Foxes, Tanuki, and Lion-Dogs: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
By Nikolas Broy
The 1994 Ghibli movie Pom Poko narrates the eventually unsuccessful fight of a group of tanuki to save their home from deforestation and urban development. Often translated as “raccoon-dogs” or “badgers,” tanuki possess raccoon-like features but are biologically canine. The movie revolves around these tanuki trying to resist a suburban development project through sabotage and threat by using their age-old weapons of disguise and magic, fooling and tricking many people. At one point, the tanuki also stage a grand illusion show for the human residents in their newly built homes that stars many well-known spirits, deities, and monsters of Japanese folklore and religion. The tanuki resistance against human expansion at the expense of wildlife, compared to eco-terrorism by some observers, is of no avail. In the end, only a few tanuki remain, disguised as humans or retreated to the few remaining natural havens.
The movie employs many elements commonly attributed to tanuki and creatures in folklore and traditional stories, plays, and fiction, such as shape-shifting, magic, pranking, and even seducing humans. That tanukis are often imagined as tricksters may come as a surprise to many first-time visitors to Japan, who typically see them as cute, chubby figures often positioned in front of restaurants or stores beckoning them in. However, in Japan’s rich tapestry of folklore and mythology, they’ll immediately be struck by the abundance of animals and other non-human creatures that play essential roles within Japan’s cultural landscape. Some serve as divine messengers or guardians of shrines and temples, whereas others are pranksters and even dangerous and spooky, such as the vast array of monsters and uncanny beasts (yokai).
Despite their ancient origins and centuries-old cultural gravitas, these creatures continue to remain, featured as figures in modern media, woven into daily life through imagery and customs, and captured in wood or stone carvings in shrines, temples, and religious sites. Whether trekking through deep forests or leafing through a manga, the faces of these fantastic beasts can be found, ubiquitous across Japan.
Title image of PomPoko, Studio Ghibli.
Animals of Sacred Origin
Strolling around Kyoto, Nara, or any other Japanese city, guests will quickly stumble across animals venerated in the religious precincts, too numerous and diverse to be explored in detail. Many of them serve as divine messengers, such as the white doves of Hachiman, often rendered as the Japanese god of war, but also worshipped by farmers to ensure good crops. In premodern Japan, white doves were regarded as auspicious omens and historical documents record many legends that revolve around the sighting of white doves. There are also the monkey attendants of the “mountain king” (sanno), the protector deity of Kyoto’s Mt. Hiei, who is honored at Hiyoshi Shrine in nearby Otsu. There are also somewhat mythical creatures that only vaguely resemble animals as we know them, such as the three-legged crow Yatagarasu, which seems to have been inspired by Chinese mythology and lives in the sun. In Japan, it was assumed that the crow had been sent by heaven and was widely revered as the messenger of various kami (deities).
Divine Deer Messengers
The probably best-known example of a divine animal messenger is the deer of Nara’s Kasuga Great Shrine, which annually attracts millions of domestic and international tourists who are eager to feed the cute animals and take selfies with them. The deer are deeply interwoven in the public image and self-perception of the country’s first ancient capital. Accordingly, the time-honored city’s mascot, Sento-kun, merges the appearance of a Buddhist child novice with a deer’s antlers—thus embodying Nara’s distinguished Buddhist and Shinto history.
Whereas the deer today is commonly regarded as Nara’s guardian deity, this association derives from mythological accounts according to which Takemikatsuchi, the chief deity enshrined at Kasuga Great Shrine, is said to have arrived mounted on a white deer. However, the story behind the beloved animals that move freely around Nara Park is also closely related to another UNESCO World Heritage site nearby, the Buddhist temple Kofukuji. As early as the mid-eleventh century, its monastics issued a prohibition against hunting and killing deer. Subsequently, the area was transformed into a park to deliberately evoke the religious significance of the “deer park” near Benares in the modern northeastern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh where the Buddha is said to have delivered his first sermon after enlightenment. Thus, the story goes that the eminent monk Myo-e Shonin (1173–1232), who was also a fervent devotee of the Kasuga cult, learned from an oracle of its chief deity that he didn’t need to bother going to India if there was a “deer park” much closer to home.
