Japan Travel Guide

The Kappa are mythological creatures folklore as the Japanese who live in lakes, rivers and wetlands. Although it appears that there is some evidence that kappa-like creatures have been spotted and recorded scientifically.

The kappa usually represented as small humanoids frog the size of a child. The face looks like turtle and it is often drawn with a shell on the back. They use their limbs in the shape of fins to move and swim at great speed.

But the most interesting of the kappas is that it has a sort of bald on top of their heads are filled with water. It is a cavity in the head full of water and surrounded by hair. According to legend, the kappas are very powerful, and all of its energy comes from the water they have in their heads. If you come to the surface, and evaporation or any other phenomenon of water lost their heads lost their powers and may even die.

The kappas are usually the bad guy in Japanese folktales. In the comics are often very strong fart looking girls on the sly while changing, stealing vegetables in the gardens, abduct children and women. In fact one of the favorite foods of the kappas are human children, a delicacy that can not resist. According to various interpretations, the kappas absorb the energy of their victims by sucking their blood, eating the liver or gut. To scare the kappas, you can use fire, though there are many villages in Japan that use fireworks each year to scare away evil spirits, including kappa.

So far the wrong side of the kappas, but also have a good side. The kappas are very curious and like to spy on humans. Understand and can speak Japanese, sometimes even relate to human provided they obtain benefits in return. For example, they often run errands for humans receiving cucumber in exchange for kappas is the only food that is more delicious than human children. Traicionalmente, Japanese families throwing cucumbers to the lake near their homes to avoid the kappas from eating to children. Today, there is a type of sushi called kappamaki (kappa roll), which is simply rice with a slice of cucumber in the center.

Kappa maki, rice rolls with cucumber in the center whose name comes from a belief that the kappas favorite food is cucumber.

Some kappas, come to make friends of man, and even help to irrigate the gardens, medicine or teaching tricks. According to legend have great powers to eliminate back pain. There are some some kappa mythological temples believed to have helped the villagers.

There are several theories about the origins of the kappas. One possibility is that the myth is from the ancient Japanese tradition that involved injecting dead fetuses that were born in small boats and send them into the rivers. The origin of the name, is believed to come from the word layer, introduced by the Portuguese in Japan. As the kappa usually have a shell as a cloak to cover their backs, Portuguese-Spanish word was Japanize kappa and used to name these mythological beings.

The kappas are quite popular in Japanese animation, in stories for children, etc. in the traditional literature. Formerly they were monstrous creatures, there is a tendency lately to make them more friendly.

In Kappa no Sanpei manga by Shigeru Mizuki, the protagonist is a boy who befriends a young kappa funny adventures together will live together in a small Japanese village. The shape of the Ring movie monster is also based on the kappa.

Kappas appear in many games. For example in the Final Fantaxy VI, Guild Wars or even the Super Mario where Koopas are clearly inspired by the mythological being kappa. In fact, in the Super Mario World, the first island is the mountain kappa game that has a lake with grass around it reminds me of the shape of the head of a kappa.

For nostalgia, the Ninja Turtles in there chapter that travel back in time to feudal Japan and they get in trouble because they confound by kappas.

Tags: Japan, Japanese folktales, mythology, The Kappa