Ask John: What are “Tanooki?”

Question:
In several anime, manga, Japanese video games, photographs of Japan, and even in culturally themed shops, I keep seeing what appears to be a statue of a happy looking badger-like creature with a straw hat, holding a gourd bottle, sometimes portrayed with exaggerated male organs. I see them portrayed mostly in front of rural houses, shops, or in Shinto themed stories. In the Super NES game “Pocky & Rocky,” the character Rocky (a raccoon) can turn into one of the statues, and they are used as puzzle pieces in the arcade game “Dharma Doujou.” Most memorably, one was used in a booby trap in the Ranma ½ manga, and one inexplicably fell on, and stuck to, Ryoko’s head in Tenchi Muyo.

The frequent sightings were getting eerie, so I asked an anime friend if they knew what it is. They said they knew it was a “tanooki.” The magic raccoon costume in the english Super Mario 3 was called a “Tanooki suit,” and it enables Mario to turn into a statue of a “wise man.” Could Tanooki merely be the Japanese word for raccoon, or is it some sort of mythical creature linked to raccoons? What’s the cultural significance of the statues? Are Tanooki a real sub species?

Answer:
Tanuki (Nyctereutes Procyonoides) are a member of the Canidae family that includes raccoons, foxes and dogs and are often referred to as “raccoon dogs.” They are indigenous to East Asia and the Far East including Japan, China, Indonesia and even Siberia. Their size and appearance is roughly similar that that of the North American raccoon. At one time tanuki were very common in Japan, but their number have dwindled to the point at which they are now protected by Japanese wildlife conservation laws.

According to Japanese folklore, tanuki are said to possess unnatural strength and the power to shape-shift or transform. The tanuki is also particularly mischievous, with a tendency to distend his scrotum to exceptional dimensions and beat it like a drum while standing on his hind legs by the roadside to attract and delay travelers. Thus the “golden balls” or “exaggerated male organs.” It’s said that the tanuki would often disguise itself as a monk in order to further its goal of waylaying travelers. It’s also tradition that one of the tanuki’s favorite pranks was to transform into a human and buy sake with fake money made of leaves. This is, of course, why the tanuki is often seen with a wine bottle or gourd. In contemporary times, the tanuki dressed as a monk has joined the maneki neko (lucky cat) statue as symbol of good-luck. The tanuki’s tendency to stop passers-by is put to good use by tanuki statues outside stores and restaurants that are supposed to encourage customers to stop and enter.

Studio Ghibli’s fantastic 1994 movie Heisei Tanuki Gassen Ponpoko, directed by Isao Takahata with assistance from Hayao Miyazaki, tells the story of human encroachment into the tanuki’s wilderness territory in the 1960s and the subsequent “war” between the tanuki and human societies.

Naturally, in the original Japanese version of the KiKi KaiKai (Pocky & Rocky) video game, “Rocky” was a tanuki rather than a racoon, and the “tanooki” suit of Super Mario 3 and it’s shape changing power would be totally familiar to Japanese gamers.