Common in the Sea of Japan, the ayakashi is an enormous eel-like creature, not very big around but said to be several thousand meters in length. It sometimes will travel straight over a small boat in an arc, and it is so long that it takes two or three days to finish. In the meantime the men aboard the boat are thoroughly occupied, bailing out the abundant sheets of oil that spill from the ayakashi's body.¹

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1. Mizuki vol. 1 2003, p. 13