Nopperabo Legend

The nopperabo legend is a representative early-modern yokai cycle in which an egg-faced figure with no eyes, nose or mouth startles travellers on the night roads of Edo - on slopes, bridges and around graveyards. The figure takes the form of a person; only when it turns at the traveller's call does the absent face reveal itself. The figure is usually understood as a transformation by a mujina or fox and does not harm directly, but startles the witness into fainting and departs. The Akasaka and Kii no kuni-zaka tradition in Minato-ku, Tokyo, became known worldwide through Lafcadio Hearn's 'Mujina' in Kwaidan (1904) and is the standard image of the nopperabo kaidan. The structure has two parts: initial encounter as a human figure with everyday speech; the revelation of the missing face. A variant adds a second turn, in which the person who comes to help is the same yokai, the Akasaka mujina double-trick. The figure breaks the very premise of visual identification and serves as a recurring template for modern horror in film and comics. The central setting is the slopes and temple districts of Edo, including Akasaka in Minato, Yotsuya in Shinjuku and Hongo in Bunkyo; related nupperafuhu and nupperabou are recorded in Toriyama Sekien's picture scrolls and the cycle has analogues in Kyoto and Osaka. Sources include Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan (1904), Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo (1776) for the related nupperafuhu, and the Edo essays Baio Zuihitsu and Kasshi Yawa.