Tanuki

The real tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) has been associated with supernatural powers since at least the Nara period (8th century). Folk tradition holds that an old tanuki acquires magic powers and can become a major yokai.

Unlike the kitsune's refined cunning, the tanuki's magic tends toward broad comedy — transforming leaves into gold (which reverts at dawn), disguising itself as a monk to beg food, inflating its belly to terrible size for drum-like rhythms (tanuki-bayashi).

In natural form, a stout raccoon-dog with characteristic markings. In folk art and statuary, a standing anthropomorphic tanuki with a straw hat, sake jug, and comically oversized scrotum — a prosperity symbol. In human disguise, often an eccentric monk or merchant.

Shape-shifting into humans, objects, and landscapes. Transforms leaves into coins (which revert to leaves at dawn). Illusion-casting at small scale. Drums on its distended belly to produce the eerie music heard in mountain woods.