Umibozu - a Ocean Spirit in Japanese Folklore

Umibōzu is a soul in Japanese legends. The Umibōzu is said to live in the sea and invert the boat of any individual who challenges address it. This soul's name, which joins together the character for "ocean" with the character of "Buddhist friar," is conceivably identified with the way that the Umibōzu is said to have a substantial, round head, looking like the shaven heads of Buddhist ministers.

On the other hand they are gigantic Yōkai (spectres) that seem to wreck chumps and anglers. They are accepted to be suffocated clerics, and show the shaven head and regularly seems, by all accounts, to be begging. It is ordinarily reported as having an ash, cloud-like middle and serpentine limbs.

According to one story, if angered, they ask that the crews provide a barrel that it proceeds to fill with sea water to drown them. To avoid this disastrous fate, it is necessary to give him a bottomless barrel.

This folk tale is likely related to another Japanese tradition, which says that the souls of people who have no one to look after their graves take refuge at sea.