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Umibōzu (海坊主) is a shadowy giant in Japanese Mythology that rises from the sea and sinks ships. Its name means "sea monk" or "sea baldy", with 坊主 bōzu being an informal Japanese translation for the Sanskrit word भिक्षु (bhikkhu), the proper term for a Buddhist monk. They are sometimes called "Umihōshi" (海法師) or "Uminyuudo" (海入道), all of which could be translated as "sea bonze" or "sea priest".
Umibōzu are said to have hairless, black or gray skin, no facial features save for a pair of eyes, and bald heads, the last of which inspired the comparison to Buddhist monks. And while some stories claim them to be the angry spirits of Buddhist priests who drowned at sea, it's more often said to be just a bit of Baldness Mockery. Their modus operandi is typical of gigantic sea monsters, rising from the depths in the dead of night to capsize boats and pull sailors to a watery grave. Other stories claim that an umibōzu will demand a barrel which they use to fill their target ship with water; to avoid this danger, the umibōzu must be given a barrel with a missing bottom. However, said behavior is more commonly attributed to the Funayūrei, another maritime youkai that appears as the ghost of a dead sailor.
There also exists what could be called a modernized version of the Umibōzu legend in the form of the Ningen, an Antarctic cryptid often sighted by Japanese whalers. Descriptions and representations often resemble a pure-white Umibōzu, although it is typically said to be docile. Additionally, European folklore has its own similarly named counterparts to the Umibōzu in the form of the sea monk and the bishop fish, merman-like creatures that appear as holy men of a piscine nature.
Sub-Trope of Our Giants Are Bigger and Yōkai, of the Sea Monster variety. The folkloric tales Umibōzu appeared in are often a kind of Oceanic Horror. For another youkai based on Buddhist monks, see Aobōzu. In some Japanese prefectures, it's conflated with the Nurarihyon.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Akazukin Chacha: An umibouzu apparently named "Umibouzu" (he has a sister named Umibouko) is a minor character in the TV adaptation, largely being a Satellite Character and Hopeless Suitor toward mermaid Marin. He follows the usual portrayal of being a bald, gonk giant, so it's likely Marin would've disdained him even if she weren't already obsessed with Riiya.
- Dragon Ball: Darkness, the frightening being that guards the Ultra Divine Water in the anime version of the Demon King Saga very much resembles a Umibōzu
. Possibly a case of Dark Is Not Evil as it allows Goku to drink the water once he proves his worthiness.
- Doraemon: Nobita borrows a Yokai-summoning gadget-of-the-week from Doraemon before going on a trip to Suneo's seaside mansion. One of such monsters that he brings out is an Umibozu to help him swim (as Nobita naturally sucks at swimming, he only needs to stand on the submerged Umibozu's head and make a swimming motion with his arms).
- GeGeGe no Kitarō: Umibōzu are a race of youkai that have been portrayed in a wide range of appearances. Big eyes, rounded complexions, and underwater breathing are traits shared by all, but, for example, the 2018 is huge, black-colored, and always submerged in water. The 1985 incarnation, on the other hand, is smaller, distinctly humanoid, and has light-blue skin. In Yōkai Sen Monogatari, Umibōzu's head is a literal circle; its face sports some wrinkles.
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Invoked with the Umibōzu, a black operations unit of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force. Their armor — all black aside from stark-white masks — leans into the imagery of the mythical youkai. They are introduced in "C: Sunset in the Lonely City – ANNIHILATION".
- Kakuriyo: Bed and Breakfast for Spirits: Episode 25 introduces the Umi-bouzu, an Ayakashi who spreads a curse that results in natural disasters and arrives in Tenjin-ya once every 100 years to eat their cuisine. Once thought to be hostile, he's actually revealed to be childlike and lonely, since everyone thinks seeing his face will cause misfortune.
- Mononoke: The series plays with the meaning of the term. While seeking passage on a ferry, the medicine seller meets a literal human monk, whose guilt over his village's human sacrifice to the ocean has corrupted him into a mononoke. At one point, the monk casts a giant shadow with visible eyes, but this is the closest the series comes to showing a traditional umibōzu.
- Naruto: In the Land of the Sea arc, Amachi, a seaperson, has an Umibōzu-summoning jutsu. It's an elemental spirit made entirely of seawater that can reform over and over and is largely immune to fire-style jutsu. Normal attacks don't damage it, and it can swallow people. It's a very horrifying battle to watch, which perfectly suits one of Orochimaru's accomplices.
- One Piece: At the end of the Thriller Bark arc, a huge shadow with glowing red eyes appears within the fog of the Florian Triangle. Its true nature or even shape is never revealed, but it considerably dwarfs Thriller Bark, an island-sized pirate ship, in size. During the Fish-Man Island arc, they actually mistake the giant fishman Wadatsumi for a Uminyudo, a variation of the Umibōzu.
