimes make the staffs of the vet upset because he can escape also the cat carry bag.

He is doubted that there is a dog inside him because he can communicate with his landlady quite well and come when she calls him. His favourite food is fish, especially sashimi and bonito flakes, but he also loves natto these days. And he's also doubted as a new kind of sheep like a cats because he loves eating grass so much.

His nature is quite grumpy and wants to keep his territory, so he patrols around the house many times a day. If he finds the strange smell he doesn't like, he tries to go out by breaking the house,but he doesn't care other kinds of animals,such tanuki or badgers. So it isn't sure he's a good guardian cat or not.

And he is sometimes called as an imposter of a little kitty as he often makes others surprised from the cat carry by his high tone voice.

[sayakalaine]

#たぬき #tanuki #狸 #raccoondog #日本家屋 #日本建築 #和文化 #茶室 #廊下 #庭 (北鎌倉 宝庵 -Houan-) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpqfW3nS3xG/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[takahashiyoshikazu]

Tanuki Alley, Yokohama 横浜 狸小路

[fuckthisshitimin]

[ID: A drawing of a human heart and a fox overlaying, in red, blue and yellow. The fox is howling in pain. End ID.]

It is entirely possible after reading Suddenly, you're standing still by @vetoing-clocks I picked up my tablet for the first time in... maybe six months? So everyone should go and read it, also, thank you for the inspiration.

[ID: Two drawings of Sanji, from One Piece, in desaturated blues, yellow and white. In the first one he is a child, sleeping over a small pile of cooking books, and a blonde vixen watches over him, resting her head on his neck. In the second one he is 19, and there is a gaping hole in his chest where his heart should be. He is standing but his shoulders crouch and he crosses his arms over his facing down head. Behind him is the sea ; through the hole in his chest, the horizon line is visible, and a faraway lighthouse. Signed, Meaningless Mikhaïl. End ID.]

[ID: A desaturated drawing of Roronoa Zoro, holding Xexelia, a blonde vixen, in his arms. He is smiling and she appears to be sleeping. Signed, Meaningless Mikhaïl. End ID.]

Disclaimer that I absolutely Do Not speak any Chinese, but the name "Xexelia" immediately made me think of 谢谢 (xiè xie), Thank you, and also I misremembered 狸 (tanuki/ri/lí) to mean Fox so it was perfect, but the real character for fox is 狐 (hú). Yet I decided that since Xexelia is more "the idea of a fox" and chinese yabla defines 狸 as "a fox-like animal" and it is used in several words for fox including 狐狸精 (hú li jīng) "vixen, fox-spirit, witch", it is almost fine to call her 谢谢狸 (xiè xie li), which surely doesn't translate to "thank you, fox-like animal" but probably holds the idea of it.

Also Xexelia is Sanji's heart so despite no canon indication of it, I am convinced she got black legs.

[nine-frames]

"Give us back our hills! Give us back our fields! Give us back our home."

平成狸合戦ぽんぽこ (Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko / Pom Poko), 1994.

Dir. & Writ. Isao Takahata | DOP Atsushi Okui | Art Dir. Kazuo Oga

[haru-dipthong]

Magic the Gathering’s new set has a lot of difficult to translate card names - names with puns in them, subtle double meanings, or concepts that don’t translate cleanly. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of them, review the translation, and suggest alternatives for the ones I don’t think are very good.

仔狸寝入り（こだぬきねいり）// Kitnap

Kitnap is an incredibly hard pun to translate! It’s obviously a pun on “kidnap”, since the card steals an opponent’s creature. But it also puts the creature to sleep for 3 turns, and the art depicts a raccoon, and baby raccoons are called “kits”. So it’s literally a kit-nap as well!

At first glance, this seems like a clumsy direct translation: 仔狸 being “baby tanuki”, then 寝入り meaning “going to sleep”. But there’s actually an existing japanese phrase that this name is evoking: 狸寝入り, meaning “pretending to go to sleep”. The 仔 (meaning baby) at the beginning seems to have been added to 1. mirror the english pun and 2. (similar to the changing of “kid” to “kit”) call attention to the fact that it is literally a tanuki taking a nap (ok, ok, it’s a raccoon not a tanuki, but whatever).

