Sazae-oni (栄螺鬼 lit. shellfish ogre) are shapeshifting demons from Japanese mythology, resembling large mollusks. They often take the shape of beautiful women. This drawing of the Sazae-oni is by Toriyama Sekien (1712-88)
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At sea, they pretend to be drowning victims and cry out to be rescued, only to turn on their would-be saviors. When encountered on land, sazae oni often travel disguised as lone, wandering women who stop at inns and eat the innkeepers during the night. yokai.com/sazaeoni/
In Kishu province (modern day Wakayama and Mie prefectures), there is a legend that Sazae Oni are born from lustful women who are thrown into the ocean as punishment for their wanton ways.
One legend tells of how pirates rescued a beautiful woman from the sea. They planned to rape the woman but found she was willing to have sex with all of them, one after the other. The woman bit off the testicles of every man once they had finished.
Discovering that they had been robbed of their testes, the men charged at the woman who revealed herself as a Sazae Oni. She offered to sell the pirates back their testicles in exchange for their gold.
TheJapanese word for testicles is kintama (golden balls), so the joke is that the Sazae Oni traded gold for gold.
