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Your Pop Culture Cryptozoology Moment for the Day...

By Widge - posted 03.06.09 @ 2:57 pm
Raiju

So there I was, minding my own business, reading Pink Tentacle's article on "Monster Mummies of Japan"...perhaps initially disappointed in the fact it's not a Roger Corman film or a kaiju spectacular...but still, reading along and came across our friend there, a "raijū".

With a limited scientific understanding of the sky above, the common person in Edo-period Japan looked upward with great awe and mystery. Supernatural creatures called raijū (雷獣) — lit. "thunder beast" — were believed to inhabit rain clouds and occasionally fall to earth during lightning strikes.

Now although appearances vary, check out this description:

One document depicts the raijū as being the size of a cat or weasel, with one big bulging eye and a single long horn, like that of a bull or rhino, projecting forward from the top of its head.

Now what do we know that quite nearly fits this description? We reveal all after the break.

Direct link for the feedreaders.

The two major discrepancies are the coloration (although that depiction is almost two centuries old and who knows what happens to that color ink on that sort of medium over time) and the failure to mention a proclivity for short shorts. More research is obviously required. In the meantime, the producers for Coast to Coast AM can reach me through the website.

Read More About:

Widgett Walls is Need Coffee's Chief Cook and Bottle Washer. He is the author of the novel Mystics on the Road to Vanishing Point, and two collections of short stories, Magnificent Desolation and Something Else: The Complete First Season. He is also co-author of the children's book There's a Zombie in My Treehouse! All of those books are available in paperback or for the Kindle from Amazon. He is also the narrator and publisher of the first unabridged recording of Seneca's letters, available here. He is active on both Twitter and Facebook. (If you befriend him on Facebook, do say you came via Need Coffee.) He lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. He hardly ever sleeps.

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    1. 

    Japan has some crazy scary stuff like their ghost or horror stories and movies. BUT the same country produces Hello Kitty! Now that's really scary!
    http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/hello-kitty-3d-animation/

    Comment by hal — March 28, 2009 @ 10:58 am

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