Hyakume

Kanji: 百目
Kana: ひゃくめ
Pronunciation: hya-ku-me

TRANSLATION: One Hundred Eyes — "hundred-eye" yokai.
ALTERNATE NAMES: Hyakumoku; Hundred-Eyed Demon
ORIGIN: Edo period folklore, standardized by the late-Edo / early-Meiji "Hyakume-ki" painting scroll.

HABITAT: Abandoned temples, old shrines, empty houses, caves, and other shady ruins.
DIET: Unknown.

ABILITIES:

• Detaches a single eye and sends it flying toward a nearby human.
• Watches a target through the detached eye, which sticks to the body and reports back.
• Sees in nearly every direction at once through its hundred-plus eyes.
• Jumps from the dark to startle intruders without a direct attack.
• Changes the senses of witnesses through its overwhelming gaze.

WEAKNESSES:

• Direct sunlight is too bright for its many sensitive eyes.
• Well-lit, well-trafficked spaces take away the shadows it needs.

OVERVIEW: Hyakume is a fleshy, man-sized yokai covered head to foot in countless blinking yellow eyes. The hundred-eyed guardian lives in abandoned Japanese temples and watches for thieves at night.

APPEARANCE: Hyakume has a roughly human-sized fleshy body with no clear neck or mouth. The skin is covered head to foot in countless blinking yellow eyes. With every eye closed Hyakume resembles a pink lump of flesh, and at that moment the creature is nearly indistinguishable from a nuppeppō. The posture is stooped and lumpy, and the silhouette stays heavy and low to the ground. The look is unsettling on purpose — the hundred eyes do the work.

BEHAVIOR: Hyakume is shy and reclusive and stays in the dark by day because daylight is too harsh for its eyes. The yokai appears at night and watches old temples for would-be thieves. When a person comes within a few meters, Hyakume detaches one eye and sends it toward the intruder. The hundred-eyed yokai does not follow — the eye does the watching.

INTERACTIONS: Encounters appear in abandoned temples and shrines after dark, and the detached eye sticks to the visitor for the length of the visit. Hyakume is not violent and is considered low risk; the yokai uses size and an eerie gaze to scare intruders off. The traditional countermeasure is simple: leave the building, and the eye returns to its owner once the yokai senses no threat. When cornered Hyakume jumps from the shadow in a threatening pose, and the shock is usually enough to send the trespasser running.

OTHER FORMS: With its eyes shut, Hyakume looks so much like the nuppeppō that early viewers confused the two. The yokai is closely related to Dodomeki (百々目鬼), a long-armed woman cursed with bird eyes along her arms after a habit of theft. Folklorists consider Dodomeki the older inspiration for the Hyakume image. In modern media Hyakume appears as a recurring character in Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitarō. There the yokai is a large, lumpy figure with eyes covering head, limbs, and body.