The meaning of the name even carries some mischievous/deceptive connotations that totally fit the control magic effect. Maybe you’re enchanting the opponent’s creature so that they pretend to sleep, slacking off before betraying their original controller. 10/10 translation!

マネドリ // Mockingbird

This card is an example of a classic effect in magic - a “clone” creature, that copies another existing creature. This one is a spin on that effect, but keeps its “Bird” type and flying ability no matter what it copies. Love the english name!

Interestingly, the word for “mockingbird” in japanese is 真似しツグミ (lit. mimicking thrush) so why didn’t they just use a direct translation? It still would have included the “mimic” pun.

I think the reason is that 真似しツグミ is not a well known bird in japan. It wouldn’t have scanned as well to japanese readers, so they made up a simpler bird name that everyone would understand. An interesting choice, but I still really like how the english card name is a real animal name reinterpreted under magic pun-rules, and I think I would have preferred the translation to have preserved that and just gone with 真似しツグミ.

腐敗口のバイパー（ふはいぐちのばいぱー）// Rottenmouth Viper

Rottenmouth Viper is an obvious pun on “cottonmouth viper”, but the translation doesn’t really acknowledge this, naming the card as if it weren’t based on an existing animal. 腐敗口のバイパー just literally means “rotten mouth viper”. I want it to preserve some of the original animal name!

The japanese name for cottonmouth viper is ヌママムシ (lit. swamp pit-viper) which already kind of fits well - it’s a black card (you need swamp lands to cast black cards), and it uses “blight counters” to bog the opponent down and deal damage. If they wanted to change it up just a little bit, they could add ドロ to the beginning of the name to make it ドロヌママムシ (泥沼 also means swamp/bog, but feels a bit stickier and grosser, and also has a second meaning — a bad situation that you can’t get out of)

ポイ捨て（ぽいすて）// Take Out the Trash

ポイ捨て literally translates to “littering”, with the nuance of throwing the garbage away carelessly. I really like this translation. It’s a beautifully clean name — ポイ捨て is a common word, and it preserves the flavour of the card (dealing damage by throwing garbage at a target) while avoiding a wordy direct translation.

オタマジャクシパンチ // Polliwallop

Not a big fan of this translation. オタマジャクシ is literally “tadpole”, so it’s just “tadpole punch”. A polliwog is another name for tadpole, sure, but I don’t think the “polli-” part of the english name specifically means “the larval form of a frog”. I think it’s just being used here to mean “of or pertaining to frogs” while sounding cool. There’s nothing in the art or card effect that would suggest the name refers to a baby frog.

This is a hard translation, but maybe 「けろりと殴り倒せ 」? Which means “completely knock out” but uses the adverb けろりと which is similar to the onomatopoeia for a frog croaking （けろけろ）.

[hecatesdelights]

Bake-danuki (化け狸), a mischievous shape shifting Yōkai (妖怪) found in Japanese mythology, resembling a tanuki, or Japanese Racoon Dog.

[opalspring]

Some observations about the gay Kazui theory

A lot of people have been discussing this and it’s super interesting so I wanted to share some stuff I noticed too! Posting this before cat since it’s possible this theory will get either debunked or confirmed by then.

Lyrics from Cat

First, let’s talk about the preview of cat from the 2nd trial song previews. One thing I personally dislike from the staff’s English translation is this part:

“Devotion-love, lame, cheating”

While the first two tl choices are good imo, the third part could have been chosen better. The reason for this being, while it’s not a wrong tl per say, 化かす (bakasu) means “to confuse”, “to delude” according to my dictionary. There’s also the expression 狐と狸の化かし合い (kitsune to tanuki no bakashiai), which refers to two people outfoxing each other. 

While I get this might be for localization purposes, I feel like the word “cheating” has connotations in English that are way too different from the original in this case. What I’m trying to say is that we should probably wait for the mv itself to draw our conclusions regarding this (though it’s also possible this really is just about cheating).

These lines caught my attention too, but for another reason:

“Love + Fate = Crap”

“Disgusting playing-house + Disguise + Fake”

While at first glance, these lyrics make it look like Kazui might be a cheater (and not shy about it), I feel like this could be a case of Kazui lashing out after he spent so much time in a relationship with a woman when he’s not attracted to them in the first place. It’s possible Kazui actually saw his wife in a best friend kind of way, and that they only got married because of their families’ and society’s pressure, compulsory heterosexuality, you know. There Are a lot of suspicious things about Kazui that he needs to explain, but maybe cheating isn’t actually one of them. We’ll see, though.

