Oni

Bibliography

By Andrew Dodel, aed52@pitt.edu

What Are Oni?

An Oni, often translated as “demon” or “ogre”, is an ancient form of yōkai that has been written about in one form or another for over one thousand years. While the English terms are able to partially encompass the Oni, they fall short in terms of properly conveying just what an Oni really is. The Oni, in the traditional sense, is more of a combination of both a “demon” and an “ogre”. They combine the size and penchant for eating humans that characterizes ogres with the otherworldliness, wickedness, and borderline divinity of demons to create something entirely new which can only be properly described as an “Oni”. This is a rather general description of the Oni, and as with any folk creature there is boundless variation and plenty which don’t adhere to the archetype.

Oni are generally depicted as males (though the earliest versions were female, and there were female Oni which appeared onwards) with strangely-colored skin: black, red, green, and yellow are all common colors for Oni. They are generally very large (often twice the height of an average person) and well built, which explains why they are often referred to as “ogres” by English speakers. They have claws, vicious teeth, long, unkempt hair, and horns; they are often depicted with a third eye and with three fingers on each hand and they like wearing loincloths made of tiger pelt (The Book of Yōkai, 117). These features lend themselves to the Oni’s generally fierce appearance, which inspires fear in readers and those who worry about meeting them.

As previously mentioned, they have a habit of eating people and this often plays heavily into stories involving Oni, since they need to be killed to restore order and authority to the land. They also often have the ability to transform their appearance, which they use to get lure their prey or to try to blend in with human society. Often they are depicted with lightning, or are described as having the power to control it, which gives their power a basis grounded within natural phenomena (Oni from Ancient Times to the Present, 23). Finally, they are associated with prosperity; Oni generally live in opulence, and humans who survive their encounters with Oni often find themselves in good fortune afterwards (Oni from Ancient Times to the Present, 24).

Symbolically, Oni most clearly represent the “other” in Japanese society. They always live far away from the capital, which was a hub of civilization for most of Japanese history. Their fierce, wild features portray them as country folk or foreigners who don’t adhere to the lifestyle of the Japanese aristocrat. Stories involving an Oni will often involve the slaying of it. Quite commonly, an Oni will be used as a metaphor for an entire group of people who are not yet under Imperial authority as seen in the Nihonshoki (Oni from Ancient Times to the Present, 18-23).

Following from the notion of Oni as the “other”, they are often used to represent enemies of Japan and Imperial Authority. Many medieval tales involving Oni, such as Shuten-dōji, portray the Oni as creatures to be conquered to further Imperial authority. Following the Meiji Restoration and after many of the older Oni tales were written, the Oni once again resurfaced as a propaganda tool. The Americans, British, Chinese, and Russians were all portrayed to the Japanese populous as Oni in propaganda by artists like Sugiura Yukio and Fujii Tomu as part of an effort to inspire morale and increase nationalism (Transformation of the Oni, 147-149).

The brutishness of the Oni is often matched by its uncanniness. Oni who transform their appearance generally fail to completely disguise themselves, and the characters who encounter them generally get the feeling that something about them is “off”. The inability of Oni to ever fully pass with their transformations is often emphasized in stories, particularly in both Shuten-dōji and Uji no Hashihime. It’s this inability of the Oni to ever completely and flawlessly transform itself, or that the transformation is too perfect, that reinforces the idea that Oni are meant to depict outsiders in Japanese society that can never truly blend in.

Oni Stories – The Infamous Shuten Douji

To best illustrate just what Oni are and what they do, it is best to study the stories they appear in. To this end, arguably the most popular and infamous story about Oni is the tale of Shuten-dōji. In its uniquely morbid fashion, it highlights all the major themes one would expect from a medieval story about Oni.

