twilyth
07-29-2009, 01:16 PM
This is a great overview of Japanese fantastica. (http://www.cracked.com/funny-223-japanese-monsters/) Well, AFAIK anyway.
It covers traditional monsters to Godzilla and Gamera to Pokemon and hentai.
It's not as funny as most of Cracked's articles, but it has some decent quotes.
Though a beloved and heavily marketed figure in modern pop culture (even Hello Kitty has one in her circle of friends), the Kappa was once used by parents as an incredibly terrifying form of boogieman; children were warned that if they took a swim without adult supervision, a Kappa would sneak up underneath them, insert its beak into their anus and slurp out their intestines like so much instant Ramen.
Another superstar of youkai myth is the tanuki, or raccoon-dog, touched upon in Cracked's Bukkake of the Gods: Japan's Insane Creation Myths. Actually a mythical exaggeration of a very real and once very common woodland animal, these monsters are most famous for the limitless shape-shifting powers they seem to concentrate in their massive, dangling testicles. A tanuki's nutsack can stretch like Mr. Fantastic into positively anything the monster desires, including a tent, a club or a protective shield. That's right--these motherfuckers are so hardcore that their immediate response to an attack is to present their junk.
It covers traditional monsters to Godzilla and Gamera to Pokemon and hentai.
It's not as funny as most of Cracked's articles, but it has some decent quotes.
Though a beloved and heavily marketed figure in modern pop culture (even Hello Kitty has one in her circle of friends), the Kappa was once used by parents as an incredibly terrifying form of boogieman; children were warned that if they took a swim without adult supervision, a Kappa would sneak up underneath them, insert its beak into their anus and slurp out their intestines like so much instant Ramen.
Another superstar of youkai myth is the tanuki, or raccoon-dog, touched upon in Cracked's Bukkake of the Gods: Japan's Insane Creation Myths. Actually a mythical exaggeration of a very real and once very common woodland animal, these monsters are most famous for the limitless shape-shifting powers they seem to concentrate in their massive, dangling testicles. A tanuki's nutsack can stretch like Mr. Fantastic into positively anything the monster desires, including a tent, a club or a protective shield. That's right--these motherfuckers are so hardcore that their immediate response to an attack is to present their junk.