#Oborogurumas

[vinnigami]

March 24 2024

roadtrip in the oboroguruma 🚕

[parasitoidism]

I love my car <3

[eirikrjs]

Wish we’d get some official art or new models of these demons. I get that Kangiten/Shouten is basically Ganesha, but it’d be nice. Others from Raidou like Kudan or Oboroguruma would be cool since they didn’t get art (I know Oboroguruma is just the car from smt 2, Chris the car I think, but yeah)

The ship has probably long sailed for getting art for non-traditional demon appearances like these. At least art isn't technically needed anymore and there's really nothing stopping either of them from showing up now, perhaps other than Shouten's redundancy. Imagine if Oboroguruma could be reused and reconfigured for Chris the Car in a future game...

Also, milestone: this is my 7500th post! 🥳

[ffxiiiapologist]

Like I appreciate devs experimenting and trying to make a new weapon type with a different feel and playstyle to it compared to what else has been in the franchise but. The Hatchets are just such a miss for me, I know they have their fans and I do find they work well against human enemies but I consistently just have the worst time with them in combat against yokai which are much more common

[elendsessor]

felt like talking about megaten demons again so here’s some official art of demons based on mostly american horror/sci-fi.

list of names n extra notes:

audrey (audrey ii from little shop of horrors), betelgeuse (beetlejuice from… y’know, beetlejuice), chris the car (christine the car from christine), nickelwise (pennywise from it), friday (jason voorhees from friday the 13th), franken (frankenstein’s monster from frankenstein), terminator (similar to the t-800 from terminator), scanner (likely a reference to the movie scanners), and hierophant (pinhead from hellraiser).

yeah hierophant is an alternative nickelwise which is why i’m putting it here despite the hellraiser franchise spawning from britain. idk how hierophant got that name since i don’t remember anything in at least the first hellraiser that could warrant the alternative name. (could’ve called it idk spikehead if they wanted to avoid copyright.) technically this might not be the first time a demon’s design was inspired by cenobites as lucifer’s infamous redesign for 4 closely resembles them. similar reasoning for franken, being an english work. like stated before, most of these are taken from american works, especially stephen king.

there’s more stephen king demons, though like many enemies exclusive to persona 1 and is/ep, only spritework exists, my personal favorite being carrie. kinda a shame there’s been no character or persona in persona inspired by her, since the og book and film adaptations are the trippiest “dangers of extreme religious worship”/child abuse is wrong/anti-bullying things i’ve ever seen. (there’s also a movie sequel that’s basically the first with less religious extremism and more goth icon/dangers of frat boy culture/really good rock backing tracks.) idk the concept of psychic girl who gets bullied a ton feels like it would be right at home as an atlus rerelease extra girl.

of course terminator sticks out too. when it comes to forgotten smt demon, terminator is an icon in that department. outside of the guns being the same and being (presumably) a robot (idk i haven’t gotten around to playing smt 2 yet but there’s a lot of more mechanical demons based on all the art i’ve seen), the name is the closest it really is to resembling the t-800s. idk to me it feels like it’s different enough that bringing it back in at least one future megaten game wouldn’t be that much of an issue compared to other horror icon references. they could just change the guns/ditch the guns altogether and change the name. really cool overall.

scanner is another weird one that i kinda wanna see again just because it sounds like it could be cool. dude only appears in smt 1, and while fan wikis aren’t super reliable sources, because it gave off that “this has to be some reference to a cheesy 80s movie” vibe, i dug into the origins more. yeah there’s a canadian fic called scanners and yeah scanner is 100% based on the whole idea of scanners in the film. never seen it nor heard of it, but hey the director, david cronenberg, also directed the fly so it’s probably a fun watch.

friday’s design is technically wrong though it’s also kinda not. despite jason most often using a machete (and preferring to kill horny teens), a lot of references have him using a chainsaw.

chris the car is technically not completely gone. of course the idea of ghost drivers and the like in media are nothing new (though the car itself is the killer in christine) so for all i know i’m overthinking it or it’s a coincidence, but oboroguruma—a demon exclusive to dsrk 1 and 2–seems to take some design inspiration, having a similar destroyed bumper/grill with an exposed motor.

lastly, while not pictured here or anything, something i found out one time is that lucifer’s favorite fake name, louis cyphre, is a reference to the novel falling angel/its film adaptation, angel heart, though none of the various disguises resemble how he looks in the film. idk i found that an interesting tidbit.

kaneko was apparently into western media (which is unsurprising) so that’s likely the reason there was so many of these movie references during the earlier days of megaten. what i’m sure is due to copyright, many of these older demons never appeared again. copyright law does vary in different places and i’m sure for the few jjba fans who are reading this, you know just how lax japan is in comparison likely due to being western stuff and most copyright holders don’t have that much of an international grip. unless you’re disney. with the whole localization effort atlus might’ve not wanted to have to change a bunch of shit which i don’t blame them for. though with the existence of nickelwise and hierophant coming from tokyo mirage sessions, a pretty recent game (released in 2015 and rereleased on the switch in 2020) that doesn’t seem to have run into copyright issue or had to take them out in the rerelease as far as i’m aware, it’s not entirely impossible to see anything similar again. it is kinda sad though.

