Yasuke: 10 Mind-Blowing Historical Facts From The Netflix Anime
5. Spider And Centipede Demons
The main antagonist of the Yasuke series is Yami no Daimyо̄, or "dark lord", who took power after the death of Oda Nobunaga. The Daimyо̄'s design appears to reference spiders with her many webs, which aligns with old stories about spider demons in Japanese folklore. At one point in the show, when Saki and Yasuke are forced to face off against the Daimyо̄, she also takes the form of centipedes - another popular monster in Japanese folklore.
The Yōkai Tsuchigumo were well-known spider-demons in Japanese folklore. A version of these spider-demons are also known as Jorōgumo - spiders who could disguise themselves as beautiful women and lure people into their webs.
Ōmukade are the monstrous versions of mukade or centipedes, which also make an appearance as one of the Daimyо̄'s forms. The Ōmukade were man-eating, gigantic versions of already fairly big centipedes called mukade, who were oddly said to have been weak to human saliva.
Such creature and monster motifs are fairly numerous in Japanese culture. Another motif in the series was shown in Saki's butterfly. Butterflies in Japanese culture represent metamorphosis, as well as the souls of the dead, and feminine coming of age.