Tsuchinoko (槌の子, lit. Hammer Child) is a snake-like yōkai.
Appearance[]
Personality[]
History[]
2007 Anime[]
Tsuchinoko appears in episode #79 of the fifth anime adaptation, The Tenacious Mythological Snake! Tsuchinoko.
Other Media[]
Video Games[]
GeGeGe no Kitarō: Yōkai Yokochō[]
Tsuchinoko appears in the game as a A-Rank Boss Yōkai. It was referred to as Tsuchihebi.[1]
Powers and Abilities[]
Legend[]
Illustration of Tsuchinoko by Shigeru Mizuki.
Tsuchinoko or Bachihebi is a well-known cryptid from Japan, resembling a snake whose body is bigger than its head and tail.
A Tsuchinoko is capable of jumping high, is fond of drinking sake, and is extremely poisonous, so a bite from one would be fatal. If you hit a Tsuchinoko as hard as you can with a stick when it appears, its head will fall off, but you must make sure to kill the head as well or it will turn into a new Tsuchinoko and come back for you.
Tsuchinoko gained fame nationwide during the late 1960s to 1975, as mass media reported sightings of the Tsuchinoko, which began a "Tsuchinoko Boom" where local governments and other organizations offered bounties for anyone to capture a Tsuchinoko, but no one has ever found one. Sightings of the Tsuchinoko during the boom depict it as resembling a beer bottle with a head and tail, 30-80 cm in length, 7-15 cm in body thickness, and a triangular head. Based on these features, some have speculated that what were though to be Tsuchinoko sightings were actually the appearance of a snake digesting its prey.
The legend of Tsuchinoko is similar to the Nozuchi, so it was theorized that Tsuchinoko was a local name for Nozuchi.