i cant believe im finally updating this blog for the first time in like 9 months because of this ask, but i can actually provide an explanation for this, if you want it, anon!
the brief summary is that, japanese humor in regards to this thing is seen as… a lot less inappropriate than in english
content warning for mentions of animal death, i guess?
the original depictions of tanukis in written mythology actually had… nothing to do with the testicles.. it wasn’t until later where they started being depicted like that. in general, they are described as sly creatures who can shapeshift themselves and other items due to the magical leaf on its head. in some stories, theyve been known to transform leaves into money, and the next day all thats left is the leaves, and to pose as people and lead travelers to get lost in forests.
the.. reason, for the addition comes from the popularity of gold leaf. to hammer gold that thin, a very stretchy material was needed, and animal skin was the material used most. tanuki testicles just… happened to fit the bill, and, as they are extremely common animals to find around, not hard to come by (and it doesnt help that the japanese word for gold, 金 (きん kin (pronounced keen)）is included in the word for testicles…. (kintama, which i am not about to go look up the kanji for)
because of that, it just started to become.. a thing, to represent them that way, and it eventually turned into that they would transform those into the objects they would be around (a woman living in a house, a man with a sales cart walking around town, exc)
tanuki statues in modern day are used to welcome wealth into businesses, due to their association with gold, and are often seen outside of bars and similar establishments.
im not in the mood to have to tag this as nsfw, so if you look up “tanuki mythology” and check out some of the articles, then you can find some… pretty interesting artwork
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