Next, let’s discuss some things from the half mv. 

How Shidou and Kazui respectively visualize their partner

This next section will reference Triage, where we have a look at Shidou’s family for the first time. As a quick note, there has been some debate over the woman in the mv potentially being Shidou's sister or other family relative but I personally believe she's his lover because of this part:

Shidou (we recognize him as he has the same outfit as in the rest of the mv) has his arm around her waist so I assumed they’re romantically involved because of it.

But how does this all connect to Kazui? You guessed it, the way Shidou and Kazui visualize their partner in their respective mvs vastly differs. Let’s have a look. 

Shidou’s visual representation of his lover.

And here’s Kazui’s.

Notice anything? In my opinion, these choices were very deliberate. As various people in the fandom have pointed out, characters in mil mvs who have faces are very important to whichever story is being told (Rei in Muu’s mvs, Shidou’s lover mentioned earlier etc). So it can make one wonder, why does Kazui’s wife, who he obviously cares deeply for, not have a detailed face when we see her? 

To continue this particular point, I want you to look at these consecutive shots from half:

It’s unclear who the blonde woman on the top is, she could be someone Kazui met at the bar, or a coworker etc. It’s not really important who she is for our theory, what’s to note is that these two shots come one after the other, and that the composition in both is extremely similar. My interpretation for this is that, between a woman who is in the grand scheme of things a stranger to him, and the woman he married, Kazui makes almost no difference in the way he visualizes them (as in facial detail).  Because ultimately, if he’s gay, no matter how hard he tries, no matter the woman, he won’t be able to love them romantically. This could be what the staff was going for here.

The green apple and the pixelated person

There’s a cool detail about the two shots above. To start off, the first one’s composition is a little curious. It follows the rule of 1/3; 2/3 with Kazui in the third third of the screen, but the remaining part of the image feels strangely empty, save for the green light at the top. 

It could represent Kazui’s solitude in the theater, but a few scenes later we get the second shot, where we see the green apple on one of the seats.

A fun fact is that, if you count the seats between Kazui and the apple, you notice that 4 seats on Kazui’s right seats the apple… Which corresponds to the second leftmost seat in the first screenshot. The apple was with him the whole time, and the green light stands right in the middle of the two. Hmm. But what does this mean? Honestly I’m not sure. If anything it means the apple is so important to Kazui it was given this special place. 

But then there’s also the pixelated person in the back of the second screenshot. Who are they? They’re probably very important to the story, especially when the apple stands right between them and Kazui.

Since the mystery person isn’t in the first shot where we’re introduced to Kazui, it could mean that whoever they are/represent, Kazui would rather not acknowledge them. At least not until he has to.

Look at the lyrics that play when this scene is on screen. 

“Where did I go wrong, probably from the beginning”

And then, during the same sentence, we get this Kazui who looks like he just had a revelation.

This sentence probably refers to the fact Kazui’s relationship with his wife was bound to fail, because of his sexual orientation. And the mystery person might be a representation of men in general, who Kazui could be attracted to.

The chair and what it could represent

At certain parts during half, it seems as if Kazui is talking to this chair. Some examples:

It should be noted that both times Kazui does this, the lyrics he sings are the same. This part in particular caught my eye:

“Please tell me what I should do”

Who exactly is Kazui talking to here? He could simply be thinking of his wife here, but since there’s so much emphasis on the chair, I thought they could be symbolic for an entity or a group of people Kazui knows. I have two guesses: it might represent either his family, or maybe society in general. 

I don’t think it’s the former because Kazui seems at odds with them and possibly got disowned, so I feel like he wouldn’t value their opinion too much. As for the second option, it could be Kazui asking us what he should have done/ how he should have handled the situation (with him being gay and unable to love his wife romantically, but not wanting to hurt her feelings). It’s hard to know because we don’t have a lot of context for this part so it could be anything really.

Some parts of the lyrics that could specifically refer to homosexuality

These don’t really fit in any of the other points I talked about but if we look at them in the context of this theory they can be pretty telling:

“So many things I wish I hadn’t known, I’m just a coward”

“What I gave up a long time ago, why is it questioning me now?”

