The Nuri-botoke is a yōkai of mysterious origins, and various theories exist about its true nature. It appears as a grotesque distortion of a Buddhist image, lacquered skin as pitch black as a bloated corpse's,
and eyes dangling horribly out of their sockets.

One notion is that the nuri-botoke is the spirit of a household Buddhist shrine kept in poor repair,
which in frustration comes to life and begins to patch itself back together. Anyone opening the cabinet doors
during this time will get a shocking eyeful of the spook's hanging eyeballs.

But this specter is also sometimes depicted with the tail of a catfish, perhaps betraying a trick
played by an animal shapeshifter. In this shape it teases monks with its morbid parody of their most
sacred icons, playfully mocking not the Buddha, but humanity's transient and worldly idea of him.