ouni
Sign in to saveright|thumb|200px|"Ouni" (苧うに) from the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by [[Toriyama Sekien]] right|thumb|200px|"Wauwau" (わうわう) from the Hyakkai Zukan by Sawaki Suushi thumb|Wauwau (わうわう) from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, [[Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.|alt=]] The ouni (苧うに) is a yōkai depicted in the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Toriyama Sekien.
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
2 sectionsContents
- Explanatory text starting in Heisei
- Notes
right|thumb|200px|"Ouni" (苧うに) from the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by [[Toriyama Sekien]] right|thumb|200px|"Wauwau" (わうわう) from the Hyakkai Zukan by Sawaki Suushi thumb|Wauwau (わうわう) from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, [[Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.|alt=]] The ouni (苧うに) is a yōkai depicted in the Gazu Hyakki Yagyō by Toriyama Sekien.
It is a yōkai with a face like that of a demon woman (kijo) torn from mouth to ear, and its entire body is covered in hair. There is no explanatory text from Sekien, so it is unclear what kind of yōkai this is. The "o" (苧) in "ouni" refers to the ramie plant or to bundles of string made from ramie, hemp, among others, so it is said that Sekien gave it the name "ouni" because it conjures up the image of a yōkai with head and body hair made of layers of this "o".
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “ouni” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.