Tanuki
The shape-shifter. From Yokai Attack!:
No discussion of the tanuki would be complete without a mention of their extraordinary testicles. Totally flexible, extensible, and mobile, they are a potent tool in the Tanuki's bag of shape-shifting tricks. Tanuki use their testicles as makeshift raincoats and drums, weapons and even as a disguise to impersonate other creatures and yokai (demons, spirits). Some accounts claim they can be extended into a sheet some eight tatami mats in size - more than 130 square feet (12 square meters). That's a whole lot of scrotum.
In fact, there is even a famous children's rhyme (set, incongruously enough to the tune of the Baptist hymn "Shall We Gather at the River?") that goes:
Tan Tan Tanuki
no kintama wa
Kaze mo nai no ni,
Bura Bura
(The Tanuki's testicles
swing-swing even
without any breeze).
Tanuki, despite being shape-shifters and mischievous, are considered good luck.
I think his kintama, or the weight of the offerings left on them (though only the very lightweight 1￥) might be weighing him down in this picture, though he looks happy from other angles ;) Maybe he thinks they're worth at least ￥100!
Tanuki
The shape-shifter. From Yokai Attack!:
No discussion of the tanuki would be complete without a mention of their extraordinary testicles. Totally flexible, extensible, and mobile, they are a potent tool in the Tanuki's bag of shape-shifting tricks. Tanuki use their testicles as makeshift raincoats and drums, weapons and even as a disguise to impersonate other creatures and yokai (demons, spirits). Some accounts claim they can be extended into a sheet some eight tatami mats in size - more than 130 square feet (12 square meters). That's a whole lot of scrotum.
In fact, there is even a famous children's rhyme (set, incongruously enough to the tune of the Baptist hymn "Shall We Gather at the River?") that goes:
Tan Tan Tanuki
no kintama wa
Kaze mo nai no ni,
Bura Bura
(The Tanuki's testicles
swing-swing even
without any breeze).
Tanuki, despite being shape-shifters and mischievous, are considered good luck.
I think his kintama, or the weight of the offerings left on them (though only the very lightweight 1￥) might be weighing him down in this picture, though he looks happy from other angles ;) Maybe he thinks they're worth at least ￥100!