- Tonari no Yōkai-san: Youkai are completely integrated into human society and are subsequently much more benign than most examples. Umibōzu don't take more human forms, unlike many of the others, so they aren't actually part of society in the same way, but seeing them is regarded as like seeing a whale — impressive and not regarded as threatening, at least from a distance.
- Undead Unluck: Ichico attempts to summon an umibozu to counter Language's dragon. However, due to a limited understanding of the yokai, she ends up summoning a cute mascot version of the yokai that the dragon quickly burns to a crisp.
Arts
- Bakemono no e takes a liberal interpretation of this monster, depicting it as much more sea-creature-based than it is human. The creepy, bulging eyes remain, but it's also got barbels protruding out of its nostrils and spiny rays all over its black body. It also swims in a vague fish-like manner.
- The Story of Sailor Tokusō◊🇯🇵: An 1845 ukiyo-e woodprint by Utagawa Kuniyoshi depicts a sailor named Kawanaya Tokuzo in his encounter with an Umibōzu off the eastern coast. The artwork is painted in rich colors (particularly, the ocean tides), as the monster looms over the sailor's vessel.
Films — Animation
- Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken: Grandmammah tells her granddaughter that Umibōzu is one of many sea monsters she's faced as the ocean's guardian. There's even a statue of the fiend in her rogues' gallery.
Live-Action TV
- Guru Guru Medaman: Umibōzu is one of the six heroic obake protagonists. He looks like a giant blue bedsheet ghost with white, unkempt hair. He is shy and easily startled, which causes him to fall over and spit out water and fish. Due to being from another world, it's only after his stay with the Kosaka household that he ever sees Earth's oceans, even though his predecessors lived there.
- Super Sentai: Umibōzu appear as a Monster of the Week in both Ninja Sentai Kakuranger (adapted in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers as the Aquitar Rangers' Arch-Enemy Hydro Hog) and Shuriken Sentai Ninninger (adapted as Doomwave in Power Rangers Ninja Steel). In the former, he's capable of drinking down large bodies of water, making him deadly to the aquatic aliens. In the latter, it's a sea-luring anthropomorphized raft that came to be thanks to Masakage's enchanting job. It's mostly made of black plastic, with contrasting yellow eyes, and a lid mouth. It can summon a terror-inducing fog. Umibozu also wields a double-bladed naginata.
Tabletop Games
- Pathfinder: Sea bonzes are colossal undead creatures created from maritime disasters — typically, a sea bonze is animated by the lingering fear, pain, and despair of entire crews who died at sea. They resemble limbless, featureless humanoids with rubbery black skin and glowing eyes, and exist only to stalk and destroy ships. They show no mercy to those who try to fight back with brawn or weapons, but have an odd respect for those who can outwit them and are sometimes talked out of their attacks thanks to the efforts of fast-talking crew members.
Toys
- Monster in My Pocket: Umi Bozu — later rebranded as Giant Sea Phantom — is Monster #118. It resembles a large, bald humanoid with serpentine limbs, and its description summarizes its mythical behavior before comparing its habit of drowning people to the undine and its appearance to the bishop fish.
Video Games
- Age of Mythology: The Umibozu is a Japanese myth unit. It appears as a near-featureless black giant with a Celestial Body, tattoos on its upper torso, and clawed fingers which makes it resemble the Florian Triangle monsters from One Piece. In game, it functions as a high-tier amphibious myth unit.
- Ganbare Goemon: In Goemon's Great Adventure, a Umi Bozu shows up as a background stalker in the Underground Castle where it tries you squash you flat with its giant metal club. It also appears along with Kabuki 64 in his boss fight.
- The Mimic: Umibōzu are a species of giant dark humanoids that harass protagonist Isamu on his journey. They attack the boats of anyone they see, and their glare reduces the player's health.
- Monster Hunter: Rise: The rare Endemic Life Monksnail, while not actually a fightable monster, is obviously based on this. It's a gigantic snail creature that lives around the Frozen Islands, looking like a water drop rising from the depths that only appears at night. It's mostly harmless, but its sheer size, tendency to only show up from afar when it's dark, and bioluminescent spots that look like Glowing Eyes of Doom have terrified sailors for generations.
- Muramasa: The Demon Blade: Umibōzu is an optional encounter while riding the fishing boat, appearing as a gigantic octopus. It's only ever referred to as a sea monster, but you can hear "umibōzu" in the fisherman's speech.
- Nioh: The Umibōzu appears as a gargantuan blob made of seawater with a giant shining core made of Amrita, which initially attacks William's ship as he sets sail from Kyushu and is later fought as the boss of a seaside, half-submerged temple. It can spawn lesser Umibōzu, attack by spitting flotsam, but is vulnerable to fire.
- Nioh 2: In the first DLC, the boss of the first mission is the Uminyudo, a monster resembling the Umibōzu with an alternate smaller humanoid form, resembling a monk-like figure composed of water tentacles with a fiery humanoid visage, and is actually the Youkai form of Taira no Kiyomori.