“So many things I should have known, I’m just a coward”

Kazui’s possible coming out to his wife

In my opinion, this part could be the aftermath of Kazui coming out to his wife. Let me explain. Here we have the apple (temptation/the forbidden fruit = the idea of homosexuality here?) in the background, so that’s one thing. Add to that the lyrics playing:

“All this time till now has hurt me, The scales of my heart have decided to sway”

This line could refer to the moment Kazui felt like he had to be honest with his wife, because as much as he loved her, pretending to basically be someone he wasn’t was hurting him. Hence “the scales of his heart swaying”. This scene then led to Hinako jumping from the balcony at some point, but at the moment we don’t know the details.

Hope you enjoyed!

[szmxsm]

【Commission】 Tanuki Vtuber

Vtuber commission! Is a cute tanuki with Chun-Li custome! Thanks for commission me💖 Commission is open, DM me if you want to draw anything! —— 幫V繪製了視頻封面需要使用到的人物！穿著春麗服裝的可愛狸貓，黑��讚讚的XD 委託開放中，有需要可以直接私訊詢問詳情哦！

[japansapporowalk]

🇯🇵さっぽろ夏まつり 2024 第71回 狸まつり が始まった狸小路商店街 散歩／日本 北海道 札幌市 中央区 [4K HDR Binaural...

[impetuousdesigns]

秋の匂い・The Smell of Fall (ハロウィーンの仮装・Halloween Costumes)

コオロギが鳴いている夕方に、娘と一緒に公園を通って帰っているとき、娘が滑り台を滑りたかった。虫を食べているコウモリが頭の上を飛び回っていた。涼しい風で吹き飛んできている落ち葉の匂いを嗅ぐと、「もう、秋だね！」と感じた。

秋はハロウィーンがあるから、毎年私が忙しくなる。ハロウィーンが大好き。ハロウィーンの仮装を作るのがとても楽しい。15歳のときハロウィーンの仮装を初めて作った。ナイトメアー・ビフォア・クリスマスという映画のキャラクターになった。16歳に宇宙の女帝というオリジナルキャラクターを作った。17歳にバットマンのハーレークインという悪役になった。日本に来てから、もっと面白い仮装を作った。例えば、2015年は進撃の巨人の女型の巨人��そして2016年日本の狐像になった。夫が狸像の仮装を着て、私とペアになった。

娘が生まれた年、娘の仮装も作った。最初の仮装は妖精、次か葉っぱの山、その次はモスラになった。今年（2023年）、娘の仮装と自分の仮装も作っている。娘が「手伝うよ！」と言って、一緒にマスクに絵の具を塗った。子供の頃、私も母と一緒に仮装を作りたかったが、母がいつも「大丈夫。私ができるから」と言って、ミシンなどを使わせてくれなかった。毎年完璧で素敵な仮装を作ってくれたが、共同作業したかった。

One evening as the crickets sang, my daughter and I were headed home through the park. My daughter decided she wanted to go down the slide, so I watched the bats swooping overhead, gobbling up bugs. A cool wind blew the smell of falling leaves towards me. I felt, “Aah, it’s Fall!” 

Every year I get busy in the fall, because Halloween is coming. I love Halloween. Making Halloween costumes is so fun. When I was 15, I made my first Halloween costume: Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. At 16, I was the Empress of the Universe, and original character I created. At 17, I was the villainous Harley Quinn from Batman. Since coming to Japan, I’ve made even more interesting costumes. For example, in 2015 I was the Female Titan from Attack on Titan, and in 2016 I was a Japanese statue-style fox. My husband went as a Tanuki that year, so we were a great pair. 

The year my daughter was born, I made her Halloween costume. That year she was a fairy, the next year she was a pile of fallen leaves. After that she was Mothra. This year (2023), I’m kiang my daughter’s costume and my own. My daughter said, “I wanna help!” and she helped me shape and paint her mask. Growing up, I always wanted to help my mom make my costumes, but she said, “It’s fine. I can do it,” and didn’t let me even touch the sewing machine. She always made a perfect costume for me, but I really wanted to do it together. 

