is a legendary Japanese tree in the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characteriz ...

Konjaku Hyakki Shūi is the third book of Japanese artist Toriyama Sekien's ''Gazu Hyakki Yagyō'' tetralogy, published c. 1781. These books are supernatural bestiaries, collections of ghosts, spirits, spooks and monsters, many of which Toriyama based on literature, ...

'' by

Toriyama Sekien 200px, A Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama">Miage-nyūdō.html" ;"title="Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō">Mikoshi-nyūdō, specifically a Miage-nyūdō, as portrayed by Toriyama , real name Sano ...

Concept

The picture depicts it as a tree blooming flowers like human heads, with the following explanatory text: Besides Japanese yōkai, the ''Konjaku Hyakki Shūi'' also included publications of plants, animals and yōkai outside of Japan and this "jinmenju" as well as the ''Wakan Sansai Zue'' quote from the ''

Sancai Tuhui ''Sancai Tuhui'' (, ), compiled by Wang Qi () and his son Wang Siyi (), is a Chinese ''leishu'' encyclopedia, completed in 1607 and published in 1609 during the late Ming dynasty, featuring illustrations of subjects in the three worlds of heaven ...

'' and it depicts a tree from a land called "Daishikoku" (大食国, big-eat country). According to the ''Sancai Tuhui'', Daishikoku is a land thousand ri southwest, with flowers like human hands, and upon asking it questions, its flowers would laugh, but it wouldn't understand human language and if they laugh too much, the flowers would wither and fall. The ''Rōō Sawa'' (老媼茶話), a collection of strange tales from

Aizu is the westernmost of the three regions of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan, the other two regions being Nakadōri in the central area of the prefecture and Hamadōri in the east. As of October 1, 2010, it had a population of 291,838. The princip ...

, also quotes the ''Sancai Tuhui'' while making statements about this tree.

In popular culture

The Pokémon Exeggutor is based on the jinmenju.

Notes

External links

Jinmenju – The Human Face Tree
at hyakumonogatari.com (English)
arasi.com
Japanese) 　 Mythological human hybrids Trees in mythology Yōkai Yaoguai Mythological monsters Monsters {{Japan-myth-stub

Concept

In popular culture

See also

Notes

External links