Down on the banks of mountain streams all across Japan, you can hear the sound of this elusive Yokai - shoki shoki, like someone washing red azuki beans. Sometimes it can be heard singing:Azuki togō ka, hito totte kuo ka, shoki shoki
"shall I wash my azuki beans, or should I snatch a person to eat? shoki shoki?"
Although singing such morbid things amuses it, the azuki-arai is in fact a very shy creature which perpetrates little mischief upon humans other than surprising them with its odd noises, and when a curious person approaches the culprit can be heard diving into the water to escape.While the perpetrator is seldom seen, he is often described as a short-statured man of grotesque appearance with a large balding head, crooked teeth, thin moustache, large bulging yellow eyes, wearing ragged clothes and bent over a pail washing azuki beans. Azukiarai is sometimes blamed on a raccoon dog(Tanuki) or weasel.Here's my Azuki-arai action figure.I sculpted his head from clay over a CTVT repro astronaut head.For the body,I used a CTVT child body(5")which I dyed a soaking raw red-bean (purplish gray) color with rit fabric dye,I also sculpted over the hands and the feet with the clay.For his red-bean bucket I altered a miniature Japanese plastic Bamboo steamer with the clay,I made a water effect with E-6000 glue as well.For his outfit I used a brown shirt I got from a friend (I cut the sleeves to turn into a sleeveless Japanese style shirt),I used a pair of CTVT Pirate pants for his pants(I cut them into baggy Japanese style shorts),and made his little rope belt from some orange yarn my wife had.