I tried to look it up: These depictions began to appear during the Edo era (1603-1868) and, as far as I can tell, it’s not entirely known why they had these gargantuan ballsacks.

Their skin, used by artisans, was known for it’s great elasticity. In Japanese folklore, the tanuki are capable of shapeshifting.

In Japan today, tanuki statues are often placed outside establishments such as restaurants, and are said to bring good fortune.

Real raccoons do not have enormous balls.

TLN: keikaku means plan Tanuki means raccoon

  • Blakey [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    18 days ago

    Yeah, poor phrasing. “Tanuki” is the japanese raccoon dog but I believe the word is also used to refer to actual raccoons.

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      17 days ago

      Where have you seen this? Japanese Wikipedia writes of the raccoon (araiguma),

      タヌキraccoon_dogとwith誤認mistake_forされるPASS.PRESことNMZがSUBJ多いfrequentが、though,

      Although [raccoons are] frequently mistaken for raccoon dogs,

      But that seems like a pretty different statement than “tanuki is also used to refer to actual raccoons”. My Japanese-to-English pocket dictionary and every online dictionary in Japanese I’ve looked at has also not mentioned tanuki being used to refer to actual raccoons.