Japan is great, isn’t it?  For the Western world, they’re a great source of interesting traditions.  For example, on the Oga Peninsula, there’s a New Year’s Eve tradition that combines Japanese fascination with devils and demons with Krampus’s love of scaring the crap out of children.  These particular devils, the Namahage, come down from the mountains on New Year’s Eve to scare the laziness out of children.

Pretty much any tradition designed to scare the bad behavior out of children is one I approve of.  Samurai Dave has a great image gallery or various Namahage costumes, pictures, and whatnot.  If I was a little Japanese kid?  That guy would scare the crap out of me.  There’s nothing scarier than a cross-dressing devil carrying a hatchet.  Well, maybe spiders.  Cross-dressing devils in straw skirts with bad haircuts are still pretty terrifying, though.

Tags: devils, new year’s eve customs, unusual traditions, namahage, Oga, Japan, devils scare the laziness out of children, folklore

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