The most commonly accepted origin is that drowning victims often have an open or extended anus, looking as if something was taken out of it.

A humorous print by Hokusai Katsushika called “How to Fish for Kappa” (Onajiku kappa-wo tsuru no hō 同河童を釣るの法) shows a man using his own backside as bait to lure a kappa in to be caught with a net. What the Dragon King would want with such an item no one has dared to guess.īut they did want it. In one story, it was said that the kappa paid the shirikodama as a sort of tribute and tax to the Dragon King who lived under the sea and was the lord of all things under the water. The shirikodama was said to smell as bad as the anus it was removed from. This explanations is contradicted by some Edo era depictions such as the one by Jippensha Ikku that shows a kappa with a freshly extracted shirikodama holding it far away from his face and clearly disgusted with the item. The most basic explanation is that kappa consider the shirikodama to be a delicious delicacy and that they eat it as soon as it is removed. Kappa were known to love human livers, and some say that the shirikodama was the liver, or that the ball was blocking access to the liver with the liver being the actual target for the kappa.Īgain, no one really knows for sure. Many associate the shirikodama with the liver. The usual depiction of the shirikodama does indeed resemble this shape. The hojo was onion-shaped, with a round body and a tapered top. Some say that the shirikodama in pictures resembles the Buddhist Hojo, or wish-granting jewel. Some say that it is the human soul, hardened into physical form. No one really agrees on what the shirikodama is. Usually the kappa would hold them underwater to drown them first, before taking the ball. However it was taken, the person whose shirikodama was extracted from was almost always killed in the process. In some stories, the kappa don’t reach up with their hands but instead actually suck the shirikodama from the body. It was said that in the water, a kappa would come from below, extend an arm upwards and stick a hand up your anus to extract the ball.” “Ever since I was a child I heard that I had to be careful in the water because the kappa would try and take my shirikodama. The kappa have a preferred method of extraction.įolklorist/manga artist Mizuki Shigeru wrote: In probably one of the strangest bits of Japanese folklore, it is said that human beings have something in their body called a shirikodama (尻子玉), which translates literally as “small anus ball.” The ball is nestled either immediately inside the anus, or deeper inside the intestines or the stomach. Although modern kappa are often portrayed as cute and mostly harmless, during the Edo period they were monsters who had a particularly vicious method of killing their victims.

You have a magical ball in your butt, and kappa want it.Īt least that is how the story goes. To learn much more about Japanese Ghosts, check out my book Yurei: The Japanese Ghost Those who are planning to participate in Georgian surrogacy tourism should keep up with the latest legal developments in Georgia, and ponder deliberately whether they still want to go ahead and take part in the reproductive medicine programs there, if at all.Translated and adapted from Mizuki Shigeru’s Mujara and other sources

Japanese couples need to carefully examine the various options offered by foreign surrogacy agencies and hospitals, because some of them operate without being well versed in the support they provide over procedures to have surrogate children recorded in Japanese family registries so that they may acquire Japanese nationality. The paper aims to provide information which is relevant to the Japanese patients seeking surrogacy treatment as well as researchers in reproductive medicine. This paper is an attempt to clarify the present state of the Georgian surrogacy industry, and also the risks inherent in the Georgian surrogacy industry. Since then, some intermediary surrogacy agencies based in Thailand, including Japanese surrogacy agencies, have developed a multinational surrogacy industry with branches in Georgia. On 19 February 2015, a law regulating reproductive medicine passed the legislative process in Thailand and was next enacted with the approval of the cabinet and King Bhumibol Adulyadej in July 2015.

Kodama japanese