 Although the "tanuki" is a real, extant animal, the "bake-danuki" that appears in literature has always been depicted as a strange, even supernatural animal.The earliest appearance of the "bake-danuki" in literature, in the chapter about Empress Suiko in the "Nihon Shoki" written during the Nara period, there are such passages as "in two months of spring, there are tanuki in the country of Mutsu (), they turn into humans and sing songs ()".Bake-danuki subsequently appear in such classics as the Nihon Ryōiki and the Uji Shūi Monogatari.