Friday, December 23, 2011

The Jorōgumo: The Seductress of the Webs

The Jorōgumo (an 'all female' species of yōkai from Japan) is a large, shape-shifting orb-weaving spider that takes the form of a beautiful woman that uses seduction to hunt for human prey. Being mainly valley dwellers, the Jorōgumo live in gigantic, yellow tinted webs in either abandon houses or in large trees within their territory boundaries but, in recent reports they've travel into towns or cities to widen their hunting range for their taste for man flesh. Being venomous, rarely they use their venom to kill prey but, they do use it to fight off other predators such as the Japanese dragon or the more aggressive, alp-living Tsuchigumo (another large spider yōkai).

In human form, the Jorōgumo takes the form of a beautiful woman or girl (depending on age) and their clothing represents their personality. If they're older and more wiser they shape-shift into a woman wearing a kimono while if they're younger and reckless, they go with the new world Japanese fashions (for example, the Lolita fashion). The Jorōgumo are extremely talented in playing music with string (made from their own webs) instruments. In their natural form on the other hand, the Jorōgumo's beauty disappears and their horrifying appearance can give an unexpected Oni a heart attack. Similar looking to orb-weaving spiders, their coloration are limited to the colors of yellow and black.
The Jorōgumo are normally considered to be prostitutes due their hunting personalities that results in spider eggsacks but, in some reports human males sometimes marry this deadly species for a lifetime mate (which always ends with the Jorōgumo being heart broken after the husband dies at old age).

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