- The Ocean Hunter: Umibōzu, one of the minibosses, is a gigantic, dark blue octopus whose rounded mantle somewhat resembles a man's shaven head.
- Octopath Traveler II: The Scourge of the Sea is one of the minibosses that the protagonists can encounter on the sea. It looks like a large water ghost with beast fists and glowing eyes. It's directly called Umibōzu in the Japanese version.
- Onmyōji (2016): In a play on "sea monk", umibouzu are Fish People in priest clothes. They have an undeserved bad reputation, because they try to protect people but people only listen when they threaten them. Their attacks are water-based and can both harm enemies and heal allies.
- Pikmin:
- Pikmin 2: The Waterwraith shares many parallels with the umibōzu. It doesn't appear on the ship's radar (like a ghost), is theorized to be the reason why so many ships have crash landed on PNF-404, and is a humanoid seemingly made of water, or maybe cytoplasm; the waterwraith's name in Japanese, アメボウズ Amebouzu, is a Portmanteau of "amoeba" and "umibouzu".
- Pikmin 3: The Plasm Wraith, the game's final boss is a sentient moving blob of golden goo with a strange cube in the center, that appears vaguely humanoid at times. It's based on the Umibōzu of Japanese folklore, an equally eldritch monster that destroys ships and keeps the treasures and captains for itself.
- Splatoon:
- Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion: Commander Tartar's sunken human sculpture takes inspiration from this youkai. It's placed in the middle of the sea, emerging from abyssal depths to figuratively sink Inkling society by exterminating them all. While Agent 8 covers it with ink, her/his allies fight it from a sort of floating platform.
- Splatoon 3: As a part of the franchise's overwhelmingly nautical Theme Naming, this Youkai is Invoked with two clothing items — the green Umibōzu Home Jersey and black Umibōzu Road Jersey. Both are printed with a sports team logo of an angry bald figure with blank eyes and a big Gag Nose (the latter's obscured by an accompanying stopwatch accessory).
- Yo-kai Watch: Swosh — Umi-bōzu in Japanese — is a Water-attribute Yo-kai resembling a large mobile lump of soil, with rounded counters and only a pair of eyes for a face.
Web Original
- SNARLED: In "The Umibozu of Japan", Captain Oto and his crew encounter an Umibōzu during a preternaturally originated storm. Just prior, the narration establishes Umibōzu as Buddhist monks thrown to the sea to drown, becoming 'enraged and restless'. The Umibōzu towers above them, a shadowy, wizened figure with conspicuous eyes. Shooting cannonballs at it does little more than piss it off. The sailors don't make it alive.
- SCP Foundation:
- SCP-2781 — Bodhisattva of the High Seas: As initially understood by the SCP Foundation, SCP-2781 matches a non-humanoid but still traditional interpretation of the umibōzu, previously counted as 968 in total. They use tentacles to grab and constrict a person partially or fully submerged in water before they spontaneously vanish, the Foundation losing Agent Trip Kata this way in 1983. Decades later, in 2014, SCP-2781-969 appeared along with a new containment facility on the Kii Channel full of apparitions of the other SCP-2871, and SCP-2781's file was edited using the missing Agent Kata's credentials. SCP-2871-969 edited the document to attest that they are not carnivorous Sea Monsters who prey upon humans, but quite literally a marine Mahayana Buddhist sect. The "bodhisattva of the high seas" bring their abductees to a Magical Land (unofficially designated SCP-2871-A by the converted agent) to innately learn dharma teachings and either achieve Fantastic Nirvana or refuse Ascending to a Higher Plane of Existence to bring more humans like they had been.
- SCP-3611 — The Yamauchi Deck: SCP-3611 is an antique deck of hand-painted obake-karuta playing cards, the third card of which (SCP-3611-0003) is "The Umiōozu / 海坊主".
- SCP-6946 — Corregidor and War Machine: SCP-6946 is a biomechanical Humongous Mecha made by the SCP Foundation to fight the Imperial Japanese Anomalous Matters Examination Agency during World War II, that fought and was sunken in the Battle of Manila. Invoked by the IJAMEA, who codenamed their enemy's colossal water-faring weapon "Umibōzu" due to thematic likeness with the yokai.
- SCP-2781
Western Animation
- Adventure Time: In "The Visitor", an ominous, giant humanoid appears during Martin's story/flashback. By emerging from the ocean, it creates enough of a tide to easily upturn a raft. It's shadowy in appearance, and its eyes emit white light beams. In many senses, it's probably inspired by the Umibōzu youkai, if not being necessarily one. Later seasons reveal that it's actually the Guardian, a mechanical humanoid robot created by the human founders of the island settlement to keep the dangers of the post-apocalyptic world out while preventing any humans from leaving the settlement either.
