Oni & Demons
One of Japan's oldest oni had one eye and almost nothing else. Sukuna, the cursed king of Jujutsu Kaisen, is a temple founder in his own province. Here is who got called an oni, and why.
What is an oni?
Picture an oni and you see horns, a tiger-skin loincloth and an iron club. The horns and the tiger skin are the newest parts of the oni.
One of the oldest oni on record has one eye and almost nothing else. It appears in a provincial record finished in 733. In the Heian period, oni were often unseen spirits, and many took the shape of women. Later, picture scrolls gave them red skin and horns. Shuten-dōji, the oni king of Mount Ōe, appears in a 14th-century scroll. His legend fixed the big red oni in people's minds.
The usual reason given for the horns and tiger skin is the northeast. That direction was the demon gate, also called ushitora, "ox-tiger." Toriyama Sekien wrote this down in 1779, as common talk. We found no writer before him.
Each page below lists its sources.
Who got called an oni?
Picture an oni and you see a monster from hell. Many oni in the old stories began as something else: people.
Japan's oldest official history tells of Sukuna, a man with two faces in Hida, now part of Gifu. The court calls him a bandit who defied the emperor. Hida's own temples tell it the other way round. They call him their founder.
The same shape comes back again and again. Ura held Kibi. Akurao held Mount Yuga. Ōtakemaru held Mount Iwate, where the Emishi lived before the Yamato court arrived. Each was brought down by the court's prince or general. Afterward, the place, and sometimes the winner, became sacred.
One way to read this: an oni is often a rival, seen from the winner's side. The court wrote the story, so the loser got the horns.
Not every oni was a person. A tenth-century dictionary links the word oni to on (隠), "hidden." The oldest oni may have been unseen things: disease, disaster and bad luck. Faces came later.
Oni, demon kings and monsters
The oni itself
The horned ogre, and Enma, the judge of the dead.
Chiefs the court brought down
Rulers of a mountain or a province, made into oni by the side that beat them.
Ryomen Sukuna
両面宿儺A man with two faces, four arms and four legs, who drew a bow with every hand at once.
ambiguous
Ura
温羅The red-bearded giant of Kibi whose defeat by Kibitsuhiko is often called the root of Momotaro.
fierce
Akurao
阿久良王A demon chief who held Mount Yuga above the Inland Sea until the general Sakanoue no Tamuramaro brought him down.
menacing
Ōtakemaru
大武丸The Emishi chief of Mount Iwate, remembered on one side as a leader and on the other as an oni.
fierce
Shuten-doji
酒呑童子The sake-loving oni king of Mt. Oe, slain by Minamoto no Yorimitsu.
fierceMan-eaters and temple demons
The oldest oni on record, a temple demon, and a three-eyed mountain man-eater.
Oni of Ayo
阿用郷の鬼A one-eyed man-eater from the Izumo gazetteer, often called the oldest oni in any surviving Japanese text.
menacing
Gagoze
元興寺One of the oldest recorded oni, a temple demon subdued by a superhuman young acolyte.
menacing
Three Eyes, Eight Faces
三目八面A three-eyed, eight-faced man-eater that preyed on travelers from a Kōchi mountain, until it was burned alive.
eerieGiant monsters heroes slew
A spider, a chimera, a centipede, an eight-headed serpent and a giant skeleton.
Tsuchigumo
土蜘蛛A giant earth spider that ensnares heroes in monstrous webs.
fierce
Nue
鵺A chimeric night beast: monkey's face, tiger's limbs, snake for a tail.
ominous
Omukade
大百足A centipede wound seven and a half times around Mount Mikami, killed by an arrow the archer had spat on.
menacing
Yamata-no-Orochi
八岐大蛇An eight-headed serpent that took a daughter a year from one family until a god got it drunk on eight vats of sake.
menacing
Gashadokuro
がしゃどくろA giant skeleton that modern yokai books say is made from the bones of the unburied dead.
menacingDemon kings of a wager
Two demon kings who bet they could frighten one boy in thirty nights.
Contrary spirits
A small demon and a goddess who do the opposite of what you want.
Visitors and omens
Masked gods at the door at New Year, a beast that eats nightmares, a calf that speaks one prophecy.
Namahage
なまはげOgre-masked visiting deities who storm into homes at New Year roaring 'Any crybabies here?'
fierce
Baku
獏A chimeric, tapir-like beast that devours nightmares when called upon after a bad dream.
benevolent
Kudan
件A human-faced calf that is born, speaks a true prophecy of coming disaster, then dies.
ominous