The is a type of Japanese dragon or legendary serpent-like creature, either found in an aquatic habitat or otherwise connected to water. Some commentators perceived it to have been a

water deity A water deity is a deity in mythology associated with water or various bodies of water. Water deities are common in mythology and were usually more important among civilizations in which the sea or ocean, or a great river was more important. Anoth ...

. It is described in the ''

Nihon Shoki The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

'' and one ''

Man'yōshū The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...

'' poem.

Etymology

In olden times pronounced ''mi-tsu-chi'', the word can be broken down to ''mi'' "water" + ''tsu'' a

particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...

meaning "of" + ''chi'' "spirit". The ''-chi'' is glossed as a word root used only as a part of a compound word (as a

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns and adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can ca ...

, etc.)

Chinese character representation

''Mizuchi'' is also the Japanese transliteration for several Chinese

glyphs A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

, each glyph putatively representing a type of

Chinese dragon The Chinese dragon or loong is a legendary creature in Chinese mythology, Chinese folklore, and Chinese culture generally. Chinese dragons have many animal-like forms, such as Bixi (mythology), turtles and Chiwen, fish, but are most commonly ...

: namely the '' jiāolóng'' ( 蛟竜; ) or "4-legged dragon", the '' qiúlóng'' ( 虬竜 or 虯竜; ) or "hornless dragon" and the '' chīlóng'' ( 螭竜; ) or "yellow dragon". F. J. Daniels cautions that for and ''mizuchi'', "it is unsafe to deduce their forms from the Chinese characters allotted to them".

Kunio Yanagita was a Japanese author, scholar, and Folklore studies, folklorist. He began his career as a bureaucrat, but developed an interest in rural Japan and its folk traditions. This led to a change in his career. His pursuit of this led to his eventual e ...

also emphasized that while the use of character like 虬 may suggest a snake-like being, it should be stressed that the ''mizuchi'' signifies a "water spirit".

Early references

The ancient chronicle ''

Nihongi The or , sometimes translated as ''The Chronicles of Japan'', is the second-oldest book of classical Japanese history. It is more elaborate and detailed than the , the oldest, and has proven to be an important tool for historians and archaeol ...

'' contains references to ''mizuchi''. Under the 67th year of the reign of Emperor Nintoku (conventionally dated 379 AD), it is mentioned that in central Kibi Province, at a fork on Kawashima River (川嶋河, old name of Takahashi River in

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,826,059 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture ...

), a great water serpent or dragon (大虬) dwelt and would breathe or spew out its venom, poisoning and killing many passersby. This ''mizuchi'' was exterminated by a man named , ancestor of the clan. He approached the pool of the river, cast three

calabash Calabash (; ''Lagenaria siceraria''), also known as bottle gourd, white-flowered gourd, long melon, birdhouse gourd, New Guinea bean, New Guinea butter bean, Tasmania bean, and opo squash, is a vine grown for its fruit. It can be either harvest ...

es which floated to the surface of the water and challenged the beast to make these gourds sink, threatening to slay it should it fail. The beast transformed into a deer and tried unsuccessfully to sink them, whereby the man slew the monster. The record goes on to say: "...He further sought out the water-dragon's fellows. Now the tribe of all the water-dragons filled a cave in the bottom of the pool. He slew them every one and the water of the river became changed to blood. Therefore that water was called the pool of Agatamori". A river-god reported seen in Nintoku 11 (putatively 323 AD) is also regarded by commentators to be a mizuchi, due to paralleling circumstances. On that year, the built along Yodo River kept getting breached and the Emperor guided by an oracular dream ordered two men, Kowa-kubi from

Musashi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Kawasaki and Yokohama. ...

and Koromo-no-ko from

Kawachi Province was a Provinces of Japan, province of Japan in the eastern part of modern Osaka Prefecture. It originally held the southwestern area that was split off into Izumi Province. It was also known as . Geography The area was radically different in th ...

