Japanese Crab Mythology Archives

Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Crab Girl
Category: Mountain dweller, Crab, Yokai

The Myth

In the late eighteenth century, during the lively days of Edo, crowds gathered in the Asakusa district to see strange and curious spectacles. Among them was a young girl known as the Kani Musume—the Crab Girl. She was said to have only two fingers on each hand, and this unusual trait earned her fame. People came not because she performed any special skill, but simply to look upon her rarity, and her name became well known among the curiosities of Asakusa.

As the years passed and fashions changed, the popularity of such shows faded. In later tales, the Crab Girl’s story took on a darker, more fantastical turn. She was said to have been gathered up by a demon woman who had withdrawn from human society and fled into the remote mountains of Tamba. This demon girl, bitter over her own failures and humiliation, surrounded herself with others like the Crab Girl—along with a Cat Girl, a Heron Girl, a Bear Girl, and a Snake Girl.

Together, these strange women would sit and speak ill of human women, mocking their beauty, their manners, and their lives. The demon girl dreamed of returning to the human world as a terrifying monster, one that would inspire fear instead of ridicule. But when she saw a beautiful human woman named Omiwa, whose face twisted into something truly dreadful from jealousy alone, the demon girl was overcome with fear. Realizing that human emotions could be more frightening than any monster’s form, she fled back into the mountains, abandoning her ambition.

Thus, the Kani Musume remained in legend as a figure caught between spectacle and myth—first a curiosity of the city, later a companion of outcasts and half-monsters—her story reflecting how fascination, cruelty, and fear can transform ordinary lives into something strange and unsettling.

Gallery

Sources

TYZ-Yokai Blog contributors. (n.d.). カニ娘 (Kani Musume). In TYZ-Yokai Blog, from https://tyz-yokai.blog.jp/archives/1052020047.html

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How to Invite The Kani Musume

Tradition / Region: Japanese Mythology
Alternate Names: Stone Crab; Crab Stone; Finger-Eyed Stone Crab
Category: Mountain dweller, Crab

The Myth

The tale of Ishigani begins not with a named monster, but with a series of unsettling events that followed a reckless act. In Bingo Province, a sixteen-year-old samurai youth named Inō Heitarō took part in a test of courage on Mount Hikuma together with his neighbor, Mitsui Gonpachi. After that night, strange disturbances began to plague Heitarō’s home, as if something unseen had followed him back from the mountain.

On the night of July fifth, while Heitarō and Gonpachi were talking inside the house, a heavy stone suddenly burst into the room. It was no ordinary rock. Before their eyes, it sprouted thick, finger-like legs and began to crawl across the floor with disturbing speed. From its surface glared eyes like those of a crab, fixed upon the young men with hostile intent. The creature’s movement was vigorous and purposeful, as though the stone itself had been given will and malice.

Gonpachi drew his sword, ready to strike the crawling stone, but Heitarō stopped him. Whether from fear, restraint, or a sense that violence would only worsen matters, no blow was struck. The stone creature continued its threatening display before vanishing, leaving the house shaken and the boys helpless.

When morning came, the terror seemed to have passed. In the kitchen lay a large stone, inert and ordinary once more. It was recognized as a familiar object from the neighborhood—either a car-stopper stone or a heavy stone used for pressing pickles. Whatever force had animated it during the night had withdrawn, leaving behind only the mundane shell of what had briefly become something monstrous.

The creature itself was never given a fixed name in the original account. Later retellings and illustrations began to call it Ishigani, likening it to a crab formed of stone. In picture scrolls and books, it is often shown as a rock covered in many eyes, scuttling forward on thick, finger-like limbs; in other depictions, it has only two bulging eyes, making its crab-like nature more pronounced.

Ishigani stands as a reminder of a common theme in Japanese folklore: that ordinary objects can be temporarily possessed or transformed by unseen forces. What appears lifeless by day may awaken by night, not as a true beast, but as a manifestation of fear, consequence, or something disturbed beyond human understanding.