Child Yokai
A child in the guest room. A boy holding out tofu. A baby a stranger begs you to hold. Here are the yokai shaped like children.
A yokai the size of a child is easy to miss and hard to forget. Readers often search for them by that one detail. This page puts them together, so you can find the one you heard about.
Many of the boys are temple boys. Kozo, the end of hitotsume-kozo and tofu-kozo, means a young temple page or errand boy. That is why they have shaved heads and run errands on the road.
Several of the house children are red. Aka-shaguma has red hair. Akaganta is a red-haired baby. In Okinawa, a kijimuna is a child whose whole body is bright red.
Some of the babies are not the yokai at all. Ubume and nure-onna hold out a baby and ask you to take it. The baby is the trap.
We only list a yokai here if its own page gives it a child's body or size, or puts a baby at the centre of its story. Each page names the oldest source we found.
Children who live in the house
Small house spirits, often half-seen. Most bring luck while they stay.
Zashiki-warashi
座敷童A childlike house spirit whose presence brings a family fortune.
benevolent
Storehouse Child
倉ぼっこIt lives in the storehouse rather than the parlour, and guards what is kept there.
benevolent
Red Shaguma
赤シャグマA red-haired child yokai that moves into houses, sometimes called kin to the zashiki-warashi.
playful
Akagantā
アカガンターA red-haired baby that slips into old houses at night to flip sleepers' pillows and press down on their chests.
mischievousTemple boys on the road
Shaved heads, errands, and one detail that is wrong.
Babies
A baby at the lamp, and a baby in the reeds.
A baby someone wants you to hold
A soaked woman holds out a bundle. Taking it is the trap.
Child-sized creatures
The size of a small child, but covered in hair, red skin or a shell.
Kappa
河童A mischievous, turtle-like river imp with a water-filled dish on its head.
mischievous
Gangi-kozo
岸涯小僧A river boy covered in hair, with teeth like a file, catching fish at the water's edge.
mischievous
Shibaten
シバテンA small, hairy river creature of Kōchi and Tokushima that challenges people to sumo, and in some tellings swells in size as it loses.
mischievous
Yamawaro
山童A one-eyed, hairy mountain child—the kappa's mountain form—that helps loggers in exchange for food.
ambiguous
Kijimuna
キジムナーA red-haired child that lives in an old tree, most often a banyan. It brings endless fish to people who befriend it, but kills livestock or drowns those who harm its tree.
mischievous
Akaname
垢嘗A small yokai that creeps into dirty bathhouses at night to lick up the grime.
harmless