Amabie

Amabie (アマビエ) is a legendary Japanese mermaid or merman with a bird beak-like mouth and three legs or tail-fins, who allegedly emerges from the sea, prophesies either an abundant harvest or an epidemic, and instructed people to make copies of its likeness to defend against illness.

The amabie appears to be a variant or misspelling of the amabiko or amahiko (Japanese: アマビコ, アマヒコ, 海彦, 尼彦, 天日子, 天彦, あま彦), otherwise known as the amahiko-nyūdo (尼彦入道), also a prophetic beast depicted variously in different examples, being mostly as 3-legged or 4-legged, and said to bear ape-like (sometimes torso-less), daruma doll-like, or bird-like, or fish-like resemblance according to commentators.

This information was typically disseminated in the form of illustrated woodblock print bulletins (kawaraban) or pamphlets (surimono) or hand-drawn copies.

According to legend, an amabie appeared in Higo Province (Kumamoto Prefecture), around the middle of the fourth month, in the year Kōka-3 (mid-May 1846) in the Edo period.

According to the sketch made by this official, it had long hair, a mouth like bird's bill, was covered in scales from the neck down and three-legged.

[16] The accompanying caption texts describes some as glowing (at night) or having ape-like voices,[17] but description of physical appearance is rather scanty.

[18] The majority of pictorial represent the amabiko/amabie as 3-legged (or odd-number legged), with a couple cases rather like an ordinary quadruped.

[34] The Amahiko-no-mikoto (天日子尊, ‘His Highness Heaven Prince’) was spotted in a rice paddy in Yuzawa, Niigata, as reported by the Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun [ja] from 1875.

(尼彦, ‘nun prince’) is represented by a hand-painted copy owned by Kōichi Yumoto [ja],[43] an authority in the study of this yōkai.

[44] This document has a terminus post quem of 1871 (Meiji 4) or later,[i][32] The painting is said to depict a quadruped, with extremely close similarity in form to the mikoto (ape- or daruma doll-like) by commentators.

[47] This creature allegedly predicted global-scale doom thirty-odd years ahead,[m] conveniently coinciding with the time the peddlers were selling them, prompting researcher Eishun Nagano to comment that while the text may or may not have been genuinely composed in the Edo Period, the illustrations were probably contemporary,[48] though he guesses that the merchandise was surimono woodblock print.

nyūdō (尼彦入道, ‘nun prince monk’) on a surimono print, which purportedly appeared in Hyūga Province,[50] The illustration here resembles an old man with bird-like body and nine legs.

[51] Among the other prophetic beasts was the arie (アリエ), which appeared in "Aotori-kōri" county, Higo Province, according to the Kōfu Nichinichi Shimbun[n] newspaper dated 17 June 1876, although this report has been debunked by another paper.

Manga artists (e.g. Chica Umino, Mari Okazaki and Toshinao Aoki) published their cartoon versions of amabie on social networks.