Urban Legends and More

Kappa

The Kappa is the most famous of all the legendary Japanese monsters. He resembles a cross between a monkey, a frog and a turtle.

The Kappa has the face of a monkey with the beak of a turtle and a plate-shaped depression in the top of his head. He has green skin like a frog and a turtle shell on his back. His arms and legs are able to stretch out really long and his hands and feet are webbed like a frog.

Kappas usually play pranks such as delivering loud, smelly farts and peeking up women's dresses. However, they have also been known to commit horrible crimes like kidnapping small children and killing people and eating their internal organs.

The Kappa will lurk underwater in rivers and streams, waiting for its victims. In olden days in Japan, people would go squat by the side of a river and go to the toilet. The Kappa would swim underneath you, until it could see your big bare butt hanging over the side of the bank. Then it attacks when you least suspect it.

Sometimes the Kappa grabs your butt and drags you into the water, holding you under the surface until you drown. At other times, the Kappa sticks his elongated arm up your butt, up through your insides and grabs hold of your tongue. Then the Kappa pulls your tongue out through your butt, turning your body inside-out. Finally, as you flop around on the ground, with your skin on the inside and your guts on the outside, the Kappa takes out your liver and eats it whole.

Nowadays, since people go to the toilet indoors, the Kappa lurks in sewers and bathroom pipes. He sticks his arm up into your toilet, waiting for you to come along and sit down on the bowl. So if you're ever sitting on the toilet and you feel something moving underneath you, jump up as fast as you can. You may just avoid being turned inside-out by a Kappa.