The Legend of Mokumokuren

The legend of Mokumokuren is an ancient tale from Japanese folklore. The mokumokuren is a supernatural creature that appears in old and damaged shoji (paper sliding doors) as well as tatami floor mats and walls. The creature’s name literally means “many eyes” or “continuous eyes,” and it is said to be an invention of Toriyama Sekien, a famous Japanese artist.

The stories of mokumokuren vary, but all of them involve the creature’s ability to take the eyes of those who encounter it. In one popular story, a stingy merchant tries to save money by sleeping in an abandoned house. He wakes up in the middle of the night to find an entire shoji screen staring down at him. Rather than becoming scared, he removes the eyeballs from the screen and sells them to a local eye surgeon. In another story, a traveler is determined to remain in the same house as a mokumokuren, attempting to ignore it by wrapping the blanket he had been sleeping beneath tightly around his head. When he awakens, he discovers that his eyeballs have been removed, and are nowhere to be found.

In popular culture, the mokumokuren has been referenced in many works. The Pokémon Stakataka is based on the creature, and it is also mentioned in Japanese short stories, magazines, and literature. The kappa is another popular creature of the Japanese folk imagination, and it is said to be related to the mokumokuren in some way.

The only way to remove the mokumokuren from its dwelling is to patch up the holes in the walls or floor mats. In essence, the creature serves as a warning to those who would try to save money by sleeping in abandoned houses. To this day, the legend of the mokumokuren remains a mysterious and fascinating part of Japanese folklore.