Archive for 'Animals'
Old, Grumpy, Japanese Man Cat
Posted on 10. Feb, 2009 by koichi.
I’m working on another post, but with that comes procrastination, and with that, comes Japanese cat videos. I can’t take credit for this one, though. Viet found this one, then commented about it on Erin’s photo blog, and then Erin showed it to me. This is 100% pure fat Japanese cat gold, though. There are a ton of videos, which I’m about to relay here (some of these don’t allow me to embed, so you’ll have to click through to see them). (more…)
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Obake Series: Tanuki
Posted on 19. Mar, 2008 by Erin.
Before we get started with this long overdue article, let’s take a small quiz. No cheating!
Tanuki are: A) Badgers, B) Raccoons, C) Wolverines, D) Raccoon dogs
Here’s a tanuki macro to help you out:
The word tanuki is often mistranslated as “raccoon” or “badger”. By looking at them, though, you can tell that’s clearly not what they are. I’ve wondered what the actual translation was for years now but have been too lazy to look it up until just recently. So, for those of you who knew enough to choose D, congratulations! Raccoon dogs, or tanuki (狸), show up all the time in Japanese folklore and fairy tales, and are fairly unique in that they’re one of the only “real” yōkai. I mean, you’ll probably never see a kappa or a bake-zōri, but a tanuki sighting isn’t quite so far-fetched. To begin with, let’s start with stereotypical tanuki image: (more…)
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