Nuribotoke

Nuribotoke is a yokai depicted by Toriyama Sekien in Gazu Hyakki Yagyo (Front Volume, 1776). The figure is rendered with a black-coated body and sagging eyeballs, suggesting a deteriorated Buddha image.

The yokai is said to emerge from a household altar (butsudan) or a Buddhist shrine cabinet (zushi). Later yokai studies have associated nuribotoke with neglect of altar offerings and the household's care for ancestors.

The canonical image is Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yagyo (Front Volume), Anei 5 (1776). The original edition is accessible through NDL Digital Collections (pid/2517422). Sekien did not include explanatory text, so later commentaries reconstruct the figure's meaning from the image alone.