When Nothing But Unnecessarily Large Tanuki Testicles Will Do

You’ve probably seen these adorable tanuki figures outside of your favorite Japanese bar or restaurant, but did you happen to notice how, er, well endowed they are?

Yeah. Can’t unsee. Now that you know to look, it’s amazing you never noticed before, right? But nobody celebrated these giant gonads more inventively than Edo period artists. You might not think that having a giant hairy ballsack would be a particularly useful body part, but Japanese woodblock artist Kuniyoshi delighted in imagining how the well-endowed tanuki might wield such a gift to its advantage…

Naturally, tanukis can save on gym memberships because they have their own built-in kettlebells

And big hairy testicles definitely keep them warm in the winter, making it unnecessary to invest in mufflers, blankets, sleeping bags, or a kotatsu table quilts

A naturally large protective ballsack comes in handy, should a tanuki get caught in the rain…

or need some shade when offering fortune-telling services

and shopkeeping tanukis have no need to buy signage when hanging out their shingles

Should a ruffian be encountered, monster scrotum to the rescue!

Although a far less painful method is to pay protection money to the local tanuki gang

In times of sickness, a testicular privacy screen comes in handy for doctor visits

When catching eels, a ballsack net expands to fit the job

and of course, the world’s heaviest testicles do come in handy when subduing the world’s largest catfish

When hunting geese, flinging a giant scrotum at them is sure to knock a few from the sky

At festival time, tanuki testicles can be wheeled through the streets, representing the heros usually enshrined on floats…

and there’s nothing quite like a scrotum drum to keep the dance beat at O-bon

Boys’ Day games are always better with giant testicles that resemble koi nobori fish flags and can be used instead of swords in ritual combat

And don’t let it be said that tanuki testicles don’t know how to party on the holidays. What could be scarier than being chased by a giant gonad ghost?

And at new year’s, there’s the traditional (OUCH) pounding of hairy tanuki ball mochi…

and nothing can promise better luck in the coming year than a giant hairy Daruma figure made from, yes, tanuki balls

The reason well-endowed tanuki figures are so often found outside businesses in Japan is that putting a tanuki outside the door fools other marauding tanukis into thinking one of their kind is already preying on the patsies inside. (Tanukis are known as shape-shifting tricksters who can deceive everyone from shopkeepers to brothel owners into taking worthless dry leaves for payment.)

And the reason their balls have grown to be so legendary in size is that goldsmiths used to wrap chunks of gold in tanuki testicle hide to pound them into the thinnest of gold leaf. Because this tanuki leather was so tough, it was said to be able to stretch the gold into a sheet large enough to cover eight tatami mats. Wallets made of tanuki hide became popular, because it was believed they could stretch other kinds of money as effectively as they stretched gold, and the depiction of the tanuki’s bodacious ballsacks stretched along with the legend.

If you’d like to visit a Tokyo museum totally devoted to woodblock prints (although I can’t guarantee that tanuki testicles will be on display) here’s a link to the Ota Memorial Museum’s current exhibit page.

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Jonelle Patrick writes novels set in Japan, produces the monthly e-magazine Japanagram, and blogs at Only In Japan and The Tokyo Guide I Wish I’d Had