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The or 野箆坊, or faceless
ghost In folklore, a ghost is the soul or Spirit (supernatural entity), spirit of a dead Human, person or non-human animal that is believed by some people to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely, from a ...
, is a Japanese
yōkai are a class of supernatural entities and Spirit (supernatural entity) , spirits in Japanese folklore. The kanji representation of the word comprises two characters that both mean "suspicious, doubtful", and while the Japanese name is simply ...
that looks like a human but has no face. They are sometimes mistakenly referred to as a '' mujina'', an old Japanese word for a
badger Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by the ...
or raccoon dog. Although the ''mujina'' can assume the form of the other, ''noppera-bō'' are usually disguised as humans. Such creatures were thought to sometimes transform themselves into ''noppera-bō'' in order to frighten humans. Lafcadio Hearn used the animals' name as the title of his story about faceless monsters, probably resulting in the misused terminology. ''Noppera-bō'' are known primarily for frightening humans, but are usually otherwise harmless. They appear at first as ordinary human beings, sometimes impersonating someone familiar to the victim, before causing their features to disappear, leaving a blank, smooth sheet of skin where their face should be.


In literature and folktales

Often, a ''noppera-bō'' would not actually exist, but was the disguise of a '' mujina'', a fox '' kitsune'', or a '' tanuki''. In Showa 4 (1767), in the '' kaidan'' collection ''Shinsetsu Hyakumonogatari'', there were stories that told of how in Nijugawara in Kyoto (near the Nijo-ohashi bridge in the Nakagyō-ku,
Kyoto Kyoto ( or ; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in the Kansai region of Japan's largest and most populous island of Honshu. , the city had a population of 1.46 million, making it t ...
), a monster called ''noppera-bō'' appeared and those that were attacked by it would have several thick hairs attached to their clothing, indicating that it was the disguise of some kind of animal. However, sometimes their real identity is not known, and in the
Kanbun ''Kanbun'' ( 'Han Chinese, Han writing') is a system for writing Literary Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period until the 20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for offici ...
3 (1663) kaidan collection ''Sorori Monogatari'', it was written that in the Oike-cho of the capital (now Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto), there appeared a ''noppera-bō'' with a height of about 7 shaku (about 2.1 meters), but nothing was written about what its true identity was. They are also said to appear in folktales in the
Osaka Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Osaka Prefecture has a population of 8,778,035 () and has a geographic area of . Osaka Prefecture borders Hyōgo Prefecture to the northwest, Kyoto Prefecture to the north, Nara ...
and Kotonami, Nakatado District,
Kagawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kagawa Prefecture has a population of 949,358 (as of 2020) and is the List of Japanese prefectures by area, smallest prefecture by geographic area at . Kagawa Pr ...
among other places.


The ''Mujina'' of the Akasaka Road

The most famous story of a ''noppera-bō'' is "Mujina" in Lafcadio Hearn's book '' Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things''. The story tells of a man who, travelling along the Akasaka road to Edo, comes across a young woman in a remote location near Kunizaka hill, crying and forlorn. After he attempts to console the young woman and offer assistance, she turns to face him, startling him with the blank countenance of a faceless ghost. Frightened, the man proceeds down the road for some time, until he comes across a soba vendor. Stopping to relax, the man tells the vendor of his encounter, only to recoil in horror as the soba vendor strokes his face, becoming a ''noppera-bō'' himself. It turns out that all of these ''noppera-bō'' are really just '' mujina'' in disguise.


See also

* Faceless (disambiguation) * Kiyomi Haunterly, a Japanese faceless ghost in '' Monster High'' * '' Kuchisake-onna'' ("Slit Mouth Woman"), a Japanese urban legend about a disfigured woman * '' Spirited Away'', a 2001 Japanese animated film featuring a character known as "NoFace"


References


External links


Noppera-bo (No Face) at ScaryForKids


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20051118074041/http://www.k-i-a.or.jp/main/kiaeigopage/KaidanPage/articles/Kwaidan.htm Discussion of the confusion of terms brought about by the titles of Hearn's stories. {{Japanese folklore long Japanese bathroom ghosts Japanese legendary creatures Legendary creatures with absent body parts Mythic humanoids Mythological creatures Shapeshifters Yōkai