Everything about Baku Spirit totally explained
» A baku by Katsushika Hokusai. For other uses, see Baku (disambiguation).
are
Japanese supernatural beings that devour dreams and nightmares. They have a long history in Japanese
folklore and art, and more recently have appeared in Japanese
anime and
manga (see examples cited below).
The Japanese term
baku has two current meanings, referring to both the traditional dream-devouring creature and to the zoological
tapir (for example, the
Malaysian tapir). In Korean, the term is maek (Hangul: 맥, Hanja: 貊). In recent years, there have been changes in how the baku is depicted.
History and Description
The traditional Japanese nightmare-devouring baku originates in
Chinese folklore and was familiar in Japan as early as the
Muromachi period (14th-15th century). Hori Tadao (2005) has described the dream-eating abilities attributed to the traditional baku and relates them to other preventatives against nightmare like the use of
amulets. Kaii-Yōkai Denshō Database, citing a 1957 paper, and Mizuki (2004) also describe the dream-devouring capacities of the traditional baku.
An early 17th century Japanese manuscript, the Sankai Ibutsu (山海異物), describes the baku as a Chinese mythical
chimera with an
elephant’s trunk,
rhinoceros eyes, an
ox tail, and
tiger paws, which in belief protected against pestilence and evil, although eating nightmares wasn't included among its abilities. However, in a 1791 Japanese wood-block illustration, a specifically dream-destroying baku is depicted with an elephant’s head, tusks, and trunk, with horns and tiger’s claws. The elephant’s head, trunk, and tusks are characteristic of baku portrayed in classical era (pre-
Meiji) Japanese wood-block prints (see illustration) and in shrine, temple, and
netsuke carvings. Writing in the Meiji era,
Lafcadio Hearn (1902) described a baku with very similar attributes that was also able to devour nightmares.
Since the 1980s in manga, anime, and other forms of popular culture, the baku appears not as a chimera of an elephant and tiger but as a zoologically recognizable tapir. Examples include
Takahashi Rumiko's manga
Urusei Yatsura (1995) and
Mikimoto Haruhiko's manga
Marionatte Generation (2001, original 1990), and in anime,
Oshii Mamoru’s 1984 film about Lum,
Beautiful Dreamer. Such baku also appear in
Pokémon and
Digimon (the Drowzee is a baku-like Pokémon, and Digimon features a character called Bakumon) . "Baku" is a main character in the
Playstation 2 game
Dual Hearts, characterized as a "pig" that eats dreams. However, not all modern baku/yumekui are tapirs ("yumekui" means "dreamcatcher"). In Satoshi Kon’s 2007 animated film “
Paprika,” Paprika, a young woman who is kami of the Dreamtime, is a baku/yumekui who devours a dream-villain at the film’s climax. Hakase Mizuki's 2007 manga
Ba_ku (
sic) and Shin Mashiba's 2008 manga
Nightmare Inspector: Yumekui Kenbun are also about baku/yumekui who are not tapirs. The Playstation game
FFIX features a character named Baku who resembles a pig.
Dream-eating, tapir-shaped baku have also entered non-Japanese popular culture. The picture book "The Dream Eater" by Christian Garrison tells the story of a young boy, Yukio, who meets a baku and brings it to his village . Neil Gaiman’s "The Dream Hunters,” which is based on Japanese mythology, features baku . A video game featuring a dream-eating tapir also exists (see external link).
Further Information
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