| “ | Don't look at that white object! | „ |
| ~ The protagonist's grandfather in the original story. |
Kunekune is an antagonist found in Japanese folklore. It appears mainly in rice paddies, and if more information about it than what is visible, such as its appearance, is learned, it destroys the mind of the person who sees it, cause permanent insanity, infantile regression, or deadly mentally ill.
Appearance[]
Kunekune look like a white mist that retains a moderate amount of human form, with a black one appearing in some cases and places. It is always flickering like smoke, and the appearance resembles the actions of a person who has gone mad seeing it.
Biography[]
First-hand accounts[]
First[]
When Protagonist was a child, he went to his grandmother's house in Akita. The protagonist arrived at his grandmother's house and immediately went to play with older brother. Protagonist and older brother were playing with each other, footpath between the rice field.
At noon, when protagonist thought the wind had stopped for a moment, a weird, warm wind suddenly came up. The protagonist felt exhilarated by the cool breeze versus disgusted by it. But on the other hand, the older brother was looking the other place. There was a scarecrow in that direction, and the protagonist asked the older brother, "What's wrong with that scarecrow?" The protagonist asked the older brother. The older brother said, "No, it's over there.", and began to look more closely. The protagonist, like his older brother, looked across the rice field and saw a white object that looked like a person shimmering. There were no people nearby, only rice paddies around. The protagonist interpreted it as a "new scarecrow", but when the wind stopped again, it did not stop swaying. The older brother was interested in it and went back to the house to get his binoculars. He looked at it through the binoculars. At that moment, the older brother was so frightened that he broke out in a cold sweat and finally dropped the binoculars he was holding. The protagonist asked the older brother what he had seen, but the older brother told the protagonist to stop looking and quietly went back to the house. The voice was no longer the voice of the older brother. The protagonist became curious about what the white object was and tried to look at it with a pair of binoculars that had fallen down. At that moment, the protagonist's grandfather came to the protagonist with an impatient look. The grandfather told the protagonist not to look at the white object, and the protagonist was sent back home without knowing what was going on.
The protagonist said that when he returned home, protagonist's family was all sad. except for the older brother, who was laughing and dancing wildly. On the day of their return home, the grandmother told the protagonist that it would be better for the older brother to live in her house than to go back to the city, and that it would be best to release him into the rice fields after a few years. The protagonist desperately wiped away his tears, got in the car and left his grandmother's house. The protagonist wiped his tears and got in the car and drove away from his grandmother's house. Even though the protagonist couldn't see his brother around the corner, he continued to look through his binoculars at the rice fields that spread out all over the area, reminiscing about the past. It was then that the protagonist saw Kunekune through the binoculars.
Second[]
When protagonist was in the fourth grade, protagonist attended a summer camp for swimming lessons. On the last day of the camp, unfortunately, a typhoon was approaching and we had to stay in our rooms. protagonist was looking out the window at the ocean when protagonist saw a white object moving in a mysterious way. At that moment, the classmate who was looking out the window with protagonist let out a strange voice. The teachers took the classmate to the hospital, but the classmate never came back. It was later discovered that the classmate had quit swimming lessons due to brain damage. The protagonist was nearsighted and couldn't really see what the white object was.
Third[]
One day when the protagonist was a high school student, he was having a normal conversation with a friend when the protagonist's mother came home with the front door briskly opened and told them that they should not go to the rice field. The mother had seen a shimmering black object. Just for fun, they went to the rice paddies and found a mysterious black figure shaking and moving its arms and legs in the paddies. They were so frightened that they ran home crying.
Trivia[]
- Kunekune was featured in Iori Miyazawa's Otherside Picnic as both monster-of-the-week and one of entities that haunted the eponymous realm where many of the world's ghost stories come to life. It was defeated by the protagonists Sorawo and Toriko and left behind a silver hexahedron that reflects anything but humans. The same Kunekune also responsible for both girls' alteration that endowed them their supernatural abilities (Sowaro's special blue right eye and Toriko's transparent left hand).