Keen Komainu
Besides these diverse animal attendants and messengers, many entrances to Shinto and Buddhist precincts are flanked by two creatures that seem to resemble lions. Most likely inspired by the Chinese custom of putting up two lions in front of temples or important buildings—a male on the left-hand side and a female on the right-hand side, when viewed from the temple—this custom seems to eventually go back to Buddhism in India, where lions used to roam freely. However, the Japanese version, commonly called komainu and translated as “lion-dogs,” differs from its Chinese counterpart. The peculiar name literally means “Korean dogs,” which suggests that their iconographic features may have been introduced originally from the ancient Korean kingdom of Goguryeo (37 BCE – 688 CE), which in Japanese is referred to as Koma.
Komainu are often placed either at the entrance, in the inner sanctuary of a shrine, or at both locations. Initially, only the one on the left-hand side, with its mouth closed, featured a horn on its head and was referred to as komainu, whereas the other one was considered a lion (shishi). Over time, however, the term seems to have been conventionalized to designate both creatures. Typically, the one on the right-hand side has its jaws open whereas that of the other one is closed. This expression embodies the “a” and “un” sounds of the Sanskrit alphabet, often conflated to “hum,” best-known to most non-Indians as “om,” which is commonly regarded as a sacred symbol or invocation. Representing the first and last letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, this usage resembles Westerners referring to “the alpha and the omega,” i.e., the first and the last, as derived from the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Similar iconography is typically employed with other Buddhist guardian deities, especially the “heavenly kings” (tenno). Following this Buddhist connection, it is reasonable that komainu also figure in Buddhist temples, such as Kyoto’s well-known Kiyomizudera. However, unlike the heavenly kings, who always look fierce and frightening, komainu are more often portrayed flippantly and performing artistic tricks.
Foxes of Fortune
By contrast, foxes and tanuki are more often considered dangerous, most likely because of their supernatural powers as “shape shifters” (bakemono). In premodern Japan, countless marvelous stories revolved around foxes (kitsune) in human shape disrupting the lives of individuals and families, especially in the form of a beautiful young woman seducing men—a lore most likely borrowed from China, where this trope was widely popular. Until the Meiji period (1868–1912), mental disorders were often ascribed to patients being possessed by foxes (kitsune tsuki). This understanding was replaced by modern medicine and clinical psychology when Western-inspired ideas and institutions rapidly transformed Japan into a modern nation-state.
For most non-Japanese visitors not familiar with this rich tradition of fox lore, the animals are probably most visible as the divine attendants of Inari. Every year, tourists flock to the main shrine at Fushimi Inari, just southeast of Kyoto proper, to admire the magnificent corridors of hundreds of thousands of red torii shrine gates. Despite their dubious reputation as cunning tricksters, almost every shrine devoted to Inari is equipped with a pair of, usually white, foxes as Inari’s attendants. Displaying a grandeur different from their non-divine counterparts, they typically look frontwards and have their tails pointing upright. Often, they carry Buddhist insignia in their mouths or beneath their paws, such as jewels (hoju) that drive away unhappiness and misfortune and can grant one’s desires.
Researchers are divided over when foxes were first identified with Inari, but this arrangement seems to go back at least a millennium. Already before that, foxes were sometimes linked to agricultural deities, especially those protecting rice, so their worshipping sites were often called “fox mounds” (kitsune zuka). Because Inari also seems to have been a rice-related deity first—as his name translates to “carrying rice plants” (ine wo ninai)—scholars assume this to be the missing link in this historical puzzle. In the more recent past, Inari has evolved into a patron of business and commerce, which is why so many individuals and companies from across the country regularly donate torii and other items to Inari shrines—either to show their gratitude for a granted favor or to request it from Inari.
