Western pop culture exerts a powerful influence on Japan. Nowadays, when Japanese people hear the word ningyo (“human fish”), which is their term for “mermaid,” they think of the variety popularized by Disney and Hans Christian Andersen: a beautiful woman with a fish’s body from the waist down, despite “ningyo” originally meaning something very different. Then again, it probably wasn’t that much of a struggle to put the old image of the Japanese mermaid to rest, seeing as it involved high-octane nightmare fuel with just a touch of semi-cannibalism.
What a Traditional Japanese Mermaid Looks Like Japanese mermaids have been described very differently, depending on the time and place. Early accounts from northern Japan in the 13th century talk of fishermen catching strange fish shaped “like a human corpse.” The Kokon Chomonju , a collection of myths and legends completed in 1254, contains a passage about people in Ise Province (modern-day Mie Prefecture) coming across fish with human heads, monkey-like faces and protruding mouths.
They reportedly cried when anyone tried to approach them, though why anyone would want to do that is unclear. This image of large fish with human heads then had a few offshoots. In some descriptions, the ningyo don’t cry but rather talk with the voice of a child or trill like a skylark.
Because it’s nice to have options on one’s descent into madness. Later accounts talk of strange sea creatures washing up on Japanese shores wi.