The oldest version of the story, originating in the Ōeyama ekotoba, is set during the reign of Emperor Ichijō who ruled from 986 to 1011 AD. The premise of the story is that young women are disappearing from the capital (Keian-kyo, which is modern-day Kyoto), much to the dismay of its citizens. After the daughter of an important counselor joins the ranks of those who have vanished from their homes, her father enlists the help of Minamoto no Raiko to save his daughter. Raiko, a famous hero from Japanese folklore, was a famous warrior renowned for his courage and valor and a member of the family who would establish the first Shogunate in the late 12^th century. The hero Raiko goes to the famous seer Abe no Seimei and learns the location of the Oni who has been abducting the young girls. Before leaving, he assembles a team of his four closest companions, plus a fifth man, and together they set out to the supposed mountain hideout of Shuten-dōji. On the way there, they encounter three priests who are actually gods in disguise who seek to help Raiko and his companions. They convince Raiko’s company to disguise themselves as yamabushi (ascetic mountain priests). After disguising themselves as priests, they make it to Shuten-dōji’s palace and lie their way past the guards who plan to eat the priests who have shown up at their doorstep. Once inside, they meet Shuten-dōji who lives like a king in his mountaintop fortress. He changes his appearance to resemble that of an unreasonably tall man with pale red skin, and appears at the gate with a crash of thunder to greet his guests. At dinner he offers his guests human flesh and blood, the latter of which he refers to as “sake” even though it is just the blood of his captives. Eventually, Raiko takes the poisoned sake that was given to him by the three gods and gives it to Shuten-dōji , claiming it is high-quality sake from the capital to entice the greedy Oni. After Shuten-dōji retires to his chambers and fall asleep from the poison, the heroes go to work trying to sneak into his room so they can kill the drunken Oni. When they enter, they see him in his true form: a huge, red Oni with horns and claws. They butcher him in his sleep, and then do battle with his four henchmen and the rest of his retainers before finally being able to rescue all the women who are being held at his mountain palace for slaughter. Raiko and his companions part ways with the deities who helped them in their quest, and promptly return to the capital to be praised as heroes.

Even in an extremely condensed version of the story of Shuten-dōji, many of the notorious qualities of Oni and tropes associated with their stories are present in the tale. Going off the order in which these tropes appear, first is the characterization of Oni as outsiders and enemies of imperial authority. The story focuses on the premise that Shuten-dōji is stealing women from the capital and taking them to his far-away lair, which is a way of portraying him as an outsider of Japanese society. Compounding this with the order for Raiko to go slay Shuten-dōji, it becomes clear that the Oni is viewed as an obstacle to be conquered for the greater good of the country.

To further illustrate Shuten-dōji as an outsider, his palace and habits all resemble what one would expect to see back in the capital, albeit in an extremely morbid fashion. Whereas Raiko has four “heavenly kings” as his comrades are referred to, Shuten-dōji has his own four Oni lieutenants who do his bidding. He lives is an iron fortress on top of a mountain with Oni henchmen and demon soldiers, while one would expect a lord or high-ranking official to live in a palace or estate with servants and attendants. He enjoys his own version of “sake”, the blood of the women whom he’s captured, at dinner parties with his demonic brethren. Clearly, his behavior is made to model normal behavior but to twist it in a way that only an Oni could.

The next trait to be displayed is Shuten-dōji’s shapeshifting abilities, which are somewhat lackluster as one might expect from an Oni. While he is able to assume the form of a human when he meets with Raiko and his companions, it is not a perfect transformation on account of the pale red skin and unreasonable height. Both of these qualities are meant to be stark imperfections that clue the reader in that the form he has assumed is not his true one. In this respect, Shuten-dōji is not able to completely assume the appearance of a person and thus fails to convincingly transform his appearance, a popular trope of Oni as previously discussed.

While Shuten-dōji’s approximation of his own version of civilization and poor shapeshifting abilities are key facets of his characterization as an Oni, they certainly aren’t the reason why the story is so infamous and well known. The reason the story is so popular is almost definitively because of the excessive gore that it portrays. The premise of the story is that women are disappearing from the capital, and the reader eventually learns that they’re being used as food to feed the world’s hungriest Oni. When Raiko and his companions have dinner with Shuten-dōji, the reader is given an extremely graphic description of the scene as both Shuten and his guests feast on human limbs and drink “sake”. This is all made worse by the fact that the reader knows that the people both the Oni and the heroes are eating are the very women the heroes are meant to be saving. Oni are known for their penchant for eating humans, and Shuten-dōji displays this gruesome trait to an absurd extent.

