Via Pink Tentacle | Meet the “Black Hair Cutter”, a mythological creature from Japanese artist Shigeru Mizuki’s new book, Yokai Daizukai. The illustrated guide to traditional Japanese spirits, monsters, and demons comes complete with 85 depictions of various folklore nasties, including anatomy cutaways and cliffnotes. Read all about him and others after the jump…

The Kuro-kamikiri (”black hair cutter”) is a large, black-haired creature that sneaks up on women in the street at night and surreptitiously cuts off their hair. Anatomical features include a brain wired for stealth and trickery, razor-sharp claws, a long, coiling tongue covered in tiny hair-grabbing spines, and a sac for storing sleeping powder used to knock out victims. The digestive system includes an organ that produces a hair-dissolving fluid, as well as an organ with finger-like projections that thump the sides of the intestines to aid digestion.

Well, naturally. Meet his equally freaky pals here.

Be especially wary of my messed up friend the Fukuro-sage (above). He’s a shapeshifting tanuki (raccoon dog) who often morphs into a sake bottle “that is typically seen rolling down sloping streets.”

The bottle may pose a danger to people who try to follow it downhill, as it may lead them off a cliff or into a ditch. The Fukuro-sage usually wears a large potato leaf or fern leaf on its head and carries a bag made from human skin. The bag contains a bottle of poison sake. Anatomical features include a stomach that turns food into sake, a sac for storing poison that it mixes into drinks, and a pouch that holds sake lees. The Fukuro-sage’s urine has a powerful smell that can disorient humans and render insects and small animals unconscious.

He totally stole that last move from me.

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