[odessasilver]

All about yokai: Tanuki

Tanuki are one of the most well known yokai, and these tricksters are fun loving and can even bring good luck. There is so much more to them, however, and just like other shapehifting yokai, can be friendly or deadly. Being a very common yokai, there is a lot of information on them, as well as many legends and folk tales about their antics, and I loved researching them for my story Tanuki Troubles.

They also have a second name, which refers only to their yokai counterpart, the bakedanuki, however the name tanuki can mean both the animal and the yokai version. I stuck with tanuki as it’s the more well known name.

Tanuki/Bakedanuki

狸 - たぬき / 化け狸 - ばけだぬき

Original picture and credit can be found here.

Tanuki are common throughout Japan, living in forests in the in between worlds of human settlements and mountainous areas. Many lived alongside humans too, even with other yokai such as kitsune. And even in some places, tanuki were revered for their many special abilities and they even became a subject of rituals. Because of this, tanuki are held in the highest regard in those specific areas, such as the Sado Islands in Niigata Prefecture, compared to the rest in Japan.

At first, tanuki played a bigger role in Japanese culture, until Buddhism became more popular. This saw the tanuki move to a similar role to kitsune and other magical animals, and they took the roles of being messengers to gods and guardians. Even with this role, they kept their same mischievous streak of tricking people or having fun, or even snatching humans away for the gods. Many don’t fear the tanuki and believe that each one is unique, just like humans.

This is something that I have been trying to convey in my stories too, how some yokai are different because they have their own thoughts and feelings. In Tanuki Troubles I wrote how a father tanuki acts while trying to care for his daughter, and he showed many human-like emotions. Kitsune are also very intelligent and it also makes sense for them to have many thoughts and feelings of their own. I think about each yokai and how they interact with the world, to work out if they would think and feel as we do. There are some that don’t, for example onibi. I see them as feeling only, like a basic instinct for their desires.

There is also a strange phenomenon to do with tanuki, named Tanuki-bayashi (狸囃子) where in the middle of the night out of nowhere comes musical sounds from the forest, like flutes and drums. The sounds onomatopoeia is "pom poko" or "ponpon".

Shapeshifting

The tanuki’s most powerful ability is that of shapeshifting. They love changing into many forms and will place leaves on their head before doing so. And it isn’t just themselves too, they can also transform leaves and pebbles to look like money to trick unsuspecting humans. It’s also how they manage to interact with others humans, by adopting their ways. Some tanuki even adopt human names and integrate by doing jobs or gambling and drinking their money away. There are tanuki who manage to live their whole life without anyone noticing. However, much like humans, they are known to have a bad reputation too with some thieving, lying, and cheating. Others even transform into oni or other scary yokai to terrorise or scare humans for fun.

There are also tanuki who do the opposite and impersonate Buddhist monks, even teaching Buddhism to others. It has been done so often there is a name for it, tanuki-bōzu (狸坊主), where a tanuki is disguised as a round monk, and they lived in burrows beneath temples.

A Tanuki Fortuneteller (Tanuki no uranai 狸のうらない) and Tanuki Shop Signs (Tanuki no kanban 狸のかんばん). From 1843–44 by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

Tanuki and testicles

A rather surprising ability from the tanuki comes from an unlikely place, their testicles. Tanuki are able to change their body to many forms, and they often use their transforming testicles for many uses, including in their disguises. Testicles can become weapons, drums, fans, umbrellas or nets, and for more elaborate disguises they can be incorporated to become a whole shop or even a boat. Their magical testicles can be adapted for whatever they need.

But where did such a legend come from? Tanuki pelts were used by goldsmiths in the process of hammering gold nuggets into gold leaf. It is said their skin was so good that by wrapping it around the gold it could be hammered out to the size of eight tatami mats. And from there it evolved, and became a symbol of good luck and wealth.

There is even a nursery rhyme about them, learnt by children.

Japanese:

Tan-tan-tanuki no kintama wa, Kaze mo nai no ni, Bu-ra bura

English translation:

Tan-tan-tanuki's bollocks, Even without wind, They swiiing-swing!

Tanuki Fishing in the River (Tanuki no kawagari 狸の川が) and Tanuki in a Shower (Tanuki no yûdachi狸の夕立).

I found all the legends and folk tales about tanuki fun, even the ones about their testicles, however I couldn’t find a way to include it in my story. Maybe next time!

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Want to read my story about tanuki? You can read it for free now on Ream by becoming a follower.