When Shuten-dōji’s drunken stupor leaves him asleep in his chambers, his transformation comes undone and his true form is revealed for Raiko, his companions, and the reader to see. Shuten-dōji is even taller and more muscular than he was in his human form, characterizing the brutish, ogre-like nature of the Oni. His skin goes from a pale red to a dark red, one of the most common colors for an Oni’s skin. He has large claws and horns on his forehead, as if there was any doubt remaining as to what kind of creature he is.

Before moving on, two more details about Shuten-dōji are relevant when evaluating why it’s the perfect medieval story about an Oni. As previously mentioned, thunder is often associated with the Oni as one of their magical powers. In the context of the story, it is heard when Shuten-dōji appears at the gate to greet his guests. The opulence associated with his residence, at least opulence according to an Oni’s standards, is another common trope of Oni stories. These creatures often live lives of luxury, and Shuten-dōji’s extravagant nature is repeatedly stressed throughout the story. And when Raiko and his companions slay Shuten-dōji, this wealth, in a way, transfers to them since they are showered with praise when they return to the capital.

While the image of an Oni presented in Shuten-dōji is representative of what Oni were for a large portion of Japanese history, from medieval to pre-modern times, it wasn’t always the case and has since changed as well. While the depictions most commonly associated with Oni appear in the 1100’s and onwards, the word itself is much older than that. The word “Oni” itself can be traced all the way back to Kojiki, written in 712 AD. It stems from the word “Yomotsushikome”, a spirit send by Izanami to get revenge on Izanagi (Transformation of the Oni, 134-135. Moving forwards, the term “Oni” mostly just meant a spirit with some sort of otherworldly power, a hybrid between a demon and a god.

With the popularization of Buddhist art and more conventional tales of Oni appearing in the medieval times, it is no wonder that these depictions and ideas of what Oni were supposed to be became so popular. The claws, the colored skin, the cannibalism, the association with thunder, etc. all really take off as being the defining characteristic of Oni during this era (The Book of Yōkai, 118-119). Many tales, similar to Shuten-dōji, arise where an Oni that’s causing trouble for a group of people needs to be killed. Oni during this period are extremely symbolic of the outsiders, the unwanted, and the disenfranchised of Japanese society.

Following the Meiji restoration and the modernization of Japan in the late 1800’s, a new, lighter depiction of Oni came to life. With the demystification of yōkai came the chance to revisit Oni, which had once been fierce, brutish monsters, and to depict them in a new light. A particularly touching story, called “The Red Oni who Cried”, was written by Hamada Hirosuke in 1930’s. It’s about two Oni, one red and one blue, who are kind and gentle creatures that are good friends with each other. The red Oni wants to become friends with the humans who live near them, so the blue Oni pretends to attack a town so that the red Oni can save the village and become a hero to the residents. Of course, the blue Oni can no longer stick around (lest suspicion arise amongst the red Oni’s new friends), so he leaves his friend never to be seen again. The red Oni realizes how much his friend cared for him that the story ends with him crying, hence the title. Obviously, this story is meant to inspire selflessness and compassion in the reader and is a stark contrast the older Oni tales that inspire fear and terror.

With the escalation of Japan’s involvement in the Second World War came the resurgence of Oni as violent others, this time being used as a propaganda tool. As previously mentioned, artist Fuji Tomu made a popular cartoon depicting both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as Oni attacking innocent Japanese citizens. The portrayal of the enemy as Oni was vital to the Japanese war effort as a way to retain morale and inspire nationalism in a situation that was rapidly deteriorating under the relentless assault of foreign powers.

Following the decimation of Japan in 1945 was a surge in economic growth and revitalization. With this, the idea of what Oni could be took off in every imaginable direction. The emergence of “Kawaii culture” has seen countless of Oni adaptations as cute, attractive girls like Lum from the series Lum Invader or Rem and Ram from Re:Zero. Similarly, the show Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi depicts one of the main characters, an Oni named Odanna , as a tall, handsome brooding male with gentle features and only two small horns. With a myriad of Oni appearing across video games, manga, anime and in popular culture, the limits of just what Oni can be or do are pretty much gone. In many ways, the acceptance and diversification of Oni serves as a stark contrast to the original idea behind the creature as an outsider and an “other” to be feared and conquered.

Oni-themed cards from the popular trading card game Yu-Gi-Oh