Dodomeki

The most widely cited early depiction is Toriyama Sekien’s entry, which presents the dodomeki as a cursed human form associated with habitual theft. Sekien’s plate includes an explanatory note that links the creature to a many-eyed motif (Dōmeki/百目鬼) and to the visual of dōsen (a copper coin called chōmoku, 'bird's eye'); Sekien also cites a source called Kankan-gaishi, a work which later commentators note may never have existed. Beyond Sekien’s commentary and later narrative summaries (for example the Muromachi-period tale recorded in modern summaries), no definitive pre-Sekien origin text is supplied in the provided sources.

Sekien’s depiction and modern summaries describe the dodomeki as a human woman whose long arms are covered with numerous 'bird eyes'—marks that sources state resemble the Japanese dōsen (a copper coin with a central hole known as the chōmoku). The long arms themselves are emphasized as a distinguishing physical trait. Modern popular-culture adaptations vary widely in visual detail (for example Yo-kai Watch’s Eyesoar with a limited number of eyes and added horns, and various video-game renditions), but these are derivative reinterpretations rather than the original source description.

Source material links the dodomeki’s form to habitual theft: the long arms are described as reflecting a cultural belief that people with long arms tend to steal, and the bird-eye marks on the arms are explicitly compared to dōsen coins. The Muromachi-period narrative summarized in modern sources recounts a series of fires at a temple built on an old battle site that were attributed to a dodomeki; in that tale the creature repeatedly appeared and caused fires to drive priests away until a priest named Chitoku preached in the temple, after which the dodomeki overheard the sermons, became enlightened, and vowed to cease evil deeds. The sources do not provide a catalog of additional supernatural powers, limits, or lifecycle details beyond these behaviors and this single narrative resolution.