The Kappa

If you’re strolling beside a river in Japan and happen to bump into a kappa, make sure you have a cucumber handy. A kappa’s favourite food. You might just escape the clutches of this malevolent water sprite.

To this day you can still see kappa warning signs on river banks in Japan. One false step and you risk being dragged under.

No bigger than a child, kappas can outwrestle a man, and once in the water they are in their element. Slimy, scaley, webbed hands and feet with a carapace on their back, they smell and swim like a fish.

They do have a weak point. The concave indentation on the top of their skull has to be always filled with water. If emptied, they lose their supernatural powers.

Just something to be wary of when you are travelling through Japan.