Yesterday, Priest boys, today the Yokai are actual Priests. Such as this 岩魚坊主 (いわなぼうず), Iwana Bouzu or Char Priest. (Char is a fishy. Salvelinus leucomaenis)
Iwana bōzu are enormous iwana, a
kind of river fish, that have turned into yōkai. They walk upright on
two legs like humans and dress in Buddhist priest robes. They are found
by mountain streams where people fish for iwana and other river fish.
Iwana bōzu appear out of nowhere and ask people who are fishing to stop and go home. They usually approach people catching more fish than they need to survive rather than those who are just feeding their families. In particular, they target those who use extreme measures of fishing, such as poisoning the river with Japanese pepper (Zanthoxylum piperitum), which causes fish to float to surface and makes them easy to catch. They lecture about refraining from needless killing, and taking life only when it is necessary to survive, and so on. Because they dress and speak in a manner that resembles a Buddhist priest, they are usually not immediately recognized as yōkai. It is only until later, after departing, that something seems off or strange and you realize that the person you thought was a priest was in fact a yōkai.
non sequiter: Hey, we had a pretty cool Hunters Moon tonight!
A really lazy Junji Ito entry today. A Top 15 list of his strongest characters. (It's by Anime Priest, so it's part of today's theme.)
Finally, how about a Gatcha? Not sure who it is, but it could be a priest, I reckon.
More stuff tomorrow...
