Shuten-Doji

(SHOE-tin Dodge-EE)

In Japanese lore, there is a hideously ugly and deformed vampiric REVENANT known as shuten-doji ("sake-drinking lad"). Carefully using its long clawed fingers, the shuten-doji plays on its flute a mesmerizing tune that places anyone who listens to it into a trance like state. Once the person is under its spell, the shuten-doji kills him with its long claws, drinking the blood. Usually this vampire keeps to itself, as it does not even like the company of its own kind. Beyond its remarkable flute-playing abilities and its claws, the shuten-doji has the strength and reflexes of an average human being.

Source: Asiatic Society of Japan, Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, 67; Marra, Japanese Hermeneutics, 1 29­30, 140­41; Shirane, Traditional Japanese Literature, 1123; Tanaka, New Times in Modern Japan, 58­60