What is the nurikabe?
The nurikabe is a yokai that suddenly blocks your way like a wall as you walk along a road at night, so that you cannot go any further. Even if you try to go around it to the left or right, the wall seems to stretch on forever.
A legend from Fukuoka
The nurikabe comes from the coastal Onga district of Fukuoka Prefecture. It became widely known after the folklorist Yanagita Kunio included it in his list of yokai names and characteristics. If a nurikabe blocks your way, it is said, stay calm and sweep the bottom of the wall with a stick and it will disappear; striking the top does nothing. In 2007, a picture labeled “nurikabe” was found in an Edo-period yokai scroll, drawn as a three-eyed, dog-like beast, which made headlines.
The nurikabe of GeGeGe no Kitaro
The nurikabe became famous all over Japan thanks to Mizuki Shigeru’s manga GeGeGe no Kitaro, in which it appears as a giant wall and one of Kitaro’s friends. Experiences of suddenly losing one’s way or being unable to move on a dark road may have given rise to such stories. Yokai that block night roads are told of in many regions, such as the shichi of Okinawa.
