Housleaper
This guy was actually made for a contest for the Minecraft mod Yo-kai Craft. I got 2nd place, but I don’t feel robbed because the 1st place guy could produce light and that’s pretty valuable in Minecraft. I also checked with Mvoob, the creator of the mod, to make sure that I was allowed to post about this.
I actually kinda went overboard with the details on this guy. I wanted one of those kanji puns like what Poofessor had because I hadn’t done that before, and wanted my submission to seem super authentic so he didn’t look out of place when every other Yo-kai is official. I landed on “Kaerusui” which could be written “換留守居” (kae rusui, substitute housekeeper) or “蛙睡” (kaeru sui, frog sleep), but I wrote it in katakana to keep it ambiguous. I knew I had to have it once I put together that the pun worked in English too, pulling together “housekeeper”, “sleeper”, and “leaper”.
I also wanted to make a guy you would want to have around in your Minecraft house, which is why I decided on a housekeeper theme at all. The idea is that he functions like your personal Elder Guardian and gives everyone else Mining Fatigue so they can’t bust down your walls or ruin your garden.
I then proceeded to go ham on the research. I researched the historical rusui-ban of the Edo period to see what they wore. (They’re also a lot more than just housekeepers.) I researched the skin patterns of Bufo japonicus in order to maker sure he looked like an accurate kind of toad. I even researched what traditional Japanese sleepwear can be so I could have him visibly but subtly wear his sleep clothes under his work clothes. I did basically everything short of just going to a library and asking to see their books about toads and the Edo period.
So what I’m saying is don’t know if it was enough.
He’s also a member of a real Yo-kai species, the yadomori. Yadomori means “house protector”, but they’re kinda just frog ghosts (Cricky is one) who haunt bedrooms. The house protection part comes from what it’s said that living frogs do in, of course, Shikoku, because I still wanted to use this guy myself so he has to fit the theme too. They protect houses they live under from earthquakes by holding the posts down. So, for added accuracy, you can dig a hole under your Minecraft house and plop Housleaper down there so you can have his power but still have all the floor space you want. It’s where he belongs.
I kinda wanted the pun I made to be crazier and less “just the real yōkai” but I think the sleepiness allows him to be his own character. I completely lucked in on this one too, I was just looking for things that punned with rusui and happened to land on frogs.
Given how much effort went into this guy, and how much exposure he’s gonna get, he has to be my Slippery mascot. I’m attached to him now.
I am SO sorry to the Yo-kai Craft devs who have to model this guy now.
