page_title: Akashita
section_title: Akaguchi
hierarchical_section_title: Akashita / Akaguchi
caption_attribution_description: English: Akaguchi 赤口 from Bakemono no e (化物之繪, c. 1700), Harry F. Bruning Collection of Japanese Books and Manuscripts, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University.
context_page_description: Akashita is a Japanese yōkai that appears in yōkai emaki in the Edo Period, among other places. They are depicted as a beast with clawed hands and a very hairy face covered with dark clouds, but its full body appearance is unknown. In its opened mouth is a big tongue.
  It is drawn as a beast with clawed hands and a hairy face, with most of its body hidden in a black cloud over a floodgate. It is characterized by its open mouth and large tongue. Sekien did not attach an explanatory note about this yōkai, but its origins are identifiable as Akaguchi which appears in older Edo period yōkai scrolls such as Bakemono no e. This yōkai is known interchangeably as Akaguchi and Akashita.
context_section_description: In the Edo Period yōkai emaki Hyakkai Zukan (Sawaki Suushi, 1737), the Bakemonozukushi (author and year unknown, held by Kagaya Rei), the Bakemono Emaki (author and year unknown, at the Kawasaki City Museum), there is a yōkai depicted called the "akaguchi" (赤口 or あか口) that appears to be modeled after the "akashita" drawn by Sekien. They have a wide open red mouth (including the tongue), the clawed hands, the hairy face, which are points of commonality with the beast depicted as covered with black clouds in the Jikkai Sugoroku and the "akashita" of Sekien. They do not depict a sluice.
  According to the Edo Period writing Kiyū Shōran (嬉遊笑覧), it can be seen that one of the yōkai that it notes is depicted in the Bakemono E (化物絵) drawn by Kōhōgen Motonobu is one by the name of "akaguchi."
  Concerning "akaguchi," Katsumi Tada favors the idea that they come from the shakkō/shakku (赤口) of the rokuyō (六曜, a system of lucky and unlucky days).
caption: Akaguchi (Akashita), bakemono no e, Brigham Young University
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