Karakasa-obake (Toyama)

Karakasa-obake is a tsukumogami of an old paper-and-bamboo umbrella, depicted with a single eye, a long tongue, and a single leg formed from the umbrella's handle. The figure is one of the most widely recognised tsukumogami in Japanese yokai tradition, appearing frequently in early-modern figural prints, picture-scrolls, and children's toys. The source-current is the Muromachi-period Tsukumogami Emaki, which sets out the doctrine that tools long used and then discarded acquire spirit at the hundredth year and become yokai. The figure recurs in Edo-period ehon, ukiyo-e, and bakemono emaki, including Hokusai Manga and the yokai prints of the Utagawa school as "hitotsu-me-gasa" or "kasa-bake." Narratives place the figure leaping out of the umbrella-stand at night to walk through the house, or as a discarded old umbrella startling a traveller on a rainy road. Sources include the Muromachi Tsukumogami Emaki (Sofuku-ji version and others); the figural lineage carries through the Gazu Hyakki Yagyo cycle and Edo-period ehon Bakemono Zukushi Emaki and Hyakkai Zukan. Hokusai Manga and the yokai paintings of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Kawanabe Kyosai also figure it. Murakami Kenji's Nihon Yokai Daijiten (Kadokawa, 2005) and the Nichibunken Strange Phenomena and Yokai Folklore Database compile the figure. Specific Toyama records are limited; the entry is preserved as a tsukumogami of the nationally circulated figural tradition.