[chubbletea]

phantom express fans dinner's ready eat up

after I read all of the yokais that the phantom express is based off of, I got a pretty good grasp on what the backstories for them all could be

(REMINDER THAT SPECTER IS CANONICALLY NON-BINARY‼️‼️)

blind specter is based off of a tenome, which is an old man with no eyes on his face but rather on each of his hands respectively. the yokai is created from the spirits of blind men who were robbed and murdered by thugs. in folk tale, a man is attacked by a monster with no eyes on their face but rather their hands. he fled to a nearby inn and told the innkeeper abt what happened, to which the innkeeper told him that he had seen a blind man robbed and killed in the same field. as the man was dying, he cried out;

"If only I could have had once glace at their faces! If I only had eyes that worked — even if only on the palms of my hands…!"

and his resentment upon his death caused him to be reborn as a yokai with the eyes on his hands just like he had asked for; the tenome.

as for the conductor, he's based off of the gashadokuro. the gashadokuro is a giant skeleton created by black magic out of souls of those who died and didn't receive a funeral (soldiers who died on battlefields and/or those who starved to death). they die angered and pained, and the more their bodies rot/the longer it's been since they died, the more they hate the living and turn into a supernatural force. hundreds of these victims gather to form this giant skeleton. they can't be killed since they're too big and powerful, however, they continue to exist until their hatred has run out. since these yokai are much less common in more recent times bc ppl are dying less, it's likely the conductor has been around for a very long time. over 1000 years ago, the father of a famous sorceress was killed and she continued his cause by using black magic to turn dead soldiers into the giant skeleton; gashadokuro. perhaps the conductor had a daughter during his lifetime.

onto the lollipop ghouls, they are based off of multiple yokais. their long necks came from mikoshi nyudo and rokurokubi. the detachment of their heads came from nukekubi, which is connected to rokurokubi. mikoshi nyudo linger around bridges at night, pretending to be wandering priests or monks. however, when someone looks up at a mikoshi nyudo, their neck grows abnormally longer and the person who looked up at them stumbles and falls backward and gets their throat torn out by the mikoshi nyudo's teeth. many are shocked and die, but there is a certain way to trick them.

the rokurokubi are ordinary women during the day and long-necked monsters at night who have done something bad, such as a sin against god or nature, and have been turned into rokurokubi as punishment. often, their husbands were responsible for said sin(s), but they managed to escape the curse and their wives were cursed instead. some never find out that they were rokurokubi.

nukekubi are closely related to rokurokubi. they are practically the same yokai, however they feed on blood at night rather than lamp oil and have a more violent nature. the curse can be passed on.

and last but not least, the head of the train is based off of the oboroguruma. it is a ghostly oxcart yokai with a large face. they are an object-turned-yokai created from carriages who have lost carriage fights over parking spots. the first oboroguruma was created from two rival ladies fighting over a parking spot for their carriages. taxi drivers often got into carriage fights for the most scenic parking spots in crowded areas such as festivals.

in-game, all of the express members poke fun at the concept of cuphead and mugman's deaths, but the yokais they were inspired by came to be bc of something bad they did or hatred for something or someone, which is the inspiration of my hc that phantom express magic distorts the memory, behavior, and physical appearance of the express members the more time they spend on it. so when they first got on the train, all of them more likely hated the living, especially those who tried to get on the express, but now make fun of them which was rooted in their original hatred/grudge, but eventually forgot abt it. it is also likely that all of them have been around for a very long time, particularly the conductor.

okay hope you guys enjoyed your meal

[cryptids-of-the-world]

The Oboroguruma is a Yokai found in Kyoto Japan. The Oboroguruma is described as an oxcart with a giant face on it. The Oboroguruma was created when in the older days of Kyoto, noble people would get into carriage fights to good spots for festivals in the capital and they lost the fight, their anger and resentment could manifest itself as an Oboroguruma. Oboroguruma means “Hazy Cart.”

[dragonnest-art]

Face of the Demon Train

GET ME OFF OF THIS TRAIN!

[comparativetarot]

Major Arcana, 2 of 4. Art by Buboplague, from the Yokai Yochi Tarot: A Deck of Ghosts and Spirits. 

[gothic-oracle]

[lpbestiary]

In Japanese folklore, the Oboroguruma is a yōkai that appears as an oxcart with a large face protruding from it. It is said to appear on misty nights, particularly in Kyoto, where people might hear the squeaking of its wheels outside of their home. If they exit the house, they will find the Oboroguruma parked outside.

Though it resembles an inanimate object, the Oboroguruma is not thought to be a tsukumogami. Instead, it is seen as a spirit that forms from the anger and resentment of nobles who lost "carriage fights," battles to snag prime sightseeing spots in Kyoto.

Image source.

Monster master list.

Suggest a spook.

[positron-weapon-d]

I’m remembering the first time I fought Oboroguruma

It had legit JUST been introduced as a boss, so people were excited. Then...the froglets. Those funky lil gerogeros. They all showed up and everyone lost their shit with either laughing or awww-ing.

Somebody was like “okay guys focus” and I just thought “come on, man...the lil Shuten frog has tiny abs and nipples drawn on him. This is peak comedy and we are enjoying it. Look at Iba frog’s tiny balloon.”

So yeah, good times.

[level99games]

Exceed: Fighting Card Game's 2nd Season features some interesting bits of mythology. The Japanese Oboroguruma is a possessed cart. In EXCEED, it's a DEMON CAR!

Minato is only one of EXCEED's many fighters. Share with a friend who'd find this awesome!

[kara-knuckles]

Finally got back to my tablet, I wanted to draw or colour something for a while. So, here is my favourite spread from Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Lone Marebito!