Even though the foxes do not play any role in priestly ritual worship at Inari shrines, in the common imagination, the kami and his attendants are more closely entangled, up to the point that many people believe that Inari himself is also a fox. Until the 1930s, when domestic dogs became more widespread, devotees sometimes donated foxes from all across the country to Fushimi Inari. Accordingly, the fox population of Mt. Inari was so significant that visitors could even share tatami mats with snoozing foxes at one of the many tea houses. Some devotees believe in the foxes’ healing powers as they rub the statues on specific parts that correspond to their pain and then rub the respective parts of their own bodies. Today, Inari shrines often sell fox-shaped talismans, and many souvenirs and local products (omiyage) are made in the form of a fox. There are also dishes widely popular throughout Japan that are linked with Inari’s foxes, such as “Inari sushi” (Inarizushi), a deep-fried tofu pouch filled with sushi rice, and kitsune udon (“fox udon”), that also comes with deep-fried and often slightly sweetened tofu. Fried tofu (aburaage) is the typical offering presented to Inari’s animal attendants. Even though the reasons behind this association are not entirely clear, some believe that the likeness of fried tofu and the color of fox fur is the reason.
Tanuki and their Tricks
Tanuki are not typically venerated in many shrines or temples, but one can easily spot them in front of restaurants, smiling and often holding a bottle of sake. Like foxes, tanuki have traditionally been considered tricksters who enjoy causing mischief and mayhem, frequently leading people astray at night by showing them mirage-like illusions or by drumming on their bellies—a sound rendered in Japanese as ponpoko, which is where the movie’s name comes from. However, compared to foxes, who tend to be portrayed as sly and dangerous, tanuki figure more often as bumbling pranksters who typically end up dead at the end of a story. A tanuki usually uses his giant scrotum to perform magic, which is also featured in the Ghibli movie. As a fertility symbol, scholars believe this is also how tanuki became associated with ensuring commercial success.
Traditionally, many unexplainable phenomena were attributed to tanuki or foxes and their magic—an understanding that continues even into Japan’s modern era. In the early twentieth century, local stories and hearsay abound with “counterfeit steam trains” (nise kisha) or “ghost trains” that were attributed to tanuki. The tanuki’ and foxes’ link to the uncanny is most likely the reason why they were also associated with a novel practice of spiritism introduced in the early Meiji period, known as kokkuri or kokkuri-san. Resembling Western table-turning and Ouija boards, a simple table-like construction is erected to call down spirits or deities to ask questions about the future. Like its Western counterpart, a craze for this game swept Japan in the 1880s. Even though it is presumably a neologism, the game’s name is sometimes written using the kanji for fox (kitsune or ko), dog (inu or ku), and tanuki (ri).
Creatures in Contemporary Times
Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, and, to a lesser extent, commercial spaces abound with diverse animals, highlight a unique relationship between the Japanese and the animals inhabiting their island. From messengers and guardians to sly tricksters and hilarious pranksters—one cannot think of Japanese mythology and religion without them. With their near-constant appearances in Japanese visual popular media, these divine creatures have cemented their place amidst the everyday lives of the Japanese populace. Whether strolling through the endless shrines and temples that dot Japan’s landscape or simply scrolling through entertainment like books or films, it’s inevitable that you’ll come face to face with these folkloric creatures, and interact with the history of rich meaning - in roles both sacred and silly - that these animals occupy.
About the Author: Trained in Religious Studies and Chinese Studies, Nikolas Broy’s work engages with religion in East Asia, especially Buddhism, non-official religious groups and “sects,” religion and food, material aspects of religion, and globalization. During his research in Japan, he explored various aspects of Japanese religious culture, including “martial monks” in medieval Japan to contemporary Sino-Japanese new religious movements.
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