Itoigawa’s Tsuchinoko Hunt
Some people in Japan are looking for the tsuchinoko, a cryptid that supposedly looks like a fat snake.
The above photo was taken in 2009 by a resident of Itoigawa, a city in Niigata prefecture where there have been many tsuchinoko sightings. The man who took the photo swears that it didn’t look like a normal snake and its movements were definitely not snake-like. Could it be a tsuchinoko?
The town of Itoigawa hopes so. It’s been marketing itself as the last refuge of tsuchinoko. Local businesses sell souvenir snacks and keychains shaped like the tsuchinoko. They’ve also started offering a 100 million yen ($1.2 million) reward to the first person who can catch one alive.
One a year, Itoigawa calls on people from across the country to come participate in a big tsuchinoko hunt. Here’s some video of this year’s event:
They spread out and searched through a couple areas where there sightings had taken place in the past. After 3 hours of walking through heavy vegetation, they gave up. Maybe they’ll have better luck next year…
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