Sanuki Tanuki

Sanuki Tanuki is a collective name for the shape-changing tanuki of Kagawa (former Sanuki Province), where named great tanuki are densely transmitted. Sanuki stands as one of the three great tanuki regions of Japan alongside Sado (Niigata) and Awaji (Hyogo); Hage-danuki of Yashima, Tasaburo-danuki, and Gyobu-danuki of Iyo are among the named figures. The Studio Ghibli film Heisei Tanuki Gassen Pompoko (1994) draws on this body of tradition. Sanuki tanuki narratives include contests of transformation, road-companion tales of being led astray, and temple cohabitation stories; in contrast to the fox, the Sanuki tanuki is often characterised as warm and on familiar terms with people. Tasaburo-danuki of Yashima-ji is treated as the chief of the four-island tanuki and enshrined as Minoyama Daimyojin at Yashima-ji from the time of the Battle of Yashima (1185). Gyobu-danuki of Shodoshima and Hage-danuki of Kanonji, Kagawa, are widely transmitted as place- and temple-linked figures. Early-modern gazetteers including the Saisan Fushi and Sanuki-no-Kuni Meisho Zue, and the miscellanies Okina-gusa and Mimibukuro, collect Sanuki tanuki cases. Yanagita Kunio's Tanuki to Demonologie, comparative work with Chiri Mashiho's Bunrui Ainugo Jiten, and the Kyogoku Natsuhiko and Tada Katsumi-edited Hyakki Tsurezure Bukuro provide modern systematizing studies. The Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database registers Yashima, Shodoshima, and Kanonji cases individually. The Awa Tanuki Wars (with Kincho-danuki and Rokuemon-danuki of Tokushima) are widely known as a major regional tanuki narrative. Hage-danuki of Yashima, Shibaemon-danuki of Awaji, and Danzaburo-danuki of Sado form the canonical "three great tanuki."