Azuki Arai legend

The Azuki Arai legend concerns a kaii—strange phenomenon—heard at night from riverbanks and under bridges: a voice calling out 'Azuki to gōka, hitototte taō ka, shokishoki' (Should I wash azuki beans? Should I take and eat a person?). The being remains unseen; only the dry, crisp sound of red beans being washed against river stones is audible. The canonical episodes are these: the sound emanates from the water's edge, yet whoever approaches to look finds nothing; when addressed by voice, the sound recedes into distance. Though occasionally witnessed as a blind acolyte or small, elderly figure, the phenomenon is fundamentally auditory in nature. As a water-dwelling *yokai* positioned at the boundary of river and shore, it belongs to the broader landscape of liminal folklore beings. The legend is distributed primarily across the Kōshin'etsu region (Yamanashi, Nagano, Niigata prefectures) and extends into the Tōhoku and Kantō regions.

The narrative unfolds in three canonical movements: (1) the sound of bean-washing heard at night from riverbank or bridge below; (2) the approach to the sound and the absolute invisibility of its source; (3) the phenomenon's disappearance when spoken to directly. As an auditory rather than visual kaii, it occupies the same genealogy as other nocturnal auditory folklore beings—the sand-casting hag (*sunakakebaba*), the lantern that leads astray (*okuri-chōchin*), and the mat-beating spirit (*tatami-tataki*). It exemplifies the early modern period folk custom of transforming the acoustic anxieties of night travel into *yokai* narratives.

The tradition is centred on the watersheds of the Fuefuki and Kamanashi rivers in Yamanashi Prefecture, and those of the Chikuma and Shinano rivers in Nagano and Niigata prefectures. Related legends—notably the 'bean-grinding hag' (*azuki togibaba*) of Aizu in Fukushima Prefecture—are distributed across Tochigi and Gunma prefectures, forming a shared group of boundary-dwelling kaii endemic to the mountainous water-margins of eastern Japan.

Documented sources include Toriyama Sekien's *Zu Hyaku Kiki Yagyō* (Picture Scroll of One Hundred Demons at Night, 1776), which contains an illustration and description of Azuki Arai. Yanagita Kunio recorded variants in *Yōkai Dangi* (Discourse on Yokai) and *Tono Monogatari Shūi* (Supplementary Tales from Tōno). Regional folklore publications—including the folklore section of Yamanashi Prefecture's prefectural history and *Shinshū no Yōkai* (Yokai of Shinano) published by the Shinano Mainichi Shimbun—preserve parallel narratives.