Sazae Kii

Personality:

- does not like snail-eating species

- believes everything people say, not very good at discerning their real intentions

- quick to anger (especially if she finds out she's been tricked)

- not the smartest creature around

History:

Sazae Kii first was just a simple turban snail in the sea close to Japan, but for some reason her shell did not get fished up by humans, so she survived for 30 years. The rest of her family, however, was fished up and eaten by humans, so when she finally reached the age she turned into a demon, she used this ability to attack people coming close to the other snails. For example when a ship came close to their area in the sea, she turned into a woman pretending to drown. When she was on their ship, she'd attack them.

However, one day she was rescued by a ship that was on its way back to Germany. After attacking the crew, one man managed to convince her that the land they came from was very interesting, so didn't she want to see that? They'd also leave her family alone then, if she stopped attacking them, and they'd take her to Germany.

That sounded good to her, so Sazae agreed to stay aboard and not attack the rest of the crew. However, as she could only eat meat when in demon form and the journey would be long, she turned back to small snail form and asked the crew to get her seaweed to eat. Unfortunately, when she turned into a snail, they put her in a little steel box that was so small and strong she couldn't turn back into a human or into a large demon snail.

When finally the box was opened, in the north of Germany, Sazae was so angry she turned into a large snail demon and attacked everyone in sight. Then she fled into the sea, where she stayed for a while, until she met the mermaid Mutanu. Sazae demons like mermaids (as friends), so they stayed together for a while.

Weapons: poisonous tongue (no other physical weapons)

Natural Abilities:

Sazae is a "sazae oni" (more info on cristyburne.com/tag/snails-in-… and yokai.com/sazaeoni/ ). They can:

- turn into a young woman (shapeshift), a small snail (original form), or a very large snail (demonic snail form)

- breathe under water and above water

- extend their (poisonous) tongue (to lick people or wrap around them)

Learned Abilities:

Sazae demons also have two other abilities, but those need to be practiced:

- fill their gills with water and spray fine mist into the air

- climb up walls without any problems (their handpalms can stick to any surface)

Weaknesses:

- steel

- can only eat meat when in large snail demon form (though she can drink anything, like tea), but only seaweed when in small snail form. In human form, she doesn't really eat anything, so then she collects seaweed (and other water plants she learned to eat) so she can eat those as a small snail.