, be sought out and sacrificed to the "River God" or . One of the men, who resisted being sacrificed, employed the floating calabash and dared the River God to sink it as proof to show it was truly divine will that demanded him as sacrifice. A whirlwind came and tried, but the calabash just floated away, and thus he extricated himself from death using his wits. Although River God is not called ''mizuchi'' in the source,

Aston Aston is an area of inner Birmingham, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. Located immediately to the north-west of Birmingham city centre, Central Birmingham, Aston constitutes a wards of the United Kingdom, war ...

has regarded the River God (Kawa-no-kami) and the ''mizuchi'' as equivalent. concludes, "From this passage, we learn that in ancient times human sacrifices were made to the dragon-shaped river-gods". Michael Dylan Foster suggests this is "perhaps the first documented appearance of the water spirit that would become known popularly in Japan as the

kappa Kappa (; uppercase Κ, lowercase κ or cursive ; , ''káppa'') is the tenth letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the voiceless velar plosive sound in Ancient and Modern Greek. In the system of Greek numerals, has a value of 20. It was d ...

". A mizuchi is also mentioned in the

, the ancient collection of Japanese poems. The tanka poem #3833 composed by ''Man'yōshū'' #3833 by Prince Saikabe, original text:"虎尓乗古屋乎越而青淵尓鮫龍取将来劒刀毛我" can be loosely paraphrased to mean "I could ride a tiger to leap over the Old Shack, to the green pool, to take down the ''mizuchi'' dragon there, if only I had a sword capable of doing just that".

Folklorist studies

Polymath Minakata Kumagusu, in his essay states "Even in our country (Japan), the various snakes that dwelled by water and were feared by people seemed to have been called ''mizuchi,'' or 'master of the water'". Here Minakata draws on

Edo Period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

scholar

Motoori Norinaga was a Japanese people, Japanese scholar of active during the Edo period. He is conventionally ranked as one of the Four Great Men of Kokugaku (nativist) studies. Life Norinaga was born in what is now Matsusaka, Mie, Matsusaka in Ise Province ...

' suggestion that the ''-chi'' signified an

honorific An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense to refer to an Honorary title (academic), h ...

. As stated above folklorist Yanagita emphasized the meaning of ''chi'' as "spirit".

Corruption into kappa

Minakata also conjectured that in some parts of the country, ''mizuchi'' eventually came to be regarded as creatures of the ''kappa'' kind. This is because the ''kappa'' creatures are known locally by many names that sound much like ''mizuchi'', such as ''mizushi'' (former Noto Province,

Ishikawa Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu island. Ishikawa Prefecture has a population of 1,096,721 (1 January 2025) and has a geographic area of 4,186 Square kilometre, km2 (1,616 sq mi). Ishikawa Pr ...

), ''medochi'' ( Nanbu region, parts of Iwate,

Aomori , officially Aomori City (, ), is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Aomori Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 264,945 in 136,781 households, and a population density of 321 people per squa ...

, Akita), ''mintsuchi'' ( Ezo, now

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

). Furthermore, in the lore of

Echigo Province was an old provinces of Japan, old province in north-central Japan, on the shores of the Sea of Japan. It bordered on Uzen Province, Uzen, Iwashiro Province, Iwashiro, Kōzuke Province, Kōzuke, Shinano Province, Shinano, and Etchū Province, ...

(

Niigata Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture in the Chūbu region of Honshu of Japan. Niigata Prefecture has a population of 2,131,009 (1 July 2023) and is the List of Japanese prefectures by area, fifth-largest prefecture of Japan by geographic area ...

), the kappa was said to abhor the calabash gourd,Yanagita, Kunio (1914), ''Santō mintan shū'', p. 84, cited by Minakata which is reminiscent of the episodes in ''Nihon Shoki'' where the River God or ''mizuchi'' are challenged to submerge the calabashes. Similar observations are made by folklorists Yanagita and Jun'ichirō Ishikawa. Minakata was also encouraged by the fact that the snake and the kappa (alongside the suppon soft-shelled turtle) were grouped as three creatures known to kill humans in water by 's essay ''Zen'an zuihitsu'' and conjectured that there used to be lore where sacred snakes which were "masters of the body of water" would transform into human form and wreak havoc, but terms such as ''mizushi'' became reserved for the kappa-kind, whereas the terms to refer to the "masters of the body of water" as ''mizuchi'' became forgotten.

