Walking down an empty street at night can be scary.
You might expect all manners of strange and murderous creatures to spring from the darkness.
But sometimes you’d run into a creature beyond your wildest nightmares:
a little boy offering you some tofu.
Oh god he’s terrifying.
[🎵 I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong After the boys of tofu have gone..🎵]
He’s called Tōfu Kozō 豆腐小僧, or Tofu Boy.
Kozō literally means young Buddhist monk, but it was a common word for “boy.”
And tofu means Vegan Miracle Jello.
This yokai looks like a small boy wearing a big bamboo hat.
He always holds a dish with a big block of tofu with a Japanese maple leaf stamped on the side.
He looks like a young tofu seller, a common sight back in the day.
They walked the streets pouncing on unsuspecting tofu addicts.
Now that’s how he commonly looks, but Japanese people were like,
“This is Japan. That’s not weird enough.”
So over the years, artists drew him in different ways.
Sometimes he only has one big ol eyeball.
Sometimes he has a long tongue.
Sometimes he has claws instead of toes.
Tofu Boys are usually silly and cute, never bad or evil.
They live in cities, where they roam empty streets, and like to come out in the rain.
They’re super shy, so even when they see you, they like to tiptoe behind you,
just following you like an adorable creep.
New York City seems to be full of Tofu Boys.
They can look lonely, because sometimes they follow people who don’t like being followed.
If you happen to see one, it will offer you some tofu. Now this is where you have to watch out.
If you eat the tofu, it would taste bland and have no flavor at all, meaning it’s normal tofu.
But if you’re unlucky, as you eat, you would see mold spreading across the jiggly white surface.
And if you’re really unlucky, the mold would grow inside your body and kill you.
Tofu Boys are weak so they’re often bullied by other yokai.
They would become servants to other yokai, or run errands for them.
[soy milk]
So where did this yokai come from?
Many yokai originated from ancient Japanese beliefs or from the Japanese countryside,
where people lived much closer to nature and it scared the s--t out of them.
But the Tofu Boy was different. This creature was born in the city, in the Edo Period.
We're not sure where he first popped up.
Some nerds speculate that a tofu seller created Tofu Boy as a mascot for his shop.
Or it could have been some advertising campaign or just some random artwork.
The character’s popularity blew up among the people and pretty soon they started putting
him in books and paintings and toys.
It had grown outside of the tofu fandom.
This was around the time that tofu became a super popular dish.
Tofu came from China early in Japan’s history, in the Nara or Heian Period.
It started out as something enjoyed only by the elites, like everything that came from China.
But it slowly spread across the country to become a common food for everyone.
It was a good cheap source of protein.
Buddhist monks loved tofu because they couldn’t eat meat.
It was the only thing keeping them alive.
Another hundred years of eating rice on rice and they would’ve killed themselves.
But it wasn’t until the Edo Period that tofu became all the rage.
One of the books on the Edo Bestsellers list was a cookbook of 100 tofu recipes.
It was so successful that it led to 2 more tofu cookbooks.
There’s a connection between Tofu Boy and smallpox.
Smallpox was the deadliest disease in Japan and since the vaccine hadn’t been invented yet,
people thought of really effective ways to fight it.
Wearing the color red to scare away the smallpox god was one effective method.
Another was to draw symbols that protected against smallpox like red rockfish and owls.
Tofu Boys sometimes wear clothing with these anti-smallpox symbols on them.
So maybe Tofu Boys were also used to fight smallpox.
In more modern times, Tofu Boys were used in anti-bullying campaigns.
People drew pictures of Tofu Boy being bullied by other yokai, and it became a part of their lore.
Some people think that the Tofu Boy was originally a Hitotsume Kozō,
another similar-looking yokai with one eye.
Over time, their appearances and stories merged.
They’re often depicted as cousins.
For more yokai videos, check these out.
We have a new Emperor patron on Patreon today: Julie. Thanks so much Emperor Julie.
We also have some normal patrons:
Dick Steele that can’t be your real name,
Ross Webster, and Frankie Bean thanks Mr. Bean.
Alright I love you, and spread the knowledge!