Han-Gyojin is a water yōkai and one of Kitarou's recurring enemies. He shares his basic design with Umi-Nyoubou, though his appearance has shifted noticeably across different anime adaptations.
The 1971 version depicts him as a straightforward half-fish, half-human creature—purple scales dotted with barnacles, magenta webbed feet, and a fairly lean build. His human side includes a normal torso and limbs with five digits each, while his face features light purple skin, long black hair down to his waist, and a mouthful of sharp teeth. His eyes have an unsettling quality: white sclerae with tiny black pupils.
By 1985, he'd become stockier and shorter overall. His scales shifted to light indigo, his hair turned purple and grew even longer (reaching his knees), and his face gained prominent whiskers. He developed white claws, and his teeth became even more pronounced—the designers seemed intent on making him look increasingly intimidating with each redesign.
The 1996 take went another direction entirely. Green scales replaced the purple, his hair lightened to a pale purple, and his eyes changed to yellow sclerae. He kept the whiskers and webbed appendages but looked more average-sized, standing notably shorter than Nurarihyon. Dull brown barnacles returned as visual detail.
There's also been a more Western-inspired merman variant of Han-Gyojin that strays further from the traditional yōkai design.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