In popular culture

;(vehicles, vessels) * ' (), (synonymous with ''mizuchi''), an ex-Japanese Navy submarine. * ''

Jiaolong ''Jiaolong'' () or ''jiao'' (''chiao'', ''kiao'') is a dragon in Chinese mythology, often defined as a "scaled dragon"; it is hornless according to certain scholars and said to be aquatic or river-dwelling. It may have referred to a species of cr ...

'' (), a Chinese deep-ocean

submersible A submersible is an underwater vehicle which needs to be transported and supported by a larger ship, watercraft or dock, platform. This distinguishes submersibles from submarines, which are self-supporting and capable of prolonged independent ope ...

. ;(novels) * , a 1998 horror novel by and its 2006 horror movie adaptation directed by , entitled "Death Water" in English, though theme is "water spirit" and not dragon. * '' Sohryuden: Legend of the Dragon Kings'' (novel) – A man named is an allusion. * In Andrew Rowe's ''Arcane Ascension'' series, Mizuchi, also known as Hero's End or Guardian of Secrets, is a giant water serpent, spire guardian of the Serpent Spire, and one of the God Serpent's daughters. ;(manga, anime) * '' Eight Clouds Rising'' – is one of seven divine swords. * '' GeGeGe no Kitaro'' (manga, anime) – a ''kōryū'' (syn. ''mizuchi'') appears as adversary. * '' Omamori Himari'' (manga, novella, anime) – the character Shizuku is a mizuchi. * ''

Our Home's Fox Deity. is a Japanese light novel series written by Jin Shibamura and illustrated by Eizō Hōden. The first novel was released in February 2004, with a total of seven volumes that have been published by ASCII Media Works under their Dengeki Bunko i ...

'' – A

miko A , or shrine maiden,Groemer, 28. is a young priestess who works at a Shinto shrine. were once likely seen as Shamanism, shamans,Picken, 140. but are understood in modern Japanese culture to be an institutionalized role in daily life, trained ...

priestess is possessed by a mizuchi. * '' Samurai Deeper Kyo'' (manga) – Demon Eyes Kyo uses an attack called "''mizuchi''" in his sword fighting style. Compare Japanese ''kōryū'' or ''kōryō'' 蛟竜 "rain dragon; hidden genius;

Kaiten were crewed torpedoes and suicide attack, suicide craft, used by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the final stages of World War II. Background In recognition of the unfavorable progress of the war, towards the end of 1943 the Japanese high co ...

torpedo". * '' Noragami'' (manga, anime) – the character Nora is called Mizuchi by Father and is frequently shown walking over water. * ''

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese Anime film, animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was produced by Toshio Suzuki, animated by Studio Ghibli, and distributed by Toho.Inuyasha'' (manga) - the character a snake yokai called Mizuchi using its spit venom and poison mist. * '' Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon'' (anime) - the character a snake yokai called Mizuchi using its spit venom and poison mist. ;(games) * ' (game) – player character becomes ''kōryū'' (one of the true dragons) when certain conditions are met. * '' Monster Hunter 2'' (PS 2) – an elder dragon type named Ōnazuchi is a take on mizuchi; named Chameleos in English-language platforms. * '' Neo Geo Battle Coliseum'' (game) – a boss character named Mizuchi, a clone of Orochi from ''

The King of Fighters '97 , often shortened as ''KOF '97'', is a 1997 fighting video game developed and published by SNK for its Neo Geo (system), Neo Geo multi-video system (MVS) arcade platform and its AES home console. It is the fourth game in ''The King of Fighters ...

'' *'' Ōkamiden'' (game) – a water dragon boss that used to be the guardian of a seaside village. *'' Nioh 2'' (game) – there is a water dragon guardian spirit called Mizuchi that the player can be imbued to characters to gain protection and special effects. * '' Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin'' (game) - The antagonist and final boss is a three headed water dragon named Omizuchi. The prefix o- is a Japanese honorific ( keigo).

Explanatory notes

References

;(primary sources) * *: submit "3833" in box to loa
Poem 3833
;(Secondary sources) * * * * * * Footnotes {{Japanese folklore long Japanese dragons Japanese folklore Japanese